The pre-cinema history encompasses a myriad of toys and optical devices that all strive to create an illusion of ‘moving’ images by exploiting the persistence of vision effect. The Praxinoscope creates this illusion of movement by turning an outer cylinder, containing a series of images, round an inner cylinder with a series of rectangular mirrors. The viewer perceives the series of images reflected in the mirrors as if they were moving. The image series usually depict very simple actions that permit repetition and offer the possibility of perpetual continuation of movement in endless loops. These optical contraptions are not (yet) aimed…
Category: MULTIPLE voice/vision
A design sketch
In a previous post, I mentioned that DIORAMATIZED #01 is a miniature design exporation. Everything is relative I guess: DIORAMATIZED #01 may have a size of about 2.00 (diameter) x 3.00 (height) metres. But in comparison to what we aim at with the full-scale installation(s), I can still call it a miniature or a scale model. The top part of the cylinder will house the ‘machinery’: the projector, computer, etc… The lower third of the cylinder is reserved for the viewing/listening experience. The viewer/listener can interact with the multiple layers of the audiovisual projection by exploring the inside of the…
DIORAMATIZED #01
DIORAMATIZED #01 is the first of a series of experimental design explorations that we are setting up in the framework of the practice-based research project MULTIPLE voice/vision. I coined the word DIORAMATIZED because on the one hand it refers to the 19th century phenomenon of dioramas, and on the other hand it carries (some of) the meaning of the word ‘dramatized’. And this second meaning is also fundamental in DIORAMATIZED #01 as it transposes the 19th century concept of a diorama to a contemporary interactive media formula in a miniature dramatized setting. The technical as well as the aesthetic approach…
Testrecordings MULTIPLE voice/vision
Last week testrecordings for MULTIPLE voice/vision were on the agenda. We had the concert hall of AMUZ – a deconsecrated church in Antwerp, with superb acoustics – for 3 days. Not so much when you consider that we would need 1 full day to set up, and 1 other day to get the concert hall back to its original state. So we had just one day for the actual test recordings, which consisted of two parts: – one movement from a string quintet of Boccherini – one duet violoncello – basso continuo We planned the testrecordings just before an actual…
Deconstructing polyphonic texture
Just revisited Janet Cardiff‘s website for “THE FORTY PART MOTET | 2001”. Even though I have not seen/heard this installation yet, I’m sure it must be awe-inspiring: a deconstruction of the polyphonic texture of Thomas Tallis’s Renaissance masterpiece Spem in Alium into its 40 individual voices. I want to touch upon ‘The Forty Part Motet’ briefly , as its concept is related to the central concept of my current project ‘MULTIPLE voice/vision’ where I also envisage to deconstruct the polyphonic texture of music, but both aurally and visually. The first phase of ‘MULTIPLE voice/vision’ will centre around ‘Ein Musikalisches Opfer’…
single-point perspective exposed/imposed
Felice Varini is a Swiss painter obsessed with perspective. His canvas however is architectural space. He explains in an interview: I start my works from one vantage point, which is simply the height of my own eye level. This is only a starting point, a way to begin. I plan the work using sketches, pictures, camera, or just in my head. And I work with the space, considering the relationship of my view point with the space as well as the geometry of the space itself. Then I make the painting. […] If [the viewer] is aware of the work,…
Rudi Knoops 