projection blog i wish i found earlier!

http://www.urban-projection.com/?p=372

Backlit frame

Looking at alternative ways to blacklight a large panel, so the frame isn't so chunky -

LEDs - expensive on mass


EL Panels -
http://www.earlsmann.co.uk/sections/product/id/10

Skelington Art

http://walyou.com/real-skeleton-art/

HR Giger Images

Images from Mark Ryden

http://www.markryden.com/press/index.html - Bunnies and Bees 2001 is a great explanation of how he works

There and back again

I started thinking about the process of the reversing the camera in an effort to find a good source for the projected image; Taking a specific viewpoint and projecting the same viewpoint into a part of the image - like I've done before finding available surfaces.  The idea would be a kind of reprocessing of the image; taking a photo and then shooting it back out of the camera into a window in the image.

After considering and scouting for locations I come to a halt as my idea seems to not quite sit right - I thought of the other way round like I've previously mentioned; for the opposite view to be projected - so is like a mirror - or the picture looking back at you.

And then I switch back again - my main crisis was where the images to project would come from, and even though something relevant from the area I'm photographing seems to have potential for a better rounded concept - projecting from my own head will produce more interesting results.

I've been wanting to integrate other mediums into my technique recently, something to help the result reflect myself better.  Painting got me into photography and now I see a way I can use to it enhance what I'm doing - better than to use cg and cut out images (Although I'm not ruling a combination out if it seems like a good idea) it would be like I'm painting directly on to the surfaces I'm projecting on to.  What I paint almost doesn't matter as it's the act of projecting (not literally) myself onto a photographic scene.  I was there and was free to paint what I wanted with a artistic freedom.  But of course this is a fantasy, and I want the image to reflect that.

The large format shooting the result is my way to create a surreal element using some tilt

I remember at a festival in Bristol, the details I don't remember, where you could draw on a touch screen and it would be projected 30 feet on the side of the Lloyds building, in looking for this I found something even better (Making what I'm doing seem very small scale!)

http://fusionaut.videosift.com/video/Laser-Guided-Graffiti-Awesome

They draw on to the building with a laser pen - the movement of the laser pen somehow calibrated with a projector - obviously someone smart with technology worked it out.  This makes me realise a huge advantage of painting what I'll project - No computers are directly involved in producing the images - From canvas to negative/positive to projection.  Despite my proficiency with computers I much prefer leaving them out.

Positive

Having forgotten about the original positive film I took on my last project after it took a month to arrive - I compared it to the negatives I've been using;  And it's much better - White's are so easily blown out on positive!
So despite the cost and slowness I may try and use them again, on my next round.

Reversing the camera

I figured out that optics seem to be very interchangable - I created a projector using a camera and part of the assembly from an enlarger.  This had a few good points; The assembly was lighter and with more of a structure so I could use just one lighting stand, so much more portable.  I could shoot on 35mm and after developing, roll the film back in to the camera, and use its controls to move the frames - meaning i would have to make or carry around slides.
The idea of reversing the camera was attractive to me - shooting light back through the negative and lighting an area with it's image?  I've thought before about taking an image from a related place and projecting it in another - what about using the same viewpoint, and projecting that viewpoint, for example in the daytime in to the night scene?

Using the 35mm wasn't flawless - the mechanism was more a chore than a blessing, and often wouldn't align well (a slide is slightly smaller than a negative, whereas the opening on a camera is the same).  Therefore, for now I'll go back to use a setup that can take a slide - but still using a camera lens on the front with some kind of aperture control.

Other notes:
- Print on to acetate to get the dynamic range in the projected negatives.
- Start creating workbook properly after this friday!  As this has been recorded mainly here so far :/

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

I came across the film 'Sullivan's Travels' for the synopsis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan's_Travels

As my current ideas are based around a light playful comedy, I was worried that there might not be enough depth to it - but this film has a lesson in it - just to make something for amusement  isn't of any less value.

I think again (and again) of Gilliams statement - " I think it's more important to be educated, to read, to learn things, because if you're gonna be in the media and if you'll have to say things, you have to know things. If you only know about cameras and 'the media"

Brainstorm

As a kind of pictorial graffiti I want to find places that are usually off limits, I've started this with the statues and monuments.  The projection should still have a self aware interpretive comedy about it :D 

I like the Gilliam style; absurd combinations, hallucinatory effects etc..

People - I think it'd be important for the subject to be unsuspecting, not neccesarily of the camera but of what I'm projectiong.
I can't think of a way to capture moving people, so would have to be still, either approach people in public (this is me, not going to happen) or a sat portrait.

Face masks - Clown make-up, stiches (like a teddy or horror), zombie, mime

Urban locations -  A bit hard as quite is quite a graffiti's place, would need to find some places that arn't normally graffiti'd.

Already thought of interacting with statues

Car's (a dirty one? maybe be a bit shiny to work well) -

Pavement - trapdoors, or a pun on the 3-drain superstition

Churches - a mocking religious symbol, maybe a devil banging at the door, or climbing from the floor.

Nature - Bit tricky to find a good surface though

Tree - something cartoony, a small door and windows and a little man.  Or spiritual, fairies

Broadening

Refining my ideas to statues and monuments with their historical context has caused me to hit a wall - The few images I created were not as interesting as I imagined; The idea's behind them lacked something substantial.

I've been falling in to the same traps as I have before - becoming obsessed with the technical process.  In this way my idea's work better when broader - when the process is the subject of the images.

A line of thought I'm currently persuing is the idea that what I'm doing is like graffiti - I'd mentioned before how my process isn't visible while I'm making it, only on the final image - the photo record. 
Graffiti obviously can be put anywhere, but there legal and other issues which just don't apply to what I'm doing - I could get away with projecting anywhere, like the Gail Porter projection I mentioned previously.

I have a few limitations on non-static subjects, mostly the amount of light I can produce in one flash - so daytime shooting as I explored yesterday; is very hard.  I would have to flash the same subject multiple times to build up exposure of the projection, whilst not over exposing the image.  At about 2s recycle time this means I'd have to use multiple exposures, which I havn't the equipment meter how many times i'd have flash - I need a remote flash trigger.

My aim at the moment is to brain storm ideas of subjects and projections to go with them, opposing my previous method of finding a location and researching and finding a subject - this made a long working process longer.

First Negs

I havn't learnt from the past it seems, initial negatives have come out way to light - So I'm gonna try some extreme push processing to see if I can improve things - the illusion would be destroyed if not good enough!

Julian Beever

As I make the images ready for projection, I'm considering the distortion needed for the perspective to look right.  A good example of how this is used is Julian Beever's 3D pavement art, the farther away from the viewing point the longer and wide the image has to be -

Fortunately Photoshop makes this easy with the perspective in free transform - basically distortion in a trapezoid shape.  It will still be a little trial and error though, although I can estimate it using the 3D Postcard tool, for a preview of what angles the perspective shift will look right from.

And I still need to consider the distortion from the projector!

The simulated final image, the perspective transformation, and 45' view above.

Descending into fantasy

The influence of Terry Gilliam is becoming more pronounced..

Camera Obscura

Finally got the reserved book 'Camera Obscura' by Abelardo Morell.

Quoting from the forward by Luc Sante - "The outside comes inside, unaltered and unabridged but wrenched out of context by the apparently simple matter of being turned upside down"

There defines the relevance and the different to my current process; I create or take and image, alter, cut down and bastardize an object with it - giving my own context.
I'm slightly worried that I have too much control, that my context is inferior to one that say, I get from a source directly relevant - like (this is just an example) a daytime pinhole image from directly opposite the projection.  I can't imagine the composite image would be interesting or effective in saying anything but I'm keeping my mind open to a more 'natural' process, one that keeps some kind of authenticity, away from computers and especially my input of context - just carrying out a process which defines the context.

I often think this is form a vandalism, even if the projection only lasts 1/10,000 of a second - Even if I just used a constant light source I'm sure I'd get asked to stop in some cases.  For a more extreme case see the projection of Gail Porter on the houses of parliament! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/341052.stm

"No light can survive the passage to the retina without exchanging some of its baggage" - Luc Sante talks on even the purest, simplest and 'as unmediated capture of light can be' - is still altered, so what of the process light goes through to be perceived to our eye?  Previous projects I've undertaken have been about the problems of perception - now I should be able to exploit them.

George VII

In the same area outside the Victoria Rooms is the statue of King George VII -

 

The side panel is a good opportunity for a projection - In looking for a comedic, interpretive image.  For example George VII was a heavy smoker and suffered from bronchitis before his death, so something smoking related?  He was also responsible for the military reform after the Boer Wars, and making peace with a lot of Europe, hence the title 'the peacemaker'

The skeleton relaxing, sitting back smoking is a peaceful action - this type of image would benefit with a caption/title, even as simple as 'Edward the peacemaker'.  I'd also like to create a 3D illusion, like the skeleton is sitting inside the plinth.

I think the process of finding a suitable statue/monument and reading into the background for a series of images to place will work - I realise I will have to create a lot of these to have a good selection at the end.

Better get cracking with Idea's

Boer War Statue

My first thoughts for an image are with the Boer War memorial, at the top of park st.  Although I like the computer game angle, there isn't really any for the Boer War :/
But is interesting as a link between older troop and calvary style warfare to a more modern warfare - where the media (in this case newspapers) were involved and literacy was common.
Great easy on this war and the media here -
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/1215/Morgan.pdf

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boer_War_memorial_Bristol_1.jpg

At the moment I think I just need to produce a couple of images, so I should go for simple and and easy target like WWI & II.
The central memorial of both wars with the vertical sword maybe - I just need to find a way for it to interact with a projected image.

There are alot more distictive perspectives of war in media - films are probably the most distinct, but I feel this is going in a direction I don't want it to.  For now I'm going to research the places I'm looking at in Bristol in order to grasp something to use.

Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam as an animator produces a unique, abstract and surreal blend of recontextualized photo's and graphics images from the media and his own drawings

A quote from Salman Rushdie talks with Terry Gilliam from The Believer - March 2003 issue, found at:
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=interview_gilliam


"TG: But with storytelling, we do suspend our disbelief, and we go with it. As long as it’s truthful, as long as it’s based on truthful things, we can go anywhere.
SR: Well, it’s exactly that. It’s the difference between what is naturalistic and what is truth. And in a way fiction—movies, books, whatever—allows you to get to certain truths which you can’t get to so easily by naturalistic fiction. I mean, the world is not a naturalistic place. Buildings may fall down. The world is not like kitchen-sink drama; the world is this weird, operatic place.
TG: Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it—I do actually like it because it says certain things. It’s about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we’re just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television’s saying, everything’s saying “That’s the world.” And it’s not the world. The world is a million possible things.
SR: And the world is about the way in which our dreams intersect with our real life. Endlessly, the world of the imagination changes the world."

A photograph of a histortic statue as I've already said, carries a huge context already with it - The images I'm projecting on to them are to show an alternative perception of the same subject; whether it be war (an easy target), fantasy (including mythology and religion), a blend or anything else a monument could represent. 

I thought of using computer games as the alternative, but any media can be used.  Computer games have the advantage of it being an immersive simulated reality - and the possibility of using a 3D model to create a trick that's hard to explain, but easy to show if I can create an example (coming soon!)

In reading on Gilliam's philosophy I come across the philosophy of Mark Weber's 'Iron Cage' - a subject of the containing of our perceptions of the world -I should look into further.

Projection Mapping & Technique

3D Projection mapping is a technique where a video is projected on to a 3D surface, often using the shape and features of the object as part of the projection.  Its been used quite a bit in advertising, using buildings as the canvas (often called Architectural Projection Mapping)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W6Eabefezg&feature=player_embedded - H&M advert in Amsterdam, the windows are used as part of the projection.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXcfvWhdDQ - Architectural Projection Mapping @ Branchage Film Festival 2009


More interesting is when more than one projector is used together to completely surround an object - 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wcFWLhzTNI&feature=related - Using 4 projectors linked up to a computer using a 3D model of the car to project, in the same way that texture would be applied to a virtual 3D shape on screen.


http://vimeo.com/16964831 - What David Hall calls 'Anamorphic Architecture' -

• "Process -
• Artists developed low polygon forms from basic primitives and through a series of deformations and replications produced a structure with minimal data. These structures where then developed (made planar) in order for them to be printed two dimensionally.
• 
  
• This enabled the surface to be re-constructed backto its original 3D form. As the object exists in 3D in both digital and analogue form this allows us to project animations and graphic back onto the object from the digital version with relative accuracy. In effect the form exists in digital and analogue spaces simultaneously.
• 
  
• The analogue and digital spaces are converging into what has become known as Augmented Space or Augmented Reality. This convergence will accelerate in the near future as LED architectural surface technology and motor actuators become cheaper."

The technology to do this is on a small scale is possible, but would take alot of development of technique which I'm not willing to do (again) so will stick to a still image.  What it does is inform of the ways object are distorted and played with by projection.  Unfortunately I don't have the equipment to effectively project on to a very deep 3D object because of a the shallow dof used - I should seek advice on equipment to get a better dof regardless.  Although using 2 projections on one object, possibly with a double exposure is possible.

I realise to make the image successful I need to stick to some of my original intentions of distorting space, not just a flat(ish) image juxt'd against the monument / person.

Two paths

I have two paths I'm following at the moment -

The first - Projecting on to historial monuments - at the moment the images and idea's I've mocked up are very interpretive; There is no specific meaning, or if there is then it's easily seen as something else, depending on the viewer.

I can't escape the historical context shooting using monuments imposes, a large percentage of them are war related, the others are mostly religious and mythical.  I choose to look for the comedy juxtaposition, this isn't set though, I'm sure more idea's will come as I experiement. 

One mock-up in photoshop (below) shows a group of 'nazi zombies' from the Call of Duty series of games, projected on to a monument from the world wars.  It was a quickly thought up but raises an interesting link with computer game culture and it's perception of war; This is an unrealistic case using Nazi zombies but there are many others purporting to be closer to reality, but very rarely are.

My process was going to be to find a site and then to invent an image to place there, but to start with, to aid the initial production of images I'm going to pick a set of images to project and find a site to project them in.

The second, projecting on to people is also split between projecting on to people and on to the environment around people.  Putting people into a context they're not aware of - I first thought of it as having people unconsiously look at the false reality I was making, as they viewing a monument.  

To approach people in the street for portraits is a very difficult way for me to go, even though it would be the most efficient way to photograph alot of people, so I would need to use ways of shooting people unknowingly.

Terry Gilliam

At Bower today look at - Animations of mortality - 778.5347 GIL
and get the dvd, 'Mark Lawson talks to Terry Gilliam' - DVD 791.43 GIL  


Still waiting for camera obscura by ABELARDO MORELL to come back.

False realities

http://www.dwsmg.com/35-creative-imagination-vs-reality-art-work-by-ben-heine.html

A useful link to someone who's drawn in parts of a image on a piece of paper - creating a kind of false reality in that space.

New Blog

One I've done my proposal for Thursday, I should delete all the posts and actual make this into my workbook.  Have it starting with the proposal, I can re-edit the posts, it keeps the flow of the work going and highlights gaps in doing things.

Fluidity

ABELARDO MORELL

I've been advise this artist by another student in a proposal exchange -

He projects on to a room with a camera obscura and photographs the result.

http://www.abelardomorell.net/photography/cameraobsc_01/cameraobsc_20.html

London Scout

I have a technique - flash projecting onto blank spaces in the city - and a general idea - disrupting reality or creating a false reality in those spaces - but not sure what to project yet, or what those projections are going to say.

My first task was to find the kind of locations I image using.  The aestitic I'm thinking of is from my previous work 'left' - city scapes using only ambient light.  This means exposure are long, people disappear and vehicles a streak of light.

The space I shot fell in to a couple of different catagories -

First was the historical site - a statue, an empty plaque, generally an old stone structure.  One of the images has some words - 'the glorious dead', honouring soldiers killed in the world wars - I'm not keen to have text in the image but it would be easy to put an image to the caption, possiblity refering to those that died not so gloriously.
Many of the historical sites and english history are built on war, honouring generals etc. - What if I were to put the dead at their feet?

The example above doesn't really work as these are holocost victims - probably the victims of this anonymous generals enemy - but the idea of using the aspect of war that isn't celebrated.  I could imagine a title like 'a nation built on war' - not a new idea and far too obvious, but a start for thinking.
The other image I shot in London were of miscelaneous urban settings, more generaic, not so recognisable places - more a place to stage my own story.  I think of science fiction where portals open in out of way places for someone to be thrown through.  I've never been very succesful with placing people in my images - and this would require more complicated lighten, but if I'm creating a fictional reality, a person interacting with my illusion would legitimize it somewhat.

One aspect of using a flash projector is that anyone watching me take the image would not see what I'm projecting - this gives the possiblity of having passer-bys in the image not consious of an image thats projected - 'real' not photoshopped - in front of them.  Possibly for natural expression to something that could be paticularly horrific, disturbing or not normal. 

I've been advised to not just shoot in the daytime, and not to use projection unless I can legitimize its use.  Therefor I'll experiment with both - shooting the same places in the daytime and without projection (already done to some extent) to see the context of the images without these factors.