Neither interactive nor reactive.
Instant film pictures taken with the Polaroid sheet camera and put inside felt photo corners sewn on a t-shirt.
Thanks to N. Hayakawa for the photo session assistance.
As part of the Somethingscopes series, the Zazaziza optical department has been sketching and testing a concept for a motorised forensic camera that takes instant film snapshots of computer screens.
The Polaroid sheet camera uses the basic principle of light polarisation to mimic the behaviour of a camera diaphragm and shutter. LCD screens emit polarised light which allows a Polaroid sheet in the camera to take on the diaphragm behaviour.
By changing the rotation of the Polaroid sheet, the amount of light that passes through can change from almost nothing (diaphragm closed) to nearly the full intensity that is being beamed by the source (diaphragm fully open.) In this way the “Polaroid diaphragm” adjusts the amount of light reaching a photosensitive material–a single sheet of instant film*–that will become the final picture.
A stepper motor controls the rotation of the camera body, from the light blocking position to the fully open position (90 degrees), in which the instant film is exposed for a predetermined amount of time before the whole camera body is rotated back to the blocking position.
After being exposed, the instant film sheet is taken out of the camera body (in a dark room) and developed normally by making it pass through a roller mechanism. Hopefully, all this explanation will make more sense after watching the video of the camera in action:
As of now, Zazaziza has no idea what problem this camera is the answer to, nevertheless we hope it can be seen as a small homage to the genius of Edwin Land, one of the greatest inventors of the 20th century.
Zazaziza has no affiliation whatsoever with the Polaroid Corporation or the FujiFilm Corporation, we’re just instant film groupies.
*Instant film FujiFilm FP-100c was used, although other references of Fuji or Polaroid should also work fine.
Polaroid filters rock.
We’ve put together a wearable randomness generator and display that, by way of a simple gestural interface, shows hexagrams from the Book of Changes (I Ching).
The Hexagram shirt was inspired by and conceived to fit into the dystopic universe of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, a novel depicting what the world would have been like during the 1960s, had the Axis won WWII.
In the book, the U.S. west coast is a colony of Japan, whose rule and influence has permeated and dominated Californian society for years. The Book of Changes has become the mainstream method, for Japanese and Californian people alike, to take important decisions in life.
Whenever someone has a choice to make, that person takes out three little coins that are shaken and tossed on a surface several times, the resulting heads and tails data is then translated into one of the 64 hexagrams that comprise the Book of Changes.
In a way, from an absurdist point of view, characters in the book are embracing and surrendering to randomness, almost as if they were saying “Since the ultimate purpose of the universe and my own life is beyond my comprehension, I don’t see how hard, rational cold analysis is in any way a better tool for living than random pieces of wisdom fortuitously thrown at me by the cosmos.” Some of these fictional people would probably be willing to wear a Hexagram shirt.
The shirt itself is a very simple device that allows the 1960s dystopian inhabitant to obtain a hexagram that can be looked up in the Book of Changes. It also works as an active agent of randomness by publicly displaying the hexagram, thus giving onlookers an unsolicited random answer to a question that possibly hasn’t been asked yet. (Which might make some sort of sense in Philip K. Dick’s universe.)
To cast a hexagram, the wearer shakes the sleeves of the shirt (as if he was shaking coins in the traditional I Ching way), this gesture generates a series of clicking noises and random luminescent patterns that ritualistically make way for the final configuration of the hexagram (as shown in the videos.)
Most components* that make up the Hexagram shirt are really old school. Arguably someone could have gathered all the materials and built the shirt in the 1960s, it just uses some clicking-sounding relays, noisy inverters, aluminum foil and electroluminescent sheets. That wasn’t really planned for, it all sort of fell into place, you see.
(*) Okay, the whole thing is driven by a contemporary, not-from-a-parallel-universe Wiring board. So much for the parahistorical accidental accuracy!
Photograph model: Orlando Moreno
Dearest Zazazizung friends: May randomness bring good things for you in 2008. Hold on, since we are invoking randomness here, it’s very unlikely that it will bring good things to all of you, being it so random, you see. On the other hand, since we don’t have that many visitors, let alone friends, then it wouldn’t make the goddess of probabilities go crazy and commit suicide if all of you, imaginary or carbon-based, would have a great 2008.
Anyways, thanks for reading us during 2007. This year sucked, by the way, but next one’s gonna be awesome! Right?
(footage of some EL oracle telling in the form of hexagrams what 2008 will bring!)
Finally we got the EL sheets. Now what? Freakin hell.
The Hungries are back! and are squatting Zazaziza! For those of you, dear imaginary readers, who perhaps have been living outside our minds for the past 2 years, the Hungries are a kinky family of self-recursive plush monsters obsessed with the concept of storage.
As it turns out, we happen to know the fine folks who designed them, real nice people. Check out the Hungries website at http://hungries.zazaziza.com.