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WE CHANGE YOUR POINT OF VIEW
Inspired by Yerkes Observatory’s historic telescopes, Scope Stroll is an experiential activation made up of several brightly colored optical instruments that encourage Observatory visitors to see the surrounding landscape and architecture in new and unexpected ways. Dotted along the Observatory’s arboretum grounds, the interactive installation includes periscopes, teleidoscopes, geoscopes, and prismscopes. Each scope offers visitors an opportunity to change their point of view and discover new and different perspectives — finding a unique pattern, uncovering a hidden detail, bringing something into focus, or simply seeing the grounds in a new way.
Designed to swivel, each instrument offers a 360-degree viewing experience, allowing visitors to continuously shift their perspective as they move through the grounds.
With their bold, geometric forms and humble materials, the scopes provide a playful counterpoint to the historic Observatory building and surrounding landscape, echoing the spirit of the telescopes housed within. Together, they invite visitors to look a little closer, linger a little longer, and experience the familiar in entirely new ways.
SCOPE STROLL
Interactive Experience
FILTER AT CHICAGO LOOP ALLIANCE'S SUNDAYS ON STATE FESTIVAL
WHAT IS A TELEIDOSCOPE?
A teleidoscope is a special type of kaleidoscope that turns the real world into beautiful, shifting patterns. Because the scope is completely open at the far end, it lets the outside world fill the inside of the case. Internal mirrors then capture and multiply whatever you point it at—like a tree, a building, or a friend—instantly transforming everyday scenes into unique mosaics of color, light, and geometry.
WHAT IS A PRISMSCOPE?
A prismscope is an interactive viewing instrument made of oversized, faceted glass lenses that bend and distort light. Each lens refracts light in a different way, distorting and transforming your view of the surrounding environment into a shifting kaleidoscope of split images, rainbow edges, and geometric reflections.
PRISM PATTERNS
WHAT IS A GEOSCOPE?
A geoscope is a kaleidoscope-like device that uses outside light to create your own personalized light show. As light passes through the narrow slits along the sides of the scope, it bounces between a network of internal mirrors —multiplying into dazzling, geometric patterns that change constantly depending on the time of day and how you position the scope.
WHAT IS A PERISCOPE?
A periscope is a viewing tool that lets you see over, under, or around obstacles. By placing mirrors inside the top and bottom of the scope’s case to bend light, it captures a view from a different height or angle and brings that image straight to your eyes. It essentially allows you to peek at things that are completely hidden from your direct line of sight.
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