Unusual virtual viewfinder series#

An accompanying installation of Rosenberg’s work related to this project was shown at the nearby Art Alliance. Together, the viewfinders of The Built/Unbuilt Squar e collected the stories, images, and numerous evolutions of the park in a shared frame. Visitors could shift the angle of the viewfinder to reveal multiple perspectives of the real and imagined landscape.

Unusual virtual viewfinder series#

The research attempting to answer this question revealed a great quantity of proposals built and removed, unrealized, temporary and partially completed: an unusual series of structures and events that leave the square with a collection of fragments of mistakes, replacements, and long-forgotten intentions. Looking around the square today, one might wonder how this planned green space ended up containing so many disparate, and in some cases disharmonious, elements.

The artist’s goal was to create a shared space for the forgotten physical and cultural histories of the park: Rosenberg installed tablets with gyroscopic technology in each viewfinder to approximate actual views of the park, and interspersed archival photographs and renderings of constructed and proposed buildings. Passersby were invited to look into a pair of viewfinders-devices often placed on the edge of important vistas-that faced into the park’s center. Alexander Rosenberg’s The Built/Unbuilt Square offers a view into the historical landscape of Rittenhouse Square with the help of augmented reality technology.