Pneuhaus Debuts 'Compound Camera 3' at MODE Festival, a 221-Lens Walk-In Camera

Rhode Island studio Pneuhaus premiered its latest inflatable installation, "Compound Camera 3," late last month at MODE Festival, a global photography celebration. The work is a walk-in camera obscura comprising 221 lenses, covering over 700 square feet. Visitors enter a luminous viewing room where sunlight projects everyday scenes through tiny apertures onto bulbous interior surfaces, creating a "bug's-eye view" of the sky and urban surroundings. No LED screens or recording devices are used; the experience is entirely analog and ephemeral. The structure resembles an elongated igloo or giant white snail, with a futuristic, bubble-like texture. Inside, lenses pointing upward display the sky across dozens of facets, while side-directed lenses show trees, buildings, and passersby. Visitors can push on the soft material to distort the projected images. The work invites slow, close examination of multiplied details. Pneuhaus is known for large-scale architectural inflatables. The installation was documented in photographs by Lachlan Turczan and Stefan Stefanizyn. More information is available on Pneuhaus' Instagram.