Victoriana and the Telectroscope

There are still a few days left to catch Guildhall Art Gallery's Victoriana exhibition, which ends on 8 December. I finally visited today, and enjoyed it very much. The works are not from the nineteenth century, but rather demonstrate The Art of Revival: contemporary pieces with Victorian inspiration. 
As well as a host of media - taxidermy, letterpress, engravings, colourful ceramics, kinetic sculptures and a zoetrope-inspired installation - there is a strong steampunk current running through much of the work on display. There are also plenty of major names: Yinka Shonibare is inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, Paula Rego by Jane Eyre. The work of Paul St George is fun, and partly takes up the themes explored in his Telectroscope which linked London and New York in 2008. In fact, it was the first thing I blogged about - as a taste of his work, here it is again. 

Telectroscope

Earlier this week, I went to City Hall to look at/through the telectroscope, an art installation which is on the riverbank until Sunday. The story is:

Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel has finally been completed. An extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope has been installed at both ends which miraculously allows people to see right through the Earth from London to New York and vice versa.

Okay, something tells me this might not really be done by a long, long tunnel and some mirrors. Nonetheless, you truly can see New Yorkers at the other end (by Brooklyn Bridge) in real time - there were some very excited people waving at friends when I was there - and it's a fun idea. See it in lots more detail on the website.