Eccentric Lives/Peculiar Notions

Got my hands on this book recently, it's full of really interesting case studies of eccentric people. Hopefully it will guide us in the development of our character.

Jeremy Daly

Came across this useful video on Vimeo by user Jeremy Daly. Here he has constructed a looping machine out of a VHS camera, VCR and a digital projector. I love how he has utilised the time delay on the recording from the camera to the tape head in the VCR. It creates a sense of echo and brings the participation of the audience into the work but in a subtle way, all they need to do is walk past and they probably remain unaware of their influence on the piece as the image is projected after they have left.

We are hoping to construct similar looping mechanisms in our piece, perhaps not using a camera as such, but taking advantage of the sculptural aesthetics of tape loops. One thing that Daly neglected however is health and safety, if we are to create a similar looping device we will have to ensure that the VCR is not left without a shell or protective casing as it is vulnerable to people touching it and receiving a nasty electric shock!


More experiments with Vhs Tape looping from Jeremy Daly on Vimeo.

WON!

Won a few cameras on Ebay. They take 110 and 126 film, 110 is still fairly available at a decent price although we may have to fork out a bit more for the 126, would be worth the experiment though.

Instamatic 50

Instamatic 155X

Halina STB Flashmatic

Kodak Ektralite 400

Vivitar Point 'N Shoot

All of these cameras are amateur and were used for snapshots in their day, each with their own aesthetics which we intend to experiment with. 

VHS Generation Loss

This video shows the gradual degradation of VHS tape as it is re-recorded over and over again. This will be a great method to manipulate footage and make it seem beaten up, old and even detached from reality (which will be a great way of exploring our characters inner thought processes).

Interesting Toy

Stumbled across these instructions on how to convert an old fisher price movie viewer into a super8mm viewer!

http://home.pacbell.net/mnyberg/super8mm/super8_41.html

Could be fun and relevant to the project as a way of displaying the super8mm footage. I will be keeping an eye out for one of these toy viewers, although I have a feeling they were mostly available in the US.

110 film development

I found this resource for 110 film development which could be useful, they develop and print 24 for £4.99, so not too bad.

http://www.110processing.co.uk/index.htm

Superstition

I have found a useful resource for various superstitious beliefs. They are presented on the website in alphabetical order so we can reference these in relation to various parts of the research, blueprints, machines etc.

http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/scary.html

Ice House Detroit

Flavorpill sent me a link to Ice House Detroit by Gregory Holm and Matthew Radune. It involves using disused property to create an intriguing ice sculpture. The manipulation of the space and the juxtaposition with the urban landscape and non-snowy weather adds to the curiosity of the piece.

Hopefully the reaction to our piece will be similar to this, as if stumbling unexpectedly from one world to another.

Currently Reading:

'The Cabinet of Curiosities or Wonders of the World Displayed; forming a repository of whatever is remarkable in the regions of nature and art' (Limbirds London)

http://books.google.com/books?id=2Y4AAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&client=safari&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

An extremely unusual book I stumbled upon during my dissertation research. It was published in 1824 and is an insight into early research into the obscure. The handwritten notes on the particular copy published on google also add further insight with notes including such observations as 'parallel world' and various underlining, highlighting and scrawling suggesting a previous reader applying these unusual studies to their own research.

These sorts of areas of unusual inquiry and the notion of a Cabinet of Curiosities is key to our installation. We will be including a similar variety of obscure sources in our characters research, displayed within the installation. In the same way that this example is crudely marked by a reader, we will mark books and other sources as a way of relating them to the three machines and blueprints.