Computational Kraft-

werk
LECTURE 3A
Last lecture:
We looked at 2 artists who use photography to improve the lives of human beings.

• Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

• Ansel Adams

This week, we’re going to look at artists who used technologies that were developed to study
and simulate natural systems including those of human life.
Meghann
Riepenhoff, Littoral
Drift Nearshore
#209 (Springridge
Road, Bainbridge
Island, WA
02.12.15, Fletcher
Bay Water Poured
and Fletcher Bay
and Fay Bainbridge
Silt Scattered);
133"x216"
Laszlo Moholy-
Nagy,
Photographs,
1937-46.
Projections of 35
mm color slides,
dimensions
variable.
Sandy Skoglund,
THE GREEN
HOUSE,
Cibachrome print,
1990
Robert Heinecken John
Szarkowski in the
process of levitating
Irving
Penn's still life
photograph of Fruit--on
CBS 1985
Motion capture for motion simulation
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature
 Digital
WHAT CHANGES?
– TECHNOLOGY?
ACCESS?

photography
PHOTOGRAPHIC
TRUTH? ”THE
REAL”…
1975, Steve Sasson
invents the first digital
camera at Kodak using a
charge-coupled device
(CCD) [an integrated
circuit]
Pre-visualization:

Ground glass on a 4 x 5 film camera Mamiya Leaf Credo 40MP Digital Back with Mamiya 645DF Mount
 permanence of the image

time to process or manipulate the image

What changes exposure to toxic chemicals (who is
as we transition exposed)

from a material who can process the images? what do they

need to know?

to a simulated how similar are multiple prints?

image: how quickly does the technology change or

become outdated?
how much control does the artist have over
the image?
How many Cell phones

devices in Laptops

your home Refrigerators

Doorbells
might have Cars
digital Robot vacuums like Roomba
cameras (or Gaming systems like X-box connect
photo- Smart fitness mirrors like Mirror, and Peloton

sensors)? Apps like Respondus LockDown Browser

Photoelectric sensors are
also integral to factory
automation (assembly lines)
Perhaps even more so than
photoelectric sensors, computer
programs like Photoshop are
associated with the transition to digital
photography
Photoshop, the digital darkroom

Many of the operations in Photoshop are Others, are digital-only processes:

simulations of darkroom and film effects:

Dodging and burning High-pass filter

Cropping Noise and Pixelate filters
Patch and brush tools
Blur and distort filters
Solarization and other effects
Debbie Grossman,
The Fae and Doris
Caudill Family Eating
Dinner in Their
Dugout, 2010
Russel Lee, The Faro Caudill [family] eating dinner in
their dugout, Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940 Oct.
 o Associated with French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s
Simulacra and Simulation, 1981
o “the generation by models of a real without origin or
reality”

The hyperreal o Also commonly used to refer to images which have been
manipulated, but which originated as a digital or film-
photograph (rather than a computer model)
o Especially images with excessive information and
sharpness of focus
99 Cent, Andreas Gursky, Cibachrome print,1999
Beate
Gütschow,
S Nr. 14,
2005, 149 x
237, light
jet print
Gregory Crewdson,
Untitled, 2001, Digital C-
print, 48x60 inches
 IS IT NATURE?
WHAT IS

But what is the

NATURE? IS IT AN
OBJECT OR A
CHEMICAL

real (in art)?

PROCESS OR A
MECHANICAL
PROCESS? IS IT
THE ARTIST’S
VISION?
 Is one of these images more natural (or real)?

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Fotogramm, 1926

Ansel Adams, in Born Equal and Free, 1943
At&t Bell Laboratories,
now Nokia Bell Labs
Computer Nude (Studies in Perception 1), Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon
The Machine as
Seen at the End of
the Mechanical Age
Nov 27, 1968–Feb 9, 1969
MoMA
“Head,” Lillian Schwartz, 1968.
“The first image that I created by computer I named “Head.” I first drew the head on
graph paper. I deliberately marked off the number of boxes that corresponded to a
keypunched card. I believe it was 60 by 80. I drew the picture to match the number of
punches available on a card. The next step was to design the icons that would make
up the image. Step three was to transfer the icons by using another program. The
final step was to use a Stromberg Carlson microfilm printer to print the image onto
black and white microfilm. I used the computer to print the final image in both positive
and negative images. The last step was to go to a silk screen factory where the 35mm
film was blown up photographically to the desired size. I printed in two colors, one
silk screen for each color.”

LILIAN SCHWARTZ, “ORAL HISTORY OF LILLIAN

SCHWARTZ,” COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM, 2013.
From representation to
simulation
 Lillian F. Schwartz - An illusion of 3 dimensions is achieved
by a blending of mathematics and physics to carry the
spectator through a new range of audio and visual dynamics.

1978 The illusion is further enhanced by moving objects through

space such that they are covered and uncovered in
NEWTONIAN encounters with other objects, an expert use of color and a

I – 4 min unique musical score by Jean-Claude Risset. University of

Marseilles, Opera House – Sidney Australia.

http://lillian.com/1978-newtonian-i-4-min/
 Rebecca Allen - The Aspen Movie Map is a surrogate travel
system allowing a user to interactively explore the town of
Aspen, Colorado through a touch sensitive monitor. This
project is recognized as a seminal work in interactive media
design and the predecessor of systems such as Google Street
1978-1980 View. Not only did we drive down every street on a truck with

Aspen Movie four cameras in each direction, but we did it in three different
seasons. We photographed every building in Aspen, matched
Map historical photos of key buildings, made short films of certain
locations and recorded binaural audio tours of downtown.

SPONSOR: DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS

AGENCY (DARPA).

http://rebeccaallen.com/projects/aspen-movie-map
 Art+Com Studios - The Invisible Shapes of Things Past are
parametric translations of movies into space. Single frames
from a film sequence are lined up in space, according to the
1995 The camera movement with which they were shot. Through this

Invisible translation of single frames consisting of single pixels (picture

elements) into space, objects of voxels (volume elements) are
Shape of generated.

Things Past A collaboration between Joachim Sauter and Dirk Luesebrink

– 10 min 22 Introduction: http://www.joachimsauter.com/img/big681.mp4

sec Full project:
http://www.joachimsauter.com/en/work/invisibleshapes.html
 Victoria Vesna - Premiering with the support of Harvestworks, this work is meant to
be experienced as a guided meditation bringing to life the sensations of meteorites
and micro-meteorites falling on all continents and mixing with the anthropogenic
dust falling on our planet from many dimensions. Layers of sounds from inner and
outer space with animations of dust and data driven by corona deaths are presented
with the intent of honoring those who left their bodies without preparation and all
who are suffering. This online version was created as a meditation that is guided by
the artist following the extra-terrestrial, terrestrial, and human-made dusts traveling
2020 [Alien] far and wide and creating complexity that is part of an invisible reality. Most go about
their daily life without being aware of ever thinking about the extraterrestrial dusts

Star Dust – 34 that could be on their kitchen floor, right here on earth. The alien signal is lost in the
human noise and the group meditation reclaims our vision of planetary citizenship.

min We are created from stardust by nuclear fusion, like our myriad siblings – animals,
plants, insects, plankton, bacteria, and viruses, and we all function together in
vibratory fields – bottom up just as nature and nanotechnology works. [Alien] Star
Dust rains on us every day and this piece brings these particles to our attention and
reminds us of our interconnected heritage in the larger cosmos. Dust knows no
borders. Headphones highly recommended.

Watch to 34 minutes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJmzwKgJVmA

 Are these simulations representative of natural space? Of
To consider: photographic space? Of drawn perspective? Do they look
real? Why or why not?