Camera O is a new Power House project in which a Barnet and Watt temporarily installed a camera obscura in the first floor of the Bomb Ballistics Building on Orford Ness. Camera O references early camera obscura technology and drawing to plot perspective, movement and activities in the sky, shingle and sea. The camera obscura is a lo-tech optical device – a lens and mirror are used to project an inverted, reversed image of the outside world into a darkened room.

Experiencing this live image of projected light is magical. It is a technique that was originally invented by artists to aid perspectival drawing, later adopted in science and the development of photography, and used on Orford Ness in this Bomb Ballistics Building in the first half of the twentieth century to plot and gather data on bombing accuracy.

Barnet and Watt, along with the University’s arts technicians, temporarily installed a working camera obscura during a two-day residency in February 2025. The artists worked with a group of first, second and third year BA (Hons) Fine Art students to use the camera obscura as an instrument to observe the sky, sea and land looking south towards the Power House and Black Beacon. The result is a series of tondo (round) drawings made directly from the projected camera obscura image. The exhibited works vary in outcomes. Some employ quick and abstract, mark-making that capture the patterns of shingle, horizon lines, figures moving across the landscape and cloud formations, and some document more recognizable, detailed architectural structures such as the Black Beacon and Power House.

The exhibition was on view in the Bomb Ballistics Building from 5 April - 26 October 2025