Flipbook

Here is a low-res version of what my flip-book will be! A new way to look at evolutionary history.

From Fractal Tree gif

Click on the image to see the whole thing bigger. Part of it is cut off here.

Proposal Update

I have an update to my project proposal. I'm going to take it a step further.

See below, a Viewmaster. I'm essentially going to cut out the centers of the slide disks, and attach 3 or 4 of them. All the of images, rather than being separate slides will be a continuous image consisting of many frames. I will create a slideshow of all of the frames running continuously together like a movie. I'll do this by taking pictures of the entire object with a focus on one frame. Doing this will encourage the viewer to see the motion portrayed in the images, while accentuating the unusual shape of the piece. I like this idea most because I'll be able to display it well on the internet!

Lola Dupre

Some images from Lola Dupre. I'm working on a project on David Hockney, focussing on his construction style in photography and painting. I wonder if Dupre should be included as a current approach. See her photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lola_dupre/

Project 4 Ideas

I have 2 ideas for my final project. The goal of each is to show motion in one way or another.

The first is to continue building my hyperbolic photographs. I'll make a new, longer, but not larger version of my last. I think 8" is a good diameter, the 24" hyperbole was too much to put together and transport. The size, contrary to my predictions did not improve the object as a whole.

I would show motion as a panoramic where the subject moves from picture to picture, the images would be turned into circles and stitched together using the same method. The viewer could rotate the object to see the consecutive images, but the backgrounds would be seamlessly stitched together. I think this music video from Sigur Ros shows the kind of look I'd go for. Probably a self portrait, I think it might be interesting to do it in the dark too. Maybe the whole project or half would be in the dark.

Sigur Rós - Gobbledigook from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.


This is the style/type of photograph I'd project onto the hyperbolic plane:

My second idea comes from philosophy. We've been discussing reductionism in science, if it is possible and if it is good or bad. While reductionism can lead to a deeper understand of a concept, the focus must, as a consequence become smaller. This would take the form of a flip book. It would show the reduction of a photograph into its basic parts - pixels, color values, then to 1's & 0's of binary. Another reduction, which could possibly go on the back side, would keep the scale the same, but reduce the objects, turning them to black & white, then to outlines, then to text, which would then to reduce to "image". Through this reductionistic journey, the viewer would see the photograph broken down into it's basic parts.


This would be a visual representation analogous to the reduction of psychology to physics. The viewer would see, first hand how detail is lost as it is gained. The goal would be to increase the viewers awareness of reductionism in society and to prevent the misuse of it.

Pig: 05049

Christien Meindertsma is dutch designer. She put together this incredible book about a pig, number 05049, and what happens to it after it is slaughtered. The book is three years work of finding and cataloguing each product that is produced from this one pig. Below is part of her exhibition of the project: each product, packaged as if it everyone considered it an animal product. 

This is from http://ibrahimbaba.wordpress.com/ It's a nice rundown of some of the products included in her book.

Here is an excellent  Ted talk about Pig: 05049

TEDxAmsterdam: Christien Meindertsma from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.

I didn't really understand what was behind this piece at first, but after watching and reading some interviews I realized that she's talking about the same farm to table pathways that I'm seriously interested in. My posts will probably head more that direction as my summer job at the Farm Institute approaches yet again. These pathways and networks have really become a dominant theme in my life, with the brassica tree, which will hopefully become a web, and the invisible network/pathway from farm to table.

I'm already thinking about creating a network of milk cattle breeds. I need to find a protein - I'm thinking one that occurs in milk. I think it'll be interesting because we think of species differentiation as very linear, when in fact it can be much more complex. With breeds, often the lines are crossed to form new lines, and lineages are rarely clear. This network would likely match up well on a map of europe, where most of these breeds were created. It could even be done in 3 dimensions, with the z axis showing time. I feel like this could be interesting from an anthropological perspective because it would show the migrations of people through the breeding of the cattle they brought with them.

Some sort of book like Meindertsma's following an old milk cow would be very interesting for me too. If only I had the time... Because they're not meat cows, the different paths followed by their parts after death must be incredible. It makes me wonder how different the processes are in the Netherlands versus the United States. I bet American farmers and meat processors throw more away.

Post Crit. 3

Critique went well, although mine seemed to go on forever. I felt like things were mostly good, although most of what I remember are suggestions for different substrates, possibly to leave the photograph behind. Maybe this pairing of hyperbole and image was too out there. I'm glad I did it but I'm unsure if people really got it.

I'd really like to do something with metalworking. The more I think about it, the more appealing it becomes. To do something on par with the bean in chicago would be incredible. I think that the reflections might be more interesting than the photographs.

I think the Idea to take out the center would be good. I wish I would have just done it beforehand.  One thing on of my professors mentioned the other day was that school and grading and such are just a way to teach self evaluation. I pretty well predicted the criticism I received, so I guess I'm getting good at that.


 

Construction

Here are 2 photos I took while I was constructing my project. I like the look of this hyperbolic plane being fed through the sewing machine.