(Fig. 1) A magnificent, giant periscope invites people to operate and view. (Fig. 2) Gazing at the exhibition panorama from a transparent sealed plastic sphere.

(Fig. 1 Left) The image observed through the periscope. (Fig. 1 Right) The image projected on the left and right walls. (Fig. 2) Listening to the extraordinary and imaginative sounds coming from deep-sea submarines. Every autumn, the Paris Autumn Festival features a unique visual arts special exhibition. This year (2007), it specially invited contemporary Russian artist Alexandre Ponomarev to create an installation based on the space, titled "Vertical Parallel." The exhibition ran from September 13 to October 14 in the Saint-Louis Church of the largest Salpetriere Hospital in Paris. Alexandre Ponomarev (born 1957) is currently one of the most representative artists in Russia and was the representative figure for the Russian Pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale in Italy. Throughout his life, Ponomarev has had two great passions: art and submarine precision mechanical engineering. Before becoming an artist, he served as an engineer on Russian Navy warships. One can imagine how this excellent precision technology influenced his artistic creation, allowing him to develop diverse imaginative spaces through these classified mechanical engineering techniques. For example, in 2000, during a competition among former Soviet fleets, Alexandre Ponomarev organized the disappearance of an island (Maya Island) using smoke bombs. Another instance involved the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where he reconfigured a Russian Baltic naval ship graveyard into a monument-like work called "The Hourglass (Ancient Timer)," or constructing a naval organ in the Somme Bay. Noteworthy are his project actions such as "Warships Defending the Interests of International Visual Arts Societies," and those machines that mock triviality.

In the environmental installation of this autumn festival's "Vertical Parallel" special exhibition, Alexandre Ponomarev transformed the main Saint-Louis Church into a magnificent, giant submarine. Upon entering the exhibition space, visitors were immediately attracted by the huge vertical steel pipe-periscope in the center (extending from the circular roof down to near the ground). Standing on the central platform, people could operate the periscope to remotely gaze at the metropolitan scenery within several kilometers surrounding the Salpetriere Hospital in all directions. They could also adjust the lens to a microscopic periscope head to closely observe every blade of grass and tree, offering an extraordinary experience akin to submarine target reconnaissance. Meanwhile, the images seen through the periscope appeared directly on the left and right walls in circular frames, resembling live reports or green-screen art. The theme "Vertical Parallel" signifies this vertical periscope, the video cameras rotating parallelly around the four directions on the roof, and the images on the left and right walls. Between the immense and the improbable uselessness, it poetically disrupts channels of meaning, blurs and seeks surfaces, deeply questioning the relationship between people, science, and concepts of domain.

Simultaneously, on the symmetrical sides of the exhibition space flanking the giant periscope, the artist placed two large transparent sealed plastic spheres containing speakers and half-filled with water. A thin transparent plastic tube extends from each sphere at human standing height, allowing people to place their ears directly against it to unexpectedly hear bursts of sound from deep-sea submarines setting sail. The entire work constructs a cross-connection among technology, audio-visuals, objects, space, and time, leading people into an extraordinary poetic space of sight and sound. It gazes upon the real world and the world of artistic imagination, awakening subtle realms deep within the heart (like a submarine). Ponomarev's mechanical works often remind people of artists who share his love for creating machines, such as Leonardo da Vinci. The artist stated that once again, through this magnificent "Vertical Parallel" monument work, he pays highest tribute to the humanist Leonardo da Vinci.