Paysages urbains
Arno Hassler

It is unusual to see panoramic views of the cities of Biel/Bienne, Bern, Geneva and Cairo. Not onlydo they give a vision of the whole but they also provoke a sense of vertigo, as the familiar becomes foreign. This sensation results from the eye being unable to follow the visual angle here, as the photographer’s perspective of the various places and neighborhoods extends beyond the 360 degrees. The human eye cannot encompass an angle of view greater than 140 degrees. To create this effect, Arno Hassler uses a panoramic lens he created himself, in the form of a detachable cylinder with a circular and continuous angle. The picture is taken as a circular and panoramic shot before being displayed to the spectator in two dimensions. What is normally captured by turning on the camera’s axis becomes visible bymeans of a fixed point.