MicroFilm

MicroFilm
Microfilm-reader printouts scanned into DV
2006

I was invited to submit work for an exhibition to be held at MASS gallery in Austin, TX, called [20mb]. My submission for the exhibition is an animated piece I created using a library's microfilm reader. The constraining theme of the show seems to balance regularity and portability with a certain absurdity. What does a 20mb limit signify? On one hand, it is a practical limitation based on the maximum file size that can be uploaded to curator Mark Tichy's web server. On the other, the 20mb threshold spirals off into a consideration of the arbitrariness of numbers which are collectively agreed to be significant, and the importance of inventing an objective standard.

I took this dialog about the practicality/absurdity of standards and applied it to an analog storage medium, 35mm microfilm. Where 20mb of data represents information while always dealing with a balance of compression and resolution, there is an entirely different consideration of quantity of information with microfilm. The amount of text, images and diagrams stored on microfilm are limited not by the size of an electronic file, but by the physical quantity of film. As I perused essays on circuits and diagrams of frequencies in microfilm archives of Electronic Music magazine, I tried to seek out evidence of what made this storage format unique: its materiality. Dust in the machine, scratches on the microfilm and the irregularity of the printed word all held a certain poetic elegance, in that these types of marks do not occur when storing information digitally. It is these by-products of an antiquated storage technology that are the content of my piece.

I created the animation by recording a pass through the focal range of the microfilm reader. I started at one end of the machine's focus ring, and shifted the focus in gradual increments until I reached the other end. At each increment, I printed an image. I scanned the images into a computer, and animated them. The piece moves down through a layer of dust in the machine, through the scratches on one side of the film, through the printed text on the other, past another layer of dust, and eventually blurs everything. The animation cycles through this range several times. The textual information on the microfilm that seems to serve as "content" for the animation is secondary to the instances of dust and analog artifacts that occur in the journey through the surface of the film.

The sound for the piece is from a contact mic recording I made of ice melting. With such a subtle visual content, I think it's important to offer a type of soundtrack that brings the focus of the viewer down to a level where they are focusing on micro-events. The soundtrack is organic, subtle and miniscule, and helps to adjust the viewer's mindset to this level, which is especially important when the piece is so short and in such varied company.



animation	installation	other projects	Deadtech	Roots & Culture	links

		MicroFilm Microfilm-reader printouts scanned into DV 2006 I was invited to submit work for an exhibition to be held at MASS gallery in Austin, TX, called [20mb]. My submission for the exhibition is an animated piece I created using a library's microfilm reader. The constraining theme of the show seems to balance regularity and portability with a certain absurdity. What does a 20mb limit signify? On one hand, it is a practical limitation based on the maximum file size that can be uploaded to curator Mark Tichy's web server. On the other, the 20mb threshold spirals off into a consideration of the arbitrariness of numbers which are collectively agreed to be significant, and the importance of inventing an objective standard. I took this dialog about the practicality/absurdity of standards and applied it to an analog storage medium, 35mm microfilm. Where 20mb of data represents information while always dealing with a balance of compression and resolution, there is an entirely different consideration of quantity of information with microfilm. The amount of text, images and diagrams stored on microfilm are limited not by the size of an electronic file, but by the physical quantity of film. As I perused essays on circuits and diagrams of frequencies in microfilm archives of Electronic Music magazine, I tried to seek out evidence of what made this storage format unique: its materiality. Dust in the machine, scratches on the microfilm and the irregularity of the printed word all held a certain poetic elegance, in that these types of marks do not occur when storing information digitally. It is these by-products of an antiquated storage technology that are the content of my piece. I created the animation by recording a pass through the focal range of the microfilm reader. I started at one end of the machine's focus ring, and shifted the focus in gradual increments until I reached the other end. At each increment, I printed an image. I scanned the images into a computer, and animated them. The piece moves down through a layer of dust in the machine, through the scratches on one side of the film, through the printed text on the other, past another layer of dust, and eventually blurs everything. The animation cycles through this range several times. The textual information on the microfilm that seems to serve as "content" for the animation is secondary to the instances of dust and analog artifacts that occur in the journey through the surface of the film. The sound for the piece is from a contact mic recording I made of ice melting. With such a subtle visual content, I think it's important to offer a type of soundtrack that brings the focus of the viewer down to a level where they are focusing on micro-events. The soundtrack is organic, subtle and miniscule, and helps to adjust the viewer's mindset to this level, which is especially important when the piece is so short and in such varied company.

					about