Category: Reports

I really appreciate Steven’s description of Marmalade Type by Rus Khasanov. Specifically, Steven discusses how art can use a rigor and understanding of science as a means to create visually interesting pieces. The train exploration Steven described is a wonderful example of how one can begin asking standard scientific questions, such as “what is birefringence?” and use the response as a generator for a project. I would be interested to see to what extent the images were edited and color corrected, and am curious to what extent it would it matter if someone is staying true to the science of the project given its art context.

Other projects viewed:

Joseph

Izzy

Jacqui

David

I decided to look at and comment on Huw’s post about non-euclidean renders (and other alternative rendering systems) as a form of photography. In general, I am inclined to support and expanded understanding of photography – so if someone want to claim it as photography, then will hear ut what they have to say. Thinking about non-euclidean render systems strikes me almost as more of a camera making process, that then takes photos via the render. It creates the system for the possible capture in the digital world and then renders it, or it reminds me of Vito Acconci’s work where he would walk down the street and snap ‘random’ photos on film and then develop them later. In a way, the expectations of the non-euclidean render system might not be identifiable until the render mich like the chance photography of Vito Acconci (and others).

Here’s an example of someone’s ‘impossible space’ render system created for Unity.

The projects I looked at:

• Huw,   Non-Euclidean Renderer

• Sean,  Rapid Recap

• Lumi,  The Enclave

• Cathryn,  The Capture of Gesture
• Joyce, Delusional Crime and Punishment 

The idea of using a surveillance tool for image making is quite interesting to me, and the RapidRecap system is a good example. It reminded me of a talk by James Bridle, who uses systems that aren’t originally designed for creative uses- in fact are often used for tracking and data collection- to make projects. He discusses a few in this lecture, one of the more interesting ones was using a system of people and services that track planes to find out how migrants are deported from the UK.

Another somewhat different project of his uses the views of satellites and the ghosting they give to moving objects frozen in time. This kind of system of imaging is a bit like the RapidRecap in that it provides a kind of overlay of objects over time, one being over a long period and another over a very short one.

James Bridle, ‘On the Rainbow Plane’ from AQNB on Vimeo.

Reviewed:

Steven’s post on Marmalade Type

Huw’s post on the Non-Euclidean Renderer

Spoon’s post on the Non-line-of-sight Camera

Jacqui’s post on the Unpainted Sculpture

Looking at Experiments with Security Camera by Olivia.

I was trying to think of why thermal cameras are so mesmerizing to me. Photographs deliver visible light to our eyes, so the obvious first step of inventing photography is to record this visible light. Heat energy is not ordinarily visible to us, but it can still be recorded in the same way from light beyond our range of vision.

There are similar processes for capturing energy beyond our range of visible light, but the difference is that heat is something both tangible and ephemeral. We use it as a tool for physically altering materials and we are very familiar with its sensation, using it constantly to navigate and understand the world. This sensation is not what is delivered by a thermal photograph however.  Is it possible to create a photo that possesses the tangibility of heat with less of its ephemerality? An image that is physically cold in places it recorded cold and hot in places it recorded hot?

The photos by Clelia Knox weird me out existentially. Dissociating the photos from the what it must have looked like to record them, you see human energy being radiated into a cold environment. It captures the constant generation of life in relation to an imposing environment. In this way a new sensation is captured, of vitality, beyond the energy used to make these scenes visible.

I also looked at:

The Non-Line-of-Sight Camera from Spoon

Joiners from Christian Broms

Marmalade Type from Steven Montinar

Tea Ceremony from Stacy Kellner

In addition to Christian Brom’s post about joiners:

I feel that David Hockney has always been at the edge of what painting and image making could be (I’m personally a big fan of his Bigger Grand Canyon) and the fact that he’s now largely painting on an iPad I feel is, while safe in it’s execution, somewhat risky within the scope of being a painter. Looking at Joiners I was reminded of an animation I saw last semester, namely Faux Plafond – Cosmic Promenade by Francois Vogel:

faux plafond from francois vogel on Vimeo.

At one level the aesthetic of it is similar to Joiners, but at another I feel the notion of the image spliced together with others to produce a greater whole connects them as well. It’s also an example of a piece where the “360 camera” is used, but also a necessary component of narrative which in my opinion not many work using 360 cameras are.

Other posts reviewed:

Tahira, Quayola and Memo Akten “Forms”

Olivia, Clelia Knox “Experiments with Security Cameras”

Policarpo, James Bulley and Daniel Jones “Variable 4”

Lukas, Dirk Koy “Escape Route”

These projects were all so great to read!

I chose to respond to Sean’s post on “BriefCam.”

 

Other projects I looked at:

Christian’s post on “Joiners”

Cathryn’s post on “The Capture of Gesture”

Joseph’s post on “Triple Chaser”

Steven’s post on “Marmalade Type“

In addition to reading about Marmalade Type, Tom Sachs’ Tea Ceremony, Water Pendulum, and Rapid Recap, I chose to respond to Philippe’s post of  Christian Marclay’s the Clock.

Being able to compile a full 24 hour clock from movie clips demonstrates how important time and checking clocks is to us and to progressing the plot of a film. It’s interesting because the same does not go for equally ubiquitous (if nor more ubiquitous) tools in our culture such as smartphones, which seem to make an incredibly rare appearance in most contemporary, mainstream film, especially when compared to the portion of our daily time is sunk into using them. Obviously the smartphone is a lot newer than the clock, so only films released within the past decade or so would feature smartphones at all, but I’d be willing to bet clocks still play a larger role in film than smartphones do. The juxtaposition here shows how clocks have cemented themselves as an experience of information that warrants capturing. They can show something necessary that the audience is also interested in. The vast majority of phone usage (emails, social media updates, texts, etc), despite it maybe making the film more realistic, does nothing to progress a plot and is of little interest to the audience despite its obvious reliability.