Black Maria

Black Maria

Campus Novel 

Salon de Vortex @ cheapArt

Black Maria was the first film production studio, created by T. Edison in 1893 in New Jersey, USA. It consists of a wooden construction, coated with tar paper, which was able to rotate in order for natural light to enter throughout the day through the retractable roof. The studio offered the possibility of sound and image recording. 

Technological advances soon made possible the construction of similar studios, which worked towards developing better techniques of image and sound synchronization and Black Maria became obsolete after only eight years. In 1903 it was demolished after a series of productions featuring a multitude of actors, dancers and performers of the time.

Black Maria is a scenic structure that reproduces devised realities inside a restricted, self-sufficient space, where "special" events are destined to take place. 

Campus Novel use Black Maria as an allegory for phantasmagoria in its contemporary urban setting.

Campus Novel group was created in Athens, in September 2011.

They elaborate various aspects of the fictitious as a viable possibility and seek to interfere in either-or situations as mediators of alternative realities. 

In their approaches they consider space to be a decisive factor and so far they have worked in situ and in site-specific projects.

The group consists of Giannis Cheimonakis, Giannis Delagrammatikas, Foteini Palpana, Giannis Sinioroglou and Ino Varvariti   [ source ]