Having reached a point where I am satisfied with the research I have done with Rubber Ducks and their place in society, I now seek to call that very thing into question. “Are Rubber Ducks worth what they give us?” I hope to convince people to reconsider Rubber Ducks and whether or not they are worth their impact, through this series of images. I have collected and taken pictures of Rubber Ducks in places that I hope make us reconsider them. Two of these are images I found on the internet. One of them is a picture I manipulated through Photoshop. One is a picture of the design I am working with so far. All the others are pictures I took myself.
(“Washed up Ducks” 2014)
This first image is taken from The Sun. This is meant to speak to the environmental impacts of rubber ducks. Rubber doesn’t decay, so Rubber Ducks will just end up floating in the ocean basically forever. Considering the ever-enlarging effect of plastics in our oceans, and the north pacific garbage patch.
(“Abandoned” 2014)
This image is taken from the pinterest page of Tim Long. It’s a picture from an abandoned rubber duck factory in Cleaveland, Ohio. I use this image as I think it effectively portrays the environmental effects of rubber ducks. We have so many rubber ducks that they end up breaking down slowly in an abandoned factory. This image is unique as it’s the only image of rubber ducks in a place where one would expect to find them, and abandoned rubber duck factory. What possible benefit does this surplus of bath toys serve?
This is a picture I manipulated of a Rubber Duck in a lava flow for comedic reasons. You certainly wouldn’t expect to find a rubber duck there.
Here is a picture of the current status of the rubber duck model I’m working on in the Tinkercad. I plan to do a test print soon, and hopefully I will improve it before the project ends. Most of the body was simple, as the head was where it was difficult. Because this is designed to be 3D printed, the eyes have to pop out so that they’re visible. The beak was a bit of a nightmare.
Here is the first of many photos I took of a rubber duck. I took this photo (it is of the bottom of the duck) to point out that rubber ducks do have a part in consumerist culture. Also, I think it strange that I spent the entire second iteration claiming they are symbols of childhood, innocence, and nostalgia, and yet this duck bears a warning against letting infants of less than 18 months use it. By purchasing this rubber duck, I have directly contributed to consumerism, and to this idea that rubber ducks are worth having. The next several pictures attempting to refute this very idea.
Here is a photo I took of the rubber duck sitting in a trash bin. Rubber ducks must end up either in piles of unused garbage, or in a landfill. The sheer immensity of the number of rubber ducks is bound to have a negative impact. It is unavoidable.
This picture I took while wondering if printing the design I’ve made is actually worth it. Obviously, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time working with rubber ducks and studying them. However, at this point, I’ve more or less decided that rubber ducks are not incredibly important, and by continuing as long as I have, I am just contributing to a pile of trash. I’m struggling at this point, because rubber ducks have pretty much only symbolic value, is that truly worth printing?
I will close with this image. I entered into the world of rubber ducks through a phenomena in the world of coding. Suffice to say, however, a computer or a workspace is still not somewhere that most people would expect to find a rubber duck. Although I began at this point, it seems that I’ve rather strayed from where I set out. I wonder if, by the end of this project, I will have come back around to finish in the world of coding and programming, or if I will end in a flurry of environmentalist rage.
Bibliography
“Abandoned.” 2014. Pinterest. Accessed November 18. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/165859198752380231/.
“Washed up Ducks.” 2014. The Sun. Accessed November 18. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4468968/Washed-up-rubber-ducks-make-for-a-quacking-view.html.
I have learned a fascinating and unexpected new technique for creating relief prints. However, I hate it. I do not think I will ever use it once this class is over. You see, I have learned something valuable about my favorite art medium: just like everything else, it is about the journey rather than the destination. I don’t carve because I love the incredibly stark images created by the black and white shapes, or the texture of the dried ink on the printed image. I carve because I love the whispered conversation between the blade and the product. I carve because the mistakes only improve upon the composition. I carve because linocutting is a craft that crashes the fine-art-circle-jerk party. I carve because it is a middle finger to the digital universe encroaching upon mine without consent. But I never realized this until I side-stepped the entire method.
I have (practically simultaneously) been practicing two very different “carving” techniques, the results of which I run through a printing press. The following is an exploration of those two processes.
Technique Number One: Traditional CarvingStep One: I transfer the image using graphite paper and a pencilStep Two: I carve the image using a tool called a gouge (on the streets its called a “speedball”)Step Three: I carve away all the negative space (because negative space belongs in my trash can)Technique Number Two: Computer-Aided DesignStep One: Using TinkerCAD’s built-in image generator, I import my image then size my stamp.
In a world that’s full of so much stuff. I feel that expanding on the idea of 3D printing horseshoes is a satisfactory idea. I chose this idea when I read about a horse in Australia named Holly with Laminitis. CSIRO created titanium horseshoes for her easing her pain by taking the pressure away for inflicted leg. Seeing this article put 3D printing in perspective for me. You have this amazing device that can print almost anything you want it too. I really like the application of 3D printing in the fields of Human and Veterinary medicine worldwide, and I’m excited to see how this technology improves medical advances. I became familiar with horses as a teen working on my friends farm and a summer camp that did trail rides for kids. I learned some about the equine species. Horses are noble creatures that throughout history we’ve relied on for big and small jobs. I feel with out them this work wouldn’t be accomplished as efficiently. So I think if 3D printing can help relive the pain of inflicted horses then we should. This iteration of my project really didn’t expand or greatly impact the project as a whole. I still want to pursue the idea from the same aspect as before. Maybe it put a little more fuel in the motivation tank and that’s always a plus. Horseshoes are also good luck charms that ward off evil spirits and brings good fortune. The creation of a horseshoe is a amazing thing all around, and through the images below I will attempt to express said idea.
Ross, Eric ” 3D horseshoes.” 2014. JPEG
The above image is a screenshot of my horseshoe in a popular program called Blender.
CSIRO ” 3D printed horseshoe to improve racing performance” 2013 JPEG
The above image is a pair of 3D printed titanium horseshoes made by CSIRO.
Davidson, Elaina “Lucky Horseshoe” 2013 JPEG
The above image tells a little about horseshoes being lucky.
How has the significance of three-D scanning changed as the class has continued with their pursuit of three-D printing objects?
It was interesting this week in class to watch John take a three-D scan of Zev in front of the class. Scanning is something that so many people in class have expressed to be a very intimate understanding between scanner and subject of the implication of taking a complete image of ones body, and here we are, with 30+ students’ gaze on this process. The openness of this action demonstrates the comfort that all of my peers have with one another. In week seven I have noticed the importance that three-D scanning has taken in everyone’s project. Even my own project has now grown to include three-D scanning in order to simplify the modeling process of glasses frames. The act of three-D scanning in class demonstrates the importance of this technology as well, with three-D scanning being the yin to three-D printing’s yang.
“Suzanne narrowed her eyes and looked away, the table fell quiet-even the kids sensed something was up. Who’s? watching the ride Lester? Tjan asked quietly.”
“Its shut, he said cheerfully.”
Doctorow, C. (2009). Makers (p. 271). New York: Tor.
In this program I am getting very involved and interested in the notion of moving ideas from one medium to another. I am interested in how this enables or inhibits us from sharing ideas and material things, I am interested in accessibility and exclusivity. Speaking different languages can open up different doors, and there are many technological languages that I think are important and want to learn. Markup language like XML or HTML are text based “code” that can be read (or deciphered) by humans and machines. This code specifies formatting, layout, style, of computer software files such as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics – Adobe Illustrator into Tinker cad-STL-Stereolithography-3D printing, Physical object) and webpages.
“…The primacy of the inherent bodily orientation in the mapping…. The primacy of bodily experience in the structuring of human conceptual processes.”
We have been going through this process for about 8 weeks now and I see everyone getting deeper and deeper into their projects. Its exciting to see how invested my peers are, and also to see how much we have learned. Especially with all the different aspects of devices that we could use to design our objects to have them printed. I’m looking forward to the rest of the process and to continually understand more and more things.
I had not noticed this until last week in our all group meeting. I wonder what tinkerCAD means by this, as their statement here takes on meaning for me that I would not have recognized in the same way a few months ago.
“Mind to design”?
Where was the design located before?
What’s after design then?
“In minutes”?
This is now bringing time into the equation.
Equation. For me, this banner does read as mathematical in a way, perhaps because it brings time into the mix. Which makes me think of equations of the mind.
What do the equations of our mind look like? What is an example?
Are figures of speech equations of the mind? Or more like proofs, or laws? Or are they a meeting point of language, math and reality?
I spoke with one of our classmates about this, he said that math is a kind of figure of speech in itself, as both math and language are attempts at conveying and describing reality.
Malafouris writes about figures of speech involving time and calls the process “cognitive cross-domain mapping” (How Things Shape the Mind 62). He goes on to write, “[t]hus, this mapping ‘does not belong to the realm of words but to the realm of thought’ ” (Malafouris 62).
This idea of mapping and meeting points, makes me think of thresholds, it also makes me think of the path traced last Monday between Zev and John during the 3D scanning tracing dance.
Was that a kind of visually equation for what was transferred there?
“She picked it up and shook it. He heard the works inside rattling and flinched toward it. She jerked it out of reach and threw it, threw it hard at the wall.” (Doctorow 250)
How does art and media effect the way we react to situations? Makers is packed with plot and plot twists, and the plot moves very fast. This seems to mean that sometimes characters act more abrasively than is natural. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, it is simply a device Doctorow uses. But does this have any correlation to people progressively becoming more melodramatic? We blame soap operas and reality shows — that’s an easy accusation — but what if subtle applications of plot progressions (like the ones Doctorow uses) are just as easily mistaken for a reflection of reality, and just as detrimental to our collective disposition?
“You can use evolutionary algorithms in the sim and come up with really efficient designs, in theory. And computers are cheaper than engineers.” “Is that why you were laid off?” Suzanna said. (Doctorow, 73)
Last week as people were printing of there projects, I reflected on Sara Redden statement(“It would become abused. Just as much as it would be used for good, it will be abused.”) to Week 6 question i asked.(What would be the implications of 3D printing becoming a ‘transparent’ tool or ‘second nature’?)
What might the “good” things be that come out of this tool of production? The project i am currently working on is make a replicas of lumbar vertebrae. Another classmate of mine Daniel Loose is making a Bra for Women in transition.
It was interesting to have a different experience in the 3D/CST lab this week. Experiencing Zev being scanned into a digital form was cool, and some of the discussions that resulted were even cooler. The hostile tone of the conversation on the politics of scanning a body really shocked me. I completely did not understand some of the points that were being made and I was very confused. The two sides of the conversation seemed to be pretty gendered. I’m curious to explore more how gender is involved in this digital 3D world, as we know it is from the Google searches of “3D man” and “3D woman.”
People have started to make the jump to fully printing their ideas. I’ve noticed a bit of a lull in motivation regarding our projects lately, although I feel like that can be chalked up to the short week and the break in sight. By now, the novelty of the modeling software we have learned has long since faded, but the vision everyone has of their finished product is still strong in our minds. I’m excited to see how the work in lab time goes this week and during Week 9.
The mind croggling Ponzi scheme is the closest thing to a business model we’ve heard yet from the chip-addled techno-hippies of the New Work and its post-boom incarnation.” Makers, 243
“He’s the king of the trolls.” Makers, 244
It’s worth noting that at the end of his nasty article, Freddy leaves the email “honestfred,” so at least on some level he thinks or pretends to think that he’s just being honest. How would it affect us if we added to our CST observations 1 person who conspired against everyone else?
If someone pointed out all the folly of a young college kid like me trying to explore meaning by 3-d printing poetry, maybe a little too idealistic about it, I think it might just make me want to do it better. I don’t know if we need someone who is blatantly mean, because it would kind of hurt my feelings if I got a Freddy-like critique. But I feel like people just kind of accept other peoples’ projects without getting to know the intricacies that well and just say “wow that’s cool.” I’d like to teach other people about my project just so I can learn more about it.
I’ve really enjoyed the role tools have played in this course. last week, watching Zev get scanned was pretty incredible. I recall being seven and playing a video game that probably took many months to create, both in drawing and function. Though now, within minutes, we had an identifiable recreation of Zev on a computer screen. What does this mean for identity? We saw last week as well how different google searches for “3D Men” and “3D Women” could be. I’m reminded of facebook and the dichotomy often seen in peoples photos; that is, ones taken of themselves, or chosen to be profile pictures, often look a great deal different from what photos others tag them in. . .
The attached video shows how sound waves can be manipulated in relation to physical material… Pretty neat stuff, kind of a silly video though. . .
Steph brings up the politics of 3D scanning. Representation and agency of a body that we lose control over once its uploaded to the web, but gain the ability to manipulate and distort the body? Zev is unmoved. He volunteers to be scanned and in what appears to be some sort of mating dance (from an alien perspective) leads to the production of a virtual Zev body, that could be birthed through the womb of 3D printer. Reproduction in its most abiotic form.
“Webcam sites are a recent invention in a long line of practices in which human animals capture their nonhuman counterparts for the explicit purpose of watching them.” Yes Naturally 165
“I argue that MSA marks and lines externalize nothing but the very process of externalization. That is, they are enactive projections.” How Things Shape the Mind 193
How are humans projecting “themselves” and how are those experiences mediated? Are we expanding our consciousness to other avatars or merely looking through little glass windows? We create machines that enable us to view a scene transmitted from thousands of miles away, are we there experiencing it? If our creations are physical projections, manifested cognition, has our agency been funneled into an entity with self-governance separate from out own? If a man clones himself do they collectively have the same level of agency or is the progenitor the master? Chronology is the only difference between them, if the clone went back in time he could be the creator of the original. Perhaps the relationship should not be hierarchical. Perhaps as we continue to create machines that outperform our abilities we should view them as “enactive projections.” However we should be wary of possessive creating. It is true that without the creator there would be no creations but humans are not the only creators. Evolutionary progress is inevitable and can occur by an infinite variety of means. It is conceivable that robots and machines could be born without our interference. Given the impossible scale of the universe and its timeline, random particulates in space could construct themselves haphazardly, asteroids striking planets, diasporas of elements rippling outward by supernovas. Perhaps in some place and time in the universe debris from a passing comet collided with lunar satellite, smashing them perfectly to form a robot. Entropy fluctuates by itself, we are not its only regressor.
This week we encountered a new parameter of 3d printing our prospective objects: time constraints. The time constraint of 9 hours of total printing time definitely is not workable for some projects, including mine. Printing one sheet of my fabric takes roughly four hours and produces about 5 square inches of chainmail which is unfortunately not anywhere near the amount that it will take to cover 1/4 of my model’s torso. While this time parameter is frustrating i think it is a healthy reminder that part of design is an art form characterized by constraints and running into constant obstacles that hinder the ability to produce a final product. I am content with the notion that my piece may not be fully formed by the end of week 10, however the potential is there.
“…(T)he primacy of the inherent bodily orientation in the mapping…. (T)he primacy of bodily experience in the structuring of human conceptual processes.” Malafouris p.64
This quote and Malafouris in general interests me because one I have always been interested in non-dualistic theories of consciousness and cognition. This past week I made my observations sheerly from a non-dual perspective. Malfouris theory makes me wonder if thought is nothing other than past/future, feedback loops of sensory data and other information. Or what about imagination? Im hoping Malfouris will begin to discuss the imagination and visionary experiential spaces will all encounter interiorly. Its one of the most magical aspects of our humanness and we have yet to understand it, and maybe we can’t and its beyond theorization never to be localized only subjectively experienced and explored. Has western culture placed to much of an emphasis on thinking, time, self, and symbols? Not saying there not useful but time is an abstract concept and our symbols are static and rather arbitrary when it comes to trying to fathom the flux mysterium tremendum which has just created a quaking mess, because everybody has been conditioned to play roles and act, forgetting that every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique immeasurable action of the total universe.
“Animal behavior, as it occurs without immediate human presence is, as it were, digitally colonized and domesticated, taken up in spheres of human meaning making.” – Yes, Naturally p.166
What is the relationship between Africam, CCTV and the methods of cultural anthropology?
What are we doing/what relationship is made/what structures do we operate within when we watch each other from across the CAL lab?
I think it is possible to watch remotely, even when occupying the same physical space. I think it is important to objectify our methods of voyuerism, to peer deeply into what draws us (yes, naturally?) into these roles. I wonder if we could perform within the processes of surveillance. Could we enact artisitic technological intervention in the everyday? If well-placed and ubiquituous cameras have altered our physical landscapes, why dow e continue to go about our “business as usual”? I wonder what the possibilities could be for intentionally haptic interactions with cameras, even with each other.
An exhibit I kept drawing back to when thinking for this post:
Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez Pena: The Year of the White Bear and Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West (1992-1994)
“Is mark making a necessary condition for symboling?” (Malafouris 180)
“Trust is assumed in the system” (Doctorow 271).
This week in CST/3D lab, our assumed trust in the system became a central theme. Tinkercad was undergoing maintenance once again, so the class took advantage of the time to demonstrate how 3D scanning worked. We discussed the politics of 3D scanning bodies: Can we assume that the “next big thing” is a good thing? There are social repercussions of literally objectifying people through this technology. What actions do we need to take to defend this from spiraling out of control?
One assumption is that scanning data leads to “greater” knowledge of information (i.e. identification). This confronts the issue of accessibility to data and the power that is inherited from it. How will 3D scanning technologies put different bodies at risk and on display?
Like photography, 3D scanning has the potential to change the way that we think about ourselves in the world. But is photography a choice or an assumed power? Do women really have a choice when we live in a world of ubiquitous surveillance/monitoring/scanning?
Surveillance is tied to discrimination. We must proceed this with disbelief in the system, not trust.
There are two issues that need to be considered in regards to getting our projects printed. First, there are a lot of things that need to be printed, and second, not everything is going to print flawlessly on the first try. Only by actually printing an object can it be seen whether or not everything is scaled properly, that the fill is correct, and that the projects are going to behave like we thought they would. On my first attempt, a part was warped and needed adjustments in fill percentage and and to overall thickness. If there are multiple parts, it can take awhile.
“Perry gave him a mock glare. “You have no right to say anything on this score.” He darted a glance at Suzanne and saw that she was blushing.”
Excerpt From: Doctorow, Cory. “Makers.” iBooks.
The further into Makers we get, the less Suzanne is observing and the more she is being observed. This is similar to my experience this week when I gave a short demo of 3d scanning. I really enjoyed hearing all of the different observations from my classmates in Sarah’s seminar group, it really gave me an outside perspective of 3d scanning. Some thought that it appeared as though Zev and I were participating in some sort of romantic dance, this is something that is hard to see as a participant. I’m excited to see what will come from the 3d scans and to engage in more conversation about this new handheld technology.
The following images should provide an idea of what the OpenJSCAD platform looks like and provides examples of basic code. Throughout the process of choosing, creating and taking images related to my project I see how deceiving imagery can be within my particular project. The two more complicated designs that I made myself, don’t really look that complicated but took me three weeks to figure out. This process has helped me develop more possible ideas for a final 3d printed object as it has helped me visualize what I have been working on and what will best represent my project.
Above is my most complicate design. Spheres that get bigger in radius each time but also stay the same distance apart so they appear to be stacked on top of each other.
This is an example of an advanced design created by Joost Niewenhuijse, a member of the OpenJSCAD community.
This is another advanced design done by Derrick Oswald, its a 3d globe.
This is a prototype of what I want to print for my 3d iteration. Its a cube with the OpenJSCAD code to make a cube carved into it. A cube within a cube. I made this in Blender.
One of my first more complicated designs in OpenJSCAD exploring the power of the “for” loop.
This is a creative piece of imagery done in GIMP inspired by OpenJSCAD.
“What happens to the things exiting both inside and outside of the binary opposition?”
– Sarah Williams, Monday lecture
(here i interpret binary oppositions as social divisions of human/computer, male/female, work/family, colonizer/colonized, friend/lover, hetero/homo,”unmarked personhood”/racial-, ethnic-, and class-marked identities)
How does a simple “boundary” reverberate to make the world intelligible?
I am thinking about source codes and the various forms of hacking. Hacking which takes place inside of the virtual body and hacking which takes place inside the intimate body. Here, I would define a virtual body as nonsingular and not an entity, but rather, the interaction between human and computer. Similarly, I would not define an intimate body as singular entity in itself, but the mediation between human and the aesthetics of attachment. From Lauren Berlant, I quote, “Contradictory desires mark the intimacy of daily life: people want to be both overwhelmed and omnipotent, caring and aggressive, known and incognito.” (Berlant 5)
In what ways do these new binary oppositions (offered by Berlant:: of overwhelmed/omnipotent, caring/aggressive, known/incognito) serve to uphold the social divisions of our society? On a related note, how do they help to potentially answers questions about what virtual & intimate hackings of the body would look or feel like?
When I think about what it would mean for me to create a source code for my body, the boundaries between virtual and intimate become challenged. I was born with a code already governing my body, but because it was a “fixed” code serving to uphold standards of normativity, it had no real stability amongst myself and the multitude of bodies (imaginary, sexualized, gendered, laboring, and technologically augmented) that I grew into//am becoming. I inhabit a space that is subject to constant fluctuation. I am in body drift. I circulate, fluidly, and transgress. In my liquid drifting state, I am both overwhelmed and omnipotent, caring and aggressive (intermediating w/ myself and my multitude of bodies), and asking to be both known and incognito as I attempt to overcome the predetermined, and hack (or rewrite) my own bodily code.
“Nothing is as imaginary as the material body.” (Kroker 3)
Berlant, Lauren. Intimacy. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2000. Print.
Kroker, Arthur. Body Drift: Butler, Hayles, Haraway. N.p.: U of Minnesota, 2012. Print.
Because of Veteran’s day, this past week was a bit different. We found ourselves thrust into a different situation, A situation where we had to fulfill the roles of embedded journalists and 3D designers simultaneously. To some degree, I think that’s what we were supposed to have been doing, but this allowed us to actually “get it”. However, Monday also appeared confusing. It seemed as though we knew what were supposed to be doing, and that we did not, at the same time. The question is: “What do we do when that happens?” The answer appears to have been “Hell if I know, but we’ll likely get something out of it.”
There was much less time spent in the CST labs this week as compared to in the past, but even with that limitation, I felt that the level of discourse perhaps went beyond anything that had happened in earlier weeks. Because the time was devoted entirely to discussion, the classroom time felt much more valuable, … Continue reading »
“How can competitors become imitators, and how does that relate to the conceptual mind?” (Doctorow 262)
“Markings matter because they constitute putative evidence for the presence, or the origin, of symbolically mediated behavior.” (Malafouris 183)
How can the lines and edges implemented in the engravements of fragments through the finger-work of our ancestors compare to that of the lines and edges that come from our 3D Printers when they are creating an object? This is what comes to my mind when reading our texts since we have been discussing the relations between technology and human cognition. I also wonder in factual support like technological culture, how technology changes people’s “culture” ,(aka: the way we live), and the societal boundaries of what is right and wrong. If technology exceeded to a point beyond our current conception of the future, would it be morally correct to print fetus beads?
Why are humans so drawn to taking and saving photographs? Polaroids in particular are an incredible and unique technology with a fascinating past, and have been saved by two men in the Netherlands, who figured out a way to continue creating and making new Polaroid film. What is the past, present, and future of Polaroid?…
— This is my version of a chapter in “Yes, Naturally, How Art Saves the World”, Niet Normaal Foundaiton
My chapter is based on Luciana Parisi’s chapter entitled: Synthetic Nature, A Nano-Technological Future—–
A BRIEF POLAROID HISTORY::
+In 1926 Edwin H. Land (the founder of Polaroid), left Harvard University and pursued his own research on light polarization. He filed for his first patent two years later for a synthetic polarizer. 1
+In 1937 the Polaroid Corporation was founded, and in 1948 the first instant film camera was available to consumers. (Initially, Polaroid sold polarized sunglasses)
+The early cameras were called ‘Land Cameras’ after the founder. 2
+The first camera sold was the Model 95, and it is the prototype for all Polaroid cameras for the next fifteen years.
+In 1949 after the Model 95 sold more than $5 million in camera sales, Ansel Adams was hired as a film consultant.
+In 1961 Polaroid introduced Positive/Negative 4×5 film Type 55, which was the first black and white film that produced a positive and a negative.
+Polacolor is the first instant color film invented in 1963. The Model 100 Land camera has come out, and is the first of its kind with the first fully automatic pack film with automatic exposure control, and Type 48 and 38 Polacolor Land roll films are introduced.
+The Polaroid SX-70Land Camera comes out in 1972. It is the first automatic, motorized, folding, single-lens reflex camera which makes self-developing instant prints.
(photo courtesy of:: http://notquiteinfocus.com/2014/07/22/a-brief-history-of-photography-part-9-polaroid-instant-film/+In 1976 the 20×24-inch and 40×80-inch instant cameras are created to produce high quality art reproductions for museums.)
+Edwin Land is awarded his 500th patent in 1977. The OneStep Land Camera is introduced and is inexpensive with a fixed-focus camera. It is the best-selling camera in the U.S., instant or conventional.
+1978: Polavision comes out. It is an instant color motion picture system.
+Time Zero, a faster developing film comes out in 1979, and it replaces SX-70 film.
+Land retires as CEO in 1980, and is the Consulting Director of Basic Research in Land Photography.
+1981: Sun 600 System and Type 600 color film are released.
+In 1983, Polaroid is an immensely successful company. There have been over 1,000 patents.
+1986: Federal appeals court upholds the decision that Eastman Kodak violated Polaroid patent rights in the manufacture of its instant cameras and film. The Spectra System camera is introduced. It has been 38 years since the first Land camera was announced.
+1987: It is the 50th Anniversary of Polaroid!
+Edwin Land dies at the age of 82, in 1991.
+Captiva camera and film system, which is ultra compact in format and design comes out in 1992.
+1998-1999: Digital camera sales make Polaroid the number one camera seller in the United States. The I-zone, JoyCam, and PopShots cameras are introduced.
+Polaroid files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001.
+2002: The end of an era. Polaroid is purchased by One Equity Partners, creating a new company under the Polaroid Corporation name. 4
DON’T UNDERTAKE A PROJECT UNLESS IT’S
MANIFESTLY IMPORTANT AND NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE – Edwin Land
In 2008, the founders of The Impossible Project purchased the last factory in the world manufacturing Polaroid instant film. They wanted to save 200 million Polaroid instant cameras from becoming obsolete. Two years after their start-up began producing their own re-formulated versions of classic Polaroid instant film formats. (SX-70, 600, and Image-Spectra, as well as 8×10) This, all in their plant in Enschede, in The Netherlands, and Monheim, Germany. Now The Impossible Project has over 130 employees in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, France, the USA and China. They now produce: analog instant film, refurbished Polaroid cameras, and its own-designed range of analog instant cameras. 5
With the innovation and magic of Polaroid, what were the early users of this technology vulnerable to and what did they gain?…
Once the camera takes the photograph you know within 60 seconds whether or not your image came out the way that you conceptualized it in your mind. Once the first digital cameras were available the time spent conceptualizing an image becomes instant, and that process is no longer a labor of learning the technology and gaining a new skill, while also awaiting the results of the process. It was commonplace for a person taking a photograph in the early twentieth century to have to wait one week before getting their images back and printed on to photo-paper. Once instant cameras were invented, the waiting period was reduced down to one minute. By the 1970s Polaroid instant cameras and film were cheaper, and more readily available. 7 Edwin Land wanted to streamline his cameras and film to fit in the pocket of the user. He also wanted the experience to be for anyone of any age and of any experience level. 7
So what happens when technology takes a learning curve for a skill such as photography and makes it simplified, accessible, and instant? Do humans lose a part of the process? What happens to the time and space once spent learning how to load analog film, using a light meter, and manually focus the lens and set the aperture before even taking the photograph? Point and shoot cameras have been around for consumers for decades now, and our cell phones have become digital cameras, digital photo editors, and digital instant sharing of our photographs. Rather than spending time in the dark room, and awaiting your film strip to display whether or not you have an image, you know instantly whether or not the image you wanted to take was the outcome you imagined.
When we shed the abstract idea of preparation, a new field of questions opens up. -Criag Holdrege
In 1974, Edwin Land wrote, “A new kind of relationship between people in groups is brought into being…when the members of a group are photographing and being photographed and sharing the photographs… It turns out that buried within us…there is latent interest in each other; there is tenderness, curiosity, excitement, affection, companionability and humor…. We have a yen for and a primordial competence for a quiet good-humored delight in each other: We have a prehistoric tribal competence…in being partners in the lonely exploration of a once-empty planet.” 7
both photographs were taken on the first day of my sensory-memory journey across the South Western United States. (( Expired Polaroid SX-70 film)) The photograph on the left is at sunset at an abandoned gas station, the photograph on the right is at a Ranch outside of Dallas, Texas. There is a large lasso, cow skull, and large cactus plant resting against a fence just outside of the ranch..at the time I recall thinking, “could there be anything more quintessentially ‘Texas’ ?”
When I was on a road-trip back in 2012, I was on a Polaroid-specific photographic adventure with one of my best friends, who also shares a love for Polaroid and is herself a photographer. We purposely bought packs and packs and packs of the Impossible project’s expired SX-70 and 600 film, several compatible Polaroid cameras, and some 35mm cameras and film, just to be safe. We journeyed through the South Western United States with no real agenda, just a deadline to get from Dallas, Texas where Kendra and I met up, all the way to the Grand Canyon, and back to Atlanta, Georgia (my home((born and raised, y’all)), and at the time her home as well) within about a week. My creative project at the time through my class at Evergreen, was to use Marcel Proust’s sensory memory writings as companion texts, and create my own version of the Madeline cookie experience. I wanted to use memory and something like the unknown outcome of a polaroid photograph, to trigger my own sense of dreams, making memories, and reliving those memories through my own strange and distorted photographs. I hand-made a book, with some writing, but mostly quotes from the texts that I was reading at the time, and I juxtaposed those writings and excerpts with my own photographs…photographs that would shape the mind’s memory of events and places. The expired film photographs, like human memory, morph and fade with the passing of time.
(expired sx-70 film) an abandoned house along the highway in new mexico
– Kendra and I explored around this abandoned house for quite some time. I took several photographs in three formats: expired Polaroid SX-70 film, 35mm, and with my cell phone. I wanted every texture, every shade, and the milky dreamy memory fading inside of the expired Polaroid photographs.
As Parisi writes, “It is not the same event that connects nature and culture. It is the virtuality – or abstract relationality – of an event that remains as if it were in common in an expanded experience linking nature again to its becoming and culture to its evolution.” 9
I believe that my obsession with Polaroid instant camera’s and film are the connections I make with the mental image, the conceptualization of the image, and the instant material that is produced after a button is pressed on the camera. The mental to material are unparalleled with anything else in the photography world. Looking through the camera, like a bead, my mental conception of the image is then instantly produced and able to be passed around, collected, framed, thrown away, used as a bookmark, or sent on a postcard to a friend. All things become possible in the magic of an instant film photograph.
Polaroid 600 round film// this photo was taken during low tide at Priest Point Park, in Olympia, Washington. I wanted to capture the decay and soaked tree branches, weighed down from the algae that grows on their limbs during high tide. The ecological state of being from one time of day to another is truly remarkable. A different set of rules apply to the ecosystem of the trees and their roots, all depending upon the moon cycle and the tides.
The impact of instant film and cameras are incalculable to me.
Although the chemicals used to create such images are caustic and non-sustainable, their material has hardly the impact of one cell phone being crushed in a landfill, or sent to an Asian manufacturer where the employees are exposed to the toxic materials used to create smart phone screens. There will always be question to what the purpose or reason is behind creating and handling material objects. Our memories are now held within the confines of social media, text messages, and cell phone photographs. Where does nature end and where does it begin when it comes to the mental and the material? Parisi has argued, “This indicates not the disappearance of nature, but its expansion onto the atomic field of matter: inorganic nature acting back on the organic architecture of a body.” Perception and experience are always intertwined and changing what the physical, the mental, and the material of our environment represent to us. Once we interact with an object or project our object thinking outward, and thinking becomes materialized, the process changes.
.BIBLIOGRAPHY.
(a working progress, I have not completed this section, this is a mere rough draft/skeletal outline)
9. Yes Naturally, How Art Saves the World, Niet Normaal Foundation (2013, Ine Gevers, the authors, the photographers, the artists and nai010 publishers, Rotterdam)
img. 1:: grand canyon// expired Polaroid color shade 600 film// img. 2:: me in front of the Grand Canyon, shot on expired Polaroid color shade 600 film
“Marks are important only if they can be shown to be anthropogenic- that is, made by humans. For markings to have value, they must be artificial” (Malafouris, 185).
Why is the cognitive effort of participating in artificial creation inherently valued by humans? Is the interactive mental process of marking or “scribbling” in some ways, more valuable than the visually symbolic (outcome) representation being produced by that same marking or scribbling? I like to think of all the necessary steps that were required for paleolithic cave painting along with any other form of environmental marking so long ago. There was a concentrated effort needed to gather proper materials and conscious organization in order to make the printed exchange of ideas between mind and environment entirely possible. Recognizing this effort is critical when attempting to distinguish particular symbolic value relevant to a carving, marking, or drawing. The paint, along with the hand that is manipulating it, collaborate in transparency with one another, growing into a dynamic comparable to a performance. The performance alone, can often be the harbinger of personal relief and accomplishment. Witnessing the creative actions and research intensive steps being taken by fellow classmates in preparation for our conclusive 3D production, I can see the similarities in exalting efforts. The creative process is blended with social pressures, personal integrity, and internal representation, all for a single object’s manifestation of interest and theory. Can this established effort be compared to the performance transparency of marking or any other form of symbolic interaction?
Recently I have been able to connect people in the class with material tools. I connected Cooper with my electric guitar and effects board setup and after showing him all the sounds he could make, he made art that surpassed his own imagination of what his sound could be. There is a great power behind connecting creators with the tools to create. I was also able to help and assist V in using a Wacom tablet to trace in his drawings of his spine into Adobe Illustrator. I believe the purpose of technology is to make life more simple, not more complicated. Good creators create–great creators create the frameworks, structure, and space for others to create. In “Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix,” when Jimi was finally able to be connected with his first guitar and subsequent material instruments such as amps and effects it enabled him to create so much more. (Cross)
“Human animals like watching non human animals.” (Foundation, 165)
“From the first cities onward, urbanization has been accompanied by processes of catchingand containing animals, both physically and metaphorically, within realms dominated by humans.” (Foundation, 166)
How/ why are we as a race creating boundaries and disconnecting ourselves from each other and the earth?
Throughout the class I have noticed how humans have in time have disconnected themselves from the earth and with others. We keep building walls and segregating ourselves with religion, race, countries, cities, etc. We separate ourselves from plants and animals, and separate ourselves from our food, our water, our clothes, and almost everything we own and use. The thing that it seems we have been connecting to is technology, and integrating technology into our homes, and into our personal lives more and more. In a sense technology has the potential to help bridge this gap and reconnect us with each other and with the earth in a beneficial and positive way. I think for this to happen we need a intentional global conscious change.
He wanted to tell her that she had never once seen him as a sexual being when he was big and fat, but that he had no trouble seeing her as one now that she was getting old and a little saggy, and so where did she get off criticizing his emotional maturity” (Makers, 251)?
My ears tend to perk up a little when I hear the word “objectification.” As a human being, I’ve been the objector, as well as the objectee. Tensions always seem to rise around this issue, my own included. However, I’ve recently got clear my role in this conceptual human comedic tragedy. People have their perspectives, their passions, their pleasures. And, people get hurt. And most people aren’t willing to be responsible for their role in either circumstance, up to and including the perception that objectification is real, and that it is being done by someone, willingly, to someone else, against their will. The question to ask is, not, what is the role 3D printing plays in supporting/abdicating objectification? But rather, what is my role in allowing an abstract concept to relinquish me of my responsibility toward realizing my own humanity?
Every step he took, he saw that ruin of a face, the compound fracture, the luminous blood around his groin. He made it halfway to the guesthouse before he found himself leaning against a shanty, throwing up. Tears and bile streaming down his face, chest heaving, Lester decided that this wasn’t about fun anymore. Lester came to understand what it meant to be responsible for other people’s lives. When he stood up and wiped his face on the tail of his tight, glittering shirt, he was a different person” (Makers, 274).
This rough image acts as kindling in which to heat the flames underneath my project. After a mirad of failed prototypes ranging from hinged rings, jump rings, semicircular clips, clamps, and now open links. In CAD, chainmail is one of the simplest things generatable, yet the ability to print chainmail style fabric that can be continuously added to is proving to be quite difficult for the machine to process, as well as it difficult to design around fickle parameters. I’ve included my many failures as well as one in the process of happening that I took on my iPhone on 11/14, accompanied by a picture of a 3d printed bra (which, yes, I am aware exists thank you) and a closed chainmail style fabric. The quote i incorporated is the conceptual spine in which my project is based and from theorist Jose Muñoz. The figure at the bottom is Kat, my model and friend, who will be the recipient of this garment once this program is complete. This rough collage is a reflective of my current anxieties around this piece: the surmounting errors, the thesis I work to articulate, and the person I am doing this work for are all factors that are dependent on the completion of this work, and this honestly scares me. Although the completion of this project is being approached with trepidation, I have confidence that the end result will be cohesive and informative.
“Most world-dominating plans went sour, while a hefty proportion of modest plans to Make Something Cool actually worked out pretty well, paid the bills, and put food on the table.” (Doctorow 249)
Should we live with intention or just let things happen? How much say do we have in our path? If the ambitious plans to create something significant go “sour”, but tinkering around to just make something cool leads to success and food on the table, how can we trust our intentions will ever be met? According to the above quote, it seems like people have to avoid their goals in order to reach them which doesn’t make sense to me.
In the debate between body over mind vs. mind over body my personal belief is their power over one another is equal. Through meditation you can lower your stress levels and increase your health but you can also affect you mind by treating your body better so that you can develop a better outlook and therefore a better mindset. For example in the book 1984 they were able to effect Winston’s mind with his body by re-shaping his personality and creating a new path for his thinking. This is only one example where body over mind is possible.
