And one more time

Conspiring

Here is one (at a slightly higher pixel resolution) of brutus and a gang of senators conspiring to kill Julius Caesar.

Brutus

Continuing with my digital TV watching machine, as well, as with HBO's Rome, Here are two versions of Brutus, right before he plunges his dagger to finish off Julius Ceasar.

These tewo images use the same algorithms as the death of Ceasar (seen in my last post below.)

Watching TV Digitaly!

My latest attempt at digital printmaking has me revisiting the Pixelography project but with a newly programed version. 

After realizing the limitations with Max/msp I have recreated the pixel capture program in Java and have included a few new algorithms for how the pixels capture and draw the images. 

As well, instead of feeding the video directly into the program, this time around, I am watching the films through a video camera pointed at the tv. Basically, I have created a "subjective" viewer that just happens to be a digital device. And this particular viewer was watching the death of Julius Ceasar from the HBO tv show Rome. 

I have included here two versions of the capture, one with the same linear algorithm as my last Full Metal Jacket series, and one with my new k*counter%arrayLength algorithm. Though both very simple the perceived image speaks volumes about the role the perceiver has in creating the object viewed.

Digital traces

Here are digital time-lapse captures taken from within the EV building of Concordia University. 

What we inevitably see is how a slowed down digital capture exposes the digital process. What is qualitative and continuous in analog equipment becomes sequential, precise and divisible in the digital. Movement can be captured, but only in a precise, yet abstract way. We don't get the faint, blurry trace that we have come to expect from time-lapse photography. What we get is a the precise information of that existed in that pixel position at that particular time. 

Moving Bodies are transformed into information - numbers to be precise -  and only those things that appear immobile allow themselves to be understood. 

Full Metal Jacket Diptych

Here are my most recent attempts at a conceptual use of my, slightly modified, temporal palindromatic pixel sampler! I know that doesn't make much sense, but I am in no mood to explain what the program is actually doing at this point.

The Organic and the Algorithmic

So, after that slight setback last week, I am back at it with a modified version of my video processing software. I realized, that in reality, the work I was (or still am,) doing is not that interesting. The problem with machine processes is that once the "fun" work of writing a program is done, the output becomes predictable and uninteresting. It may be interesting to look at, but it lacks any opportunity for continued thought.

I am not saying that there is nothing to think about. I am just saying that once there has been one piece of work output, each additional one, is redundant. The program is too predictable and that is the obvious shortcoming to all programed works. The addition of random elements, arguments or parameters, is usually not the solution, as again that just gives the appearance of difference. 

Though, my knowledge of programing is extremely limited at this point, I am starting to see the limitations of purely programed work and why it has usually failed to hold my interest in the past. I need to find a way to imbue them with more "organic" algorithms, if that is even possible or meaningful. 

New pixel-time tests

Here are some new generated images from modified version of my Pixel-time patch. This one turn films into timed pixel grids by calculating the resolution based on number of frames in the video and then captures on pixel per frame and flows from the top left down to the bottom right. 

I have some that capture the pixel based on its current read-write position and others that capture the average of all the pixels on screen. 

So far, there isn't much going on with this as it only produces abstract grid compositions. I am currently working to expand the functionality of this program as well as find an actual use for it. 

Self-Portrait Studying

After having found a way to streamline and speed up my program quite considerably. I took this 10 minute shot of me re-reading a draft of one of my latest papers. Due to the increased speed it is a lot easier to make out moving figures.

3 hour self-portrait in Pixel Time

Here is a higher resolution example of my pixel-time photography program. It took almost three hours to complete. I will need to find a way to pump a little more speed out of this program or I will have trouble finding sitters when the time comes to produce my series.

Or, maybe I just need to figure out a more creative use for this new machine instead of simple photo-portraits. 

I will keep playing around with it and see what comes out. The possibilities of opening the debate on perception and information are already quite apparent, as are the possibilities of discussing the differences between analog and digital perception and their subjects. I am looking forward to seeing where this can go!

Pixel lapse photography

Here is a test from my latest programing/print project. Basically, It does what a digital camera does only slower. It exposes the process of registering one pixel at a time as it takes the photo. Usually the process is so fast that it looks instant but in reality numbers always register in sequence. 

I still have quite a bit of work to do on this as right now my computer has trouble doing this at speed at high resolutions. So, I need to optimize the program and see where I can squeeze a little more performance out. I also need to make an interface and iron out some bugs. It shouldn't be long now as the prototype works quite well.

As you can see things that don't move register clearly whereas things that do move have their movement registered as the pixels draw. 

Projecting Pastness: Memory and Time

This installation consisted of a chair, some history books and a lamp to read them by. The chair included a light sensor that was hooked up to a computer running the program I wrote which would trigger a camera to photograph the subject and re-project them on the wall when they left the scene. Additionally, when no one was interacting with the installation the computer would randomly recall moments from the past and replay them – not necessarily in the proper order, and sometimes deciding midway to mix them up. the captured images would also, once recalled, deteriorate with time and pixelate into obscurity. All these effects would also create visual feedback loops and that would fragment and redefine the "memories" as time past.

Obviously, the still pictures here, taken under low light, do not display much of the actual situation at all, but they are all I have to show for now.

New Adventures in Electronics and Computers!

I am really new to electronics, programming and interfacing with the computer beyond the mouse and keyboard, but I am really excited about the possibilities for future projects. 

Here is my Arduino and a photocell I put together in order to interface using light sensing. This is pretty basic, but I got a resolution control program working with light readings. 

I am currently working this into an installation project that will deal with projections and memory. I will be done in two weeks and will, hopefully, film the interactions to display here.

Simulacrum project

Here are some works in progress from my new print series of binary/hex/grid compositions. 

The word simulacrum means: An image or representation of someone or something. (Oxford English Dictionary) But I prefer Brian Massumi's interpretation , which states:

 "A copy is made in order to stand in for its model. A simulacrum  has a different agenda, it enters different circuits."1

 and,

 "The thrust of the process is not to become an equivalent of the 'model' but to turn it and its world in order to open a new space for the simulacrum's own mad proliferation. The simulacrum affirms its own difference. It is not an implosion, but a differentiation; it is an index not of absolute proximity, but of galactic distances."2

This new series of mine, based on programing and file codes, attemps to explore the questions of copy and simulacrum by looking at the nature of an image from a digital perspective. What is an image? And when it is explored from different perspectives or encodings does its nature change? 

This is unfinished work and is still in the process of being created.

1. Massumi, Brian. "The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari" Copyright no. 1, 1997.

2. Ibid.