Between November 11 and February 2, the northern Italian village
of Viganella is thrust into darkness. Because of this tiny
town's location at the bottom of a valley, the tall Alpine
mountains blot out the Sun for approximately 83 days. For
centuries, villagers endured winters of unrelenting shade. But
in 2006, the hamlet's mayor, Pierfranco Midali, teamed up with
designer Giacomo Bonzani to build a computerized, 40-square-
meter mirror on a nearby mountainside. This €100,000 mirror —
which tracks the Sun's movement across the sky — fires a beam of
light into the town square. This contraption has become an
offbeat tourist attraction for Viganella and was even the
subject of the 2009 documentary Lo Specchio, whose trailer you
can watch above. Yes, this is more or less the reverse of that
Simpsons episodes where Mr. Burns blots out the Sun (en
Español). [Via Oddity Central]