Thursday, September 3, 2009

transverse: senior studio final show







Electrotachyscopes #1 and 2
Electrotachscopes are an early form of cinema machine invented by Ottomar Anschütz in 1887. Operating by flashing a strobe through chromatically sequenced slides mounted on the rim of a spinning disk, these machines produce a crude flip book like animation which can be viewed directly or in this case projected on a wall.   The right electrotachyscope displays an eight second clip from CNN, the left machine rapidly cycles though a series of random but recognizable images at high speed. The purpose of the electotachyscopes is to highlight technological mediation of information.  While on a TV or computer screen these images might be interoperated as a window: an objective view of something that exists somewhere else, the tachyscopes make it clear that they are effecting the information presented, as the position and focus shifts from frame to frame. 
(MDF, threaded steel shafts, steel bolts, poplar pole, bearings, gear motor, film canisters, lenses, LED, LED strobe timing circuit board, nails & slides) 
   

electrotachyscopes and projected images (with disk motor stopped):



mechanism detail


Scanner
Employing the same themes of technological moderation of information and media bombardment, the Scanner features nine radios which constantly retune themselves, individually sweeping through the various stations and patches of static across the am and fm bands.  Each radio speaker is connected to a plastic horn which serves to make the sound the radios produce very directional while amplifying and distorting it.
Scanner (MDF, pocket radios, stadium horns, paper cups, soda bottles, wire, string, gear motor) 
horn detail


The Redaction Machine
The Redaction Machine cartridge contains a paper tape with selected censored passages from a companion book. To successfully read the book one must sequentially scroll through all the deleted passages contained in the cartridge.  This is meant to slow the process of reading, and obscure the original meaning of the text.    

Redaction machine and book (machine cartridge: steel mint tin, black walnut, popular, aluminium post screws, aluminium rivets)  

machine cartridge detail


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