Our long relationship with science fiction has brought the potential future of technology to today. Technophobic tales of machines and computers run amok have transposed the fear of the future to a plausible scenario today. Scenes in films where rogue artificial intelligences, from HAL9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to R2D2 controlling Death Star Functions by plugging into a terminal to Terminator’s SKYNET operating military equipment have all given rise to the notion that the physical manipulation by a willful digital force was commonplace. Apparently this is not true. Stuxnet has established itself as “new” or “different” thanks to its unique physical-digital relationship and what many are calling a new force in cyberterrorism.

Terrorism is a pretty weak term, mostly because a wide range of things can terrorize, instill terror, in us. I would imagine that “conventional” warfare can be pretty terrifying. I’m apparently not alone, as even the United Nations struggled to define the term. Cyberterrorism is an even weaker term because of the physical-digital matrix of possibilities. Is this a physical attack on computers (person-on-computer: a bomb exploded at server farms, or Google HQ)? Or a computer virus that attacks digital records like social security numbers or bank accounting files (computer-on-computer)? It feels like Stuxnet is a new breed (computer-on-person), a new possibility, but not cyber at all. Its most incredible feature is the remote corruption of physical things, namely robots that do automated assembly in an industrial setting. In this sense, Stuxnet is closer to a Unabomber postal attack than a computer virus. The ability to remotely destroy another’s physical capability is quite analog in conception. This potentially classifies Stuxnet not only as a new class of virus, but it anthropomorphizes it into a more tangible character, a person, a being. If the digital manipulation is not common, and Stuxnet is the first, it suggests that Stuxnet is a type of artificial intelligence. Maybe not to the computer experts, but a digital entity that can manipulate the real world has an ego, in the true Freudian sense. Ego formation in young children is the negotiation between internally-generated desires (hunger, discomfort) and the external methods of satisfying them (crying that signifies a demand for food or for diaper changes). We each learn through various means (physical motor skills, language, etc) to arbitrate our internal programming (gain pleasure, avoid displeasure) with the pre-existing world condition. Once we grow up, we know there are rules and limitations that we must navigate for every biological need. Since Stuxnet has broken the “ego barrier”, it could easily be cast as sentient–a new maturity for the evolution of artificial intelligence.

As a footnote, the added wrinkle that it targeted a specific nation makes this all sound positively conventional if not for the uniqueness of the virus code. But in a world where we physically manipulate digital information, from Tangible User Interfaces and the iPhone and the Nintendo Wii, is it that surprising that the inverse could also be true?

[Thanks to Golan Levin for regaling me with amazing accounts of the Stuxnet Saga]

Tourists wait with cameras at the ready for Iceland's Geysir to erupt.

Duane Hanson, Tourists II (1988). Fiberglass and mixed media, with accessories. Life size

While photography goes back to the late 1830s, the portable and commercially viable camera does not become part of the tourist’s travel kit until the end of the 19th century, and really does not become commonplace until 35mm film becomes standard and inexpensive in the 1930s. The integration of the camera into the touristic experience is a slow one, as tourism and photographic equipment stay in the realm of the upper class with income to spend and leisure time to travel. In addition, early photographic technology is technically complex, requiring transport of heavy equipment and chemicals. The traveling photographer needs extensive training until 1885 when George Eastman invents roll film in conjunction with Thomas Edison’s production of movie cameras.

Eastman is among the early pioneers of tourism photography when he introduces the Kodak Camera in 1888 with the slogan “You press the button – we do the rest”. It was delivered to your door with pre-loaded film, gave you 100 exposures, and was built for the novice with a simple pushbutton method. When you shot your 100, you sent it back to Kodak, they would develop and print the images and send it back to you in an album. The entire cost for the package, camera, film, development and delivery included? $25. That’s $589 in 2010 dollars, so this is a system for a wealthier class of tourist. And Eastman knows the touristic value of the camera:

Kodak Camera ad, 1888. Note: "A Picturesque Diary of your trip to Europe, to the mountains, or the sea-shore may be obtained without trouble with a Kodak camera, that will be worth a hundred times its cost in after years."

But photography did not invent the desire to capture images on holiday. Throughout the 19th century, and well into the 20th, drawing, painting, and watercolor were a common leisure activity on holiday, as evidenced by advertisements for portable painting kits and drawing devices:

Page from "The Studio" Magazine, 1920

The device on the left is a Camera Lucida, invented by William Hyde Wollaston in 1807. His breakthrough was the prism which allows for a purposeful double-image; as the artist looks through the prism, the scene is ghosted over the page. With practice, the artist can trace the image, assisting in accurate rendering.

How the Camera Lucida works. The eye (E) looks straight down at the page (P), where the prism transposes the scene (S) onto the page (S''')

One of the great users of the Camera Lucida was Sir John Herschel (1792-1871), who, in addition to being a famous astronomer and chemist, used the drawing device in his youth as he studied botany specimens (for accurate rendering to botanical researchers), scenes of import to the Empire (such as the new observatories he built in South Africa), and landscapes while on holiday. His collection of drawings comprise one of the most accomplished camera lucida portfolios known. Some examples:

John Herschel, Cape of Good Hope Observatory, 1837

John Herschel, Cape Town and Table Bay, 1838

In a tribute to 19th century tourism, I brought a vintage Camera Lucida along on my recent tour of Scandinavia. My device is a Chambre Claire Universelle, dating from the mid-to-late-19th century, purchased on eBay some years ago. The Wollaston prism in the device is precisely the same as Herschel would have had, so as I use my device, I can imagine that this is what Herschel saw as he put pencil to paper. Some samples:

Pablo Garcia, Svartifoss, Skaftafell National Park, Iceland

Pablo Garcia, Skogskyrkogården (Woodland Cemetery), Stockholm, Sweden

Pablo Garcia, Svinafellsjökull, Skaftafell, Iceland

Camera Lucida drawing on site at Svinafellsjökull, Iceland

As a postscript, it should be noted that the camera lucida plays a vital role in the invention of photography. Herschel’s friend William Henry Fox Talbot, mathematician and all-around scholar, on his honeymoon with his new wife in Switzerland and Italy, tried to draw with his camera lucida, possibly influenced by seeing Herschel’s impressive collection of drawings. He commented in his memoirs how frustrated he was with the process, and that he was not satisfied with the outcome. He remarked in 1833: “when the eye was removed from the prism—in which all looked beautiful—I found that the faithless pencil had only left traces on the paper melancholy to behold.”

William Henry Fox Talbot, Melzi, 1833. A camera lucida drawing whose perceived inadequacy led Talbot to invent photography

Talbot set out to do something about this unfaithful method of rendering. He spent the next several years trying to chemically fix images to paper, the process we now call photography. He succeeded in 1835, making direct image prints of objects (what we would today call photograms) and lensed images of his surroundings at Lacock Abbey. When, in 1839, Louis Daguerre announced his photographic process to the world, Talbot unveiled his years of work to England and the world. He subsequently published large volumes of his early images, starting in 1844 using his newly developed method of commercial photographic printing (an evolution of his calotype process). In a nod to his use of the camera lucida and his frustration that spawned photography, he called it The Pencil of Nature.

So I ask again: if reality is paired with realness, or mediated reality, what is, in the end, the distinction at all?

OUTRACE, installed as part of the London Design Festival 2010, is an interactive installation set up in one of the most trafficked spaces in London. In the middle of Trafalgar Square, eight 7-axis CNC (Computer-Numero-Controlled) Robot Arms sit arranged in a circle. They are robots typically used in automobile manufacturing as automated laborers. Audi donated these arms, and Kram/Weisshaar attached Audi headlights to the ends of the robot arms. People log on to the computer or their portable devices and send a 70-character-maximum message to the robots. The robots spell out the message in light, with one character per robot. Each robot takes turns writing a character until the message is complete, inscribing in light a brief statement around this circular array.

A ring of cameras surround the robot setup to capture, in time-lapse, each letter in succession. The cameras are synchronized to the light-drawing robots. When the message is complete, the cameras assemble the message in a video “marquee” of moving text.

Some examples:

The videos are quite beautiful. Glowing letters floating in the air, the background sky dimmed by the cameras to expose for the glowing headlamps, and passing glances at Trafalgar landmarks like the National Gallery and Nelson’s Column all make for an intriguing series of videos that sustain repeated viewing.

In relation to reality, where is the “art” situated? The view live in Trafalgar Square is that of some robots moving around. Only on the internet does the actual artwork emerge. The impressive sight of robots in the middle of a major public space, all the code and labor to make this happen is incomplete without the necessary mediation of another digital technology. In fact, the only people who cannot experience the artwork are those present at the execution.

Different mediation is required for those in attendance. A person can take their own time-lapse photograph with their digital camera to decode at least part of the message:

Or a visitor can watch the screens installed directly below the robots to see what the robot is drawing:

Both require additional technology to mediate and interpret the real experience. And even still, the experience is not complete without revolving 360 degrees around the installation.

It is a curious net effect. The work perfectly inverts standard artistic, touristic, and participatory expectations. The installation is visible to the entire world provided you do not see it in reality. Rather than augment the real (as in a sporting event, which has both real and virtual spectators), OUTRACE subjugates the real to its virtual counterpart. As strange as it may feel, this may be the legacy of virtual experiences. The Real is only one way to experience, and it may not be required for experience at all.

Projection at work: A 3D tree becomes a 2D image through the projection of its shadow. (Photo by the author)

The above image of a tree and its shadow is such a raw example of not only how projection works, but of how ancient civilizations may have come to realize projection’s potential utility. The elements present to make this effect are essentially unchanged today: a three-dimensional object, a source for the projector rays (the sun), and a screen or 2D plane to “catch” the vector information (the canvas). The resulting effect is so fundamental to understanding the history of projection, that it may be useful to consider the history of the shadow. This topic is covered elsewhere in this blog, namely through the discussion of Pliny’s tale of the Origin of Painting. That tale, written in ancient Roman times, is a fable, useful to uncover ancient attitudes about the shadow’s utility, but not to elucidate the history of discovery via shadow projection.

For that, we should look to the Greeks, who established many of the fundamental scientific and artistic standards the West has inherited*. The Greek civilization looms large for several basic reasons. Many primary documents survive, allowing us to attribute specific discoveries and theorems to individuals. Secondary sources also provide pedigree, establishing inheritance of ideas from teachers to students of the era.

Given this fairly linear record, consider the following projection milestones using light and shadow, described here in chronological order.

Thales (636-546 B.C.) measures the pyramids. Thales of Miletus is considered the father of philosophy; Bertrand Russell said “Western philosophy begins with Thales”. While today philosophy is associated with metaphysical concerns (the nature of existence and thought), ancient philosophy was closely tied to the physical (explaining the natural world). Thales and his descendants were proto-scientists, using reason and observation to begin unraveling the mysteries of the universe.

While great thinkers like Russell and Aristotle (who, living 250 years after Thales, called him the first of the philosophers) credit Thales with establishing a tradition of thought, he is clearly pivotal in the history of projection. Thales measured the height of the Great Pyramid at Giza by using its shadow. There are several accounts of how he did this, but all agree that he observed that at certain moments, his shadow would equal his height, making a right isosceles triangle (45º-45º-90º).

Shadow of the Great Pyramid at Giza. Photo by the author.

Plutarch’s account is most revealing: “…without trouble or the assistance of any instrument [Thales] merely set up a stick at the extremity of the shadow cast by the pyramid and, having thus made two triangles by the impact of the sun’s rays, … showed that the pyramid has to the stick the same ratio which the shadow [of the pyramid] has to the shadow [of the stick].”

Thales’ experiment for measuring the height of the Great Pyramid. [Image from mathforum.org]

The shadow here becomes, for the first time, an agent in generating scientific data and knowledge. The shadow here is, centuries before Euclid and Pythagoras, at the heart of geometry** and the basic formation of math and science to come in the Classical period. The shadow here prefaces the application of abstract vectors empirically translating information through multiple dimensions as we understand it today.

Anaximander (c.611-c.547 B.C.) introduces the gnomon to Greece. A gnomon is the element that casts a shadow in a sundial. Anaximander of Miletus, a younger contemporary of Thales, and teacher of Anaximenes and Pythagoras, is credited with introducing the gnomon to Greece. He did not invent the sundial or its essential components. The Babylonians documented the passage of time using sundials, but Anaximander is thought to be the first to accurately calibrate sundials (as they are sensitive to different latitudes) and measure solstices and equinoxes.

The gnomon is a potent evolution of Thales’ measurement. By inscribing shadow indicators, a simple vertical element can passively inform not only time, but direction (the shadow traces a perfect east-west path). It is also tempting, considering Anaximader’s famous pupil Pythagoras, that the gnomon, with its right angle, vertical element, horizontal shadow, and invisible hypotenuse, that this device leads directly to the geometry of triangles. It does not take an enormous leap to imagine the application of a cast shadow into the drawing of vectors, the translation of shapes and angles, and the general shift to precise graphic representation.

Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.) measures the Earth’s circumference. Eratosthenes of Cyrene was well known in his time for a number of scientific and intellectual achievements and may be best known for being the third Librarian at Alexandria under the reign of Ptolemy III. He is credited with key measurements, methods, and models of determining large-scale data***, such as celestial distances and inventing the armillary sphere.

His most notable projection achievement is his remarkably accurate calculation of the earth’s circumference. Around 240 B.C., Eratosthenes used his knowledge of shadows and the sun to execute a surprisingly simple experiment:

Using the sun's parallel light rays, a well, and an obelisk, as well as accepted knowledge that the Earth is round (sorry, Mr. Columbus), Eratosthenes calculates the circumference of the Earth. His calculation of 39,690km (converted from his standard unit of "Egyptian stadia") has a percent error of less than 1%.

Eratosthenes established the following givens: The city of Cyrene (modern Aswan) lies on the Tropic of Cancer, meaning that on the summer solstice, the sun is directly overhead. In Alexandria, on the same day, the sun is not directly overhead, and the shadows cast are longer than the non-existing shadows in Cyrene. Eratosthenes also knows the distance overland between the two cities (estimated at around 800km). He also assumes the sun’s rays are parallel as they strike the Earth.

With this knowledge, he devises the experiment depicted above. At noon on the summer solstice, a well/pit in Cyrene confirms the perpendicularity of the sun, as there is no shadow cast by the well walls. In Alexandria, an obelisk, known to be quite plumb (truly vertical), casts a shadow. The measurement records a 7º12′ deviation from vertical, using the obelisk and the ground as the legs of a right triangle, and the sun’s ray as the hypotenuse.  Knowing the overland distance, Eratosthenes correctly assumes that the degree measurement, at around 1/50th of a full circle, corresponds to an overall circumference of around 800km x 50. His total of 36,690km is within 1% of the actual total of 40,040 (average)****

WHILE it is virtually impossible to find smoking guns when it comes to our ancestors, it is compelling to consider the shadow’s long history of utility and its possible progeny in the form of geometry and the many branches of science and mathematics still using projection methods today. The shadow, and the sun that generates it, is one of the few things we can confidently say has not changed from the earliest days of human awareness. As a result, the sciagraphic paradigm, in a scientific context, is one that does not waver and does not fall victim to cultural or historical interpretation.*****

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*The Egyptians were able to build one of the earliest, most advanced civilizations on Earth, and their use of solar and celestial projection was unparalleled in the ancient world. Construction of the pyramids, agricultural technology, calendar calibration and other projection-related technologies were well-established by 2500BC, long before the Greeks made their discoveries. I will go into Egyptian technologies in a future post, but for this post, weight is given to the Greek development of projection as a direct ancestor of our current application methods. Many Egyptian methods are lost to time, with only scholarly speculation to describe their achievements.

**”Geometry” literally translates to “earth-measuring”, but this association has been lost, unlike “geography” (“earth-drawing”)

***Eratosthenes is credited with not only making one of the first maps of the known world, but also for inventing the term “geography”. Despite his early attempt at mapmaking, it would not be until Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus) invents the first map projection published in Geographia (c.150A.D.) that cartography is codified.

****One source of error is that Eratosthenes assumed the Earth to be a sphere, where it is in fact an oblate spheroid, flatter at the poles like a tomato (as opposed to a prolate spheroid, narrower at the equator like an egg). As a result, the Earth’s actual circumference varies from 40,075km (east-west equatorial) to 40,007km (north-south meridional) for an average of 40,040km.

*****For cultural or interpretive or metaphoric studies of the shadow, consider the excellent “Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art”, by E.H. Gombrich and “A Short History of the Shadow” by Victor Stoichita.

At the same time, Volkswagen is promoting their CC sedan with this commercial:

These examples are preceded by the first time I saw this technique applied (skip ahead to 0:22 for the goods):

David Fincher’s 2002 film “Panic Room”, starring Jodi Foster, opens with ominous music and widescreen shots of the particular cavernous urban spaces Manhattan is known for. The credit text is also embedded within the scene.

This visual effect is made though Motion Tracking, a process now available on many standard video-editing software. Watch this video to see a tutorial on how easy it is to use motion tracking in Adobe After Effects. Motion tracking is a process that analyses the motion recorded in the camera, and then makes markers to allow users to match that motion with additional data.

The curious application in the preceding examples confuses the standard diegetic relationship in narrative visual flow. Diegesis is the fictional time, place, characters, and events which constitute the universe of the narrative. In film and in literature, diegesis usually splits into two categories: diegetic and non-diegetic. Diegetic content is in and of and part of the action as understood by the characters themselves. Non-diegetic content exists outside of that universe. Diegetic text (seen by both audience and characters) can look like this:

Non-diegetic text (seen only by the audience) typically looks like this:

Diegesis applies to a variety of conditions, notably sound, where soundtracks that set the mood of a scene, or voice-overs of a narrator are non-diegetic, and music played by a character, or dialogue between characters, is diegetic. Sometimes comedy can emerge from a confusion or purposeful misdirection:

This longtime relationship between the diegetic and the non-diegetic now enters a new phase, where images like the Fringe location titles and the Panic Room opening are non-diegetic in nature (people on the streets of Manhattan are not looking up at Jodie Foster’s name), but diegetic in execution. Motion tracking automates the projective methods required to simulate the spatial alignments of a digital object inserted into a real scene.

The application of text to seem physical in a scene seems to be a limited stylistic interest, but the emergence of augmented reality has pushed this diegetic question into new realms. Augmented reality has received substantial attention recently as pocket technologies like the iPhone have promised realtime overlay of information onto live imagery. But before we were promised new states of reality, other forms of media have experienced augmentation.

Watching the NFL for the past decade, viewers at home have had more intel than players or coaches on the field. On the field, the lines of scrimmage and 10-yard first downs are labeled with sideline, upright flags. On TV, a virtual, bright yellow line clearly marks the first down threshold:

This line appears mapped onto the field, sticking to the appropriate yard line no matter the camera movement. Motion tracking keeps the relationship stable in real time. Here is a description of how it works. Sportsvision, the inventors of the 1st & Ten System, has a wide range of augmented reality applications in a variety of sports. The non-diegetic line can appear diegetic as players dive for the line for a first down. For other applications of augmented reality, see BMW’s new maintenance paradigm, Georgia Tech’s new game, Popular Science’s landmark cover art, and the original military application that developed the technology, the Battlefield Augmented Reality System (BARS).

This is an interesting application of digital projection technique, as the computer calculating the overlay needs to establish realtime vanishing points, camera angles, and optical precision. In a way, it is the fulfillment of a promise made by the earliest of perspective demonstrations. In the early 15th century, Filippo Brunelleschi “proved” his method of drawing realistic perspective using a mirror and his painting of the baptistry of Florence:

The painting’s vanishing point was drilled out, allowing the visitor to peer through the point from behind the panel. The viewer stands in front of the real Baptistry with a mirror in between the scene and the panel. Moving the mirror was to demonstrate the perspective’s fidelity through the virtual overlay, through the lack of change between image and the real. Brunelleschi used silver leaf in the sky of the panel, to reflect the sky in a luminous manner, rather than paint static clouds. The demonstration, with the precise alignment of painting and real, with algorithmically derived projector lines to simulate perceptual geometry, is a great leap in the history of virtuality. The addition of the real clouds mirrored in the specular finish, to blend aspects of the real with the virtual simulation, belongs to the ancestry of what would become augmented reality.

William Blake, The Ancient of Days, 1794. This illustration by Blake depicts Urizen, a being of reason and logic, creating the world.

First, Blake is not depicting God. This is Urizen, a character Blake invented as part of his complex mythology. Urizen is a mythical being of reason and logic, enemy of spirits of love and denier of passion. Not exactly God, but the embodiment of a “scientific” paradigm, dispassionate and precise.

What I find intriguing is the relationship Blake makes between Urizen’s tool and position within the sun. The tool is not a compass to draw circles, but a divider. The divider is often seen at sea, as navigators “walk” dividers across a map to determine distances. It is a useful tool, a device conceptually aligned with the principles of projection: empirical precision, limiting calculation and numerical measurement in favor of advantageous use of graphical alignments. Projection tools excel in translation, enabling the user to quickly transmit information without calculation. Euclidian geometry is based in this premise: a compass and a straight edge can divine many complex mathematical puzzles. Any eighth-grader knows the simple power of these tools to bisect an angle without any calculation. Variations on the divider offer even more powerful automation:

Decimal Divider: Automatically divide any line into ten segments.

Blake’s image ties several lines of inquiry together, seen throughout various symbolic depictions of light, the sun, its shadow, and projection (and its tools). Dividers and squares, straightedges and compasses are visible in a variety of historic symbols and imagery, such as the Freemasons:

Freemason's emblem, containing the fundamental tools of a geometer*

And in the below rendition of the Masonic emblem, the all-seeing eye pyramid emanates rays of light, also connecting the geometer’s tools with the translation power of light rays:

The Eye of Providence, familiar from the Great Seal of the United States, prominently featured on the reverse of the current One Dollar bill, has ancient origins, from the Egyptian Eye of Horus:

to Christian depictions of God’s oversight:

But beyond symbolic relationships, there is an ancient projection relationship documented in the Eye’s Pyramid home. The pyramid, seen as a capstone on a larger pyramid, is actually a Benben Stone, ancient symbol of the primordial origins of life and, more importantly, a shadow maker. The caps of both funerary pyramids and obelisks are gilded benben stones called benbenet. Obelisks are gnomons; they cast precise, linear shadows, that enable the observer to mark time and the seasons. Looking at the symbology via projective parameters, the “glory of the light” as a metaphor is less telling than the practical and applied methodology of the shadow. The benben stone is drawn as the giver of light, but it sits atop an obelisk or a pyramid, whose shadow is not mystical, but a technology. The cast shadow of ancient structures would clearly lead to worship for the useful information it yields: temporal data for measuring the seasons as well as astrological alignments and orientation. When the Freemasons and William Blake** render the sun, a projection tool, and an intermediary (Urizen or the Eye of Providence), they are drawing connections between the power of the shadow as an ancient technology and the cults of worship that surround them.

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*For a thorough analysis of the letter G in Masonic symbolism, click here.

**There is no evidence that William Blake was a Freemason, but he did apprentice to James Basire, who lived across the street from a Masonic Temple and Blake was friends with Freemasons and other organized societies.

“Photogram” is an odd name for the camera-less craft; while a photograph captures light onto a light-sensitive surface, a photogram relies on a shadow to make the image. The paper goes black under exposure, but the objects block the light, casting a shadow onto the paper, and that is the image you see. The places NOT exposed are the photogram. It should probably be called a Sciagram.  Removing the lens from the equation fundamentally changes the projection paradigm. A lens transposes with such fidelity, we still see the apparent depth and other real-world information. In essence, it is a mirror–what you see is transposed to the film plane.

A Photogram does not have an original image to re-present as in photography, it becomes an image once the projection occurs, resulting in a unique shadow made by the variables of the light source and the intervening objects–a material effect of the lucis interruptus.

Some samples:

Susan Derges, Shoreline, 1998

In recent years, digital photography has tried its hand at camera-less images, but with a twist. Flatbed scanners capturing three-dimensional objects combines the photographic expectation of verisimilitude with the immediacy of a photogram.

Gordon Coale, Jenny's Moth No. 1 (click for high-resolution)

Christa Kreeger Bowden, Gesture Study

For added complexity and the ultimate in digital photogrammetry, there is the computer work by C.E.B. (Casey) Reas. I met Casey earlier this year and talked to him about “Process 18″, which among his digital work stands apart for its method. (Apologies to Casey if I misrepresent or misremember our conversation; it is probable that I, in part or even in whole, am inventing the back story). After creating a digital image from algorithmic processes, rather than merely print the file, Casey programmed a light on a track to expose pinpoint dots onto photo paper. The image looks 3D, but it is varied exposure on a flat paper, implying depth through grayscale exposure:

C.E.B. Reas, Process 18, 2008

From extreme complexity to the most minimal approach: my own work, a series of camera-less and object-less photograms, using only light and paper called Topophotograms:

Pablo Garcia, Topophotogram #23, unique silver gelatin print, 2000

Pablo Garcia, Topophotogram #23 (detail), 2000

The process:

Topophotogram process: Light-sensitive paper is crinkled under a light source, creating difference in exposure based on glancing light versus direct exposure. Development is uneven, as the developer is poured into the tray, submerging the valleys but not the peaks. Flattening the image reveals the 3D topography of the original.

Almost precisely at the same time, a popular fascination with the silhouette* and methods to depict profile information formed in both Europe and America. The silhouette was cut, freehand, by an artist in front of the subject, sitting in profile, and was done within a few minutes. This dark cutout was then typically mounted to light paper, sometimes with a frame. Some examples:

Silhouette of Ferdinand Ernst von Waldstein c.1800

Silhouette presumably of Jane Austen, from the 1810-15 edition of Mansfield Park

More examples of the period can be found here.

The demand was so high for this economical art form, that in 1784 Gilles-Louis Chretien marketed a new device for the novice to produce silhouettes. He called it a Physiognotrace (sometimes spelled physionotrace), a portmanteau of “physiognomy” and “trace”**.

Gilles-Louis Chretien, design drawing for Physionotrace, 1786

Others followed, most notably John Isaac Hawkins‘ version, marketed in America and of particular interest to Thomas Jefferson, here drawn by Charles Willson Peale as a preview of the new device:

John Isaac Hawkins, Physiognotrace, drawn by CWPeale c.1803

Upon close inspection, although these machines arise directly out of the popularity of silhouettes, they do not actually employ shadows for drawing. They require the subject to sit between the artist and device (Hawkins) or the device sits between the artist and subject (Chretien) and a stylus or other physical element follows the subject’s contour. The pantograph arms translate the tracing to a drawing, displaced from directly behind the subject to a place easily seen by the artist. The use of a pantograph in Hawkins’ device allows scaling the subject to smaller-than-life drawings***.

Thomas Holloway, renowned British engraver, is among the first to devise a mechanism to draw profiles with a shadow. Contemporary with Hawkins and Chretien, Holloway publishes the following image in 1792:

Thomas Holloway, "A Sure and Convenient Machine for Drawing Silhouettes", 1792

Strangely, this “machine” is not particularly mechanical. It removes pantographic arms in favor for a simple translucent screen to catch a subject’s shadow. The artist would then only need to trace the shadow with a pencil (however difficult this may have been considering the light source was a flickering candle). Its mechanism is a refinement on the pantograph because it uses existing projectors nature provides. The light emits the invisible lines that pass a solid’s edge and leave that mark on the screen as the shadow’s edge.

A 20th century version uses some mechanism for alignment, but is virtually unchanged from Holloway’s model:

Mark and France Scully Osterman's Physiognotrace

Taken together, there was a clear alignment of interests in the late 18th, early 19th centuries that brought projection systems to the foreground. A burgeoning Neoclassicism looks to ancient stories, finding a tale of the origin of painting. Physiognomy arrives on the scene, also inspired by ancient philosophy. The sudden loss of interest in the method occurs around 1840, immediately in the wake of the invention of photography. The chemical processes used by Daguerre and Niepce in France, and by Henry Fox Talbot in England, were almost simultaneously and independently achieved. The fact that several people can claim the invention of photography is probably an indicator that the interest in mechanical imagery was waning and that true fidelity, in the form of light captured on paper, was willed into existence.

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Notes:

*The silhouette is named after Etienne de Silhouette, who, as Finance Minister in 1759, imposed taxes on the wealthy in order to balance the woefully underfunded French budget. Because the art of cutting profiles out of dark paper was considered low-brow, and de Silhouette himself enjoyed the craft as a hobby, noblemen in France mockingly named the practice after him. The name stuck. But de Silhouette did not invent the craft.

**Chretien’s naming of his device cashes in on a growing popularity of the study of physiognomy, or the assessment of a person’s character due to physical appearance, notably the face. See more here as well as Johann Kaspar Lavater, who introduced the modern study through essays published in 1772.

***The pantograph was invented in 1603 by Christoph Scheiner, Jesuit scientist and contemporary of Kepler and Galileo. It is, as far as we can tell, one of the first drawing machines, and certainly the first copier.

In Chapter 5 of Book XXXV, he writes, “We have no certain knowledge as to the commencement of the art of painting, nor does this enquiry fall under our consideration. The Egyptians assert that it was invented among themselves, six thousand years before it passed into Greece; a vain boast, it is very evident. As to the Greeks, some say that it was invented at Sicyon, others at Corinth; but they all agree that it originated in tracing lines round the human shadow [...omnes umbra hominis lineis circumducta].“

Later, in Chapter 15, he tells the now-famous story of Butades of Corinth. “It was through his daughter that he made the discovery; who, being deeply in love with a young man about to depart on a long journey, traced the profile of his face, as thrown upon the wall by the light of the lamp [umbram ex facie eius ad lucernam in pariete lineis circumscripsit].“

From the mid-to-late 18th century until the early 19th century, The Origin of Painting was a mildly popular sub-genre, depicted by artists under titles such as “The Origin of Painting”, “The Art of Painting”, “The Invention of Drawing”, and “The Corinthian Maid”. Some examples:

Jean Baptiste Regnault, Origin of Painting, 1785

David Allan, Origin of Painting, 1775

Joseph Benoit Suvee, Invention of Art of Drawing, 1793

Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Origin of Painting, 1830

Some recent interpretations of Pliny’s story:

Francine van Hove, Dibutades, 2007

Karen Knorr, The Pencil of Nature, 1994. (The title is a mixed metaphor, as it is the title of Henry Fox Talbot's 1844-46 account of his invention of the photographic process)

Architecture Historian Robin Evans, in his essay “Translations from Drawing to Building”, makes an astute observation regarding the Schinkel version shown above. In comparing it to David Allen’s rendition, he notes that Schinkel, an architect, is the only of his contemporaries to depict the shadow as cast by the sun. Allen and others use the point source of a lamp. Evans uses this discrepancy to explain the two major paradigms of projection: parallel (orthography) and centric projection. The artist uses the converging lines to make enlargements and reductions in the scale of the image, by changing the physical relationships between light, subject, and wall. The architect requires precision in scale for transmission of information. The sun provides this control, so it doesn’t matter where the subject is; the sun’s rays are parallel, guaranteeing a precise same-scale reproduction when the shadow reaches its screen.

In addition, in all the depictions I have found, Schinkel is the only of his contemporaries to actually show the inscription of the pencil. The other shadows in the paintings are so dark, there is no line visible tracing the shadow’s edge. Schinkel’s shadow is more accurate in that it is not a deep black hole with no definition. Real shadows darken the value of the surface hue, and are not black. Strange that the painters do not describe this accurately.

The above quotes from Pliny have been the source of inspiration to painters since first written almost 2000 years ago, but a larger excerpt reveals something more than just the role of shadows in the establishment of 2D representation. From Book XXXV:

“On painting we have now said enough, and more than enough; but it will be only proper to append some accounts of the plastic art. Butades, a potter of Sicyon, was the first who invented, at Corinth, the art of modelling portraits in the earth which he used in his trade. It was through his daughter that he made the discovery; who, being deeply in love with a young man about to depart on a long journey, traced the profile of his face, as thrown upon the wall by the light of the lamp. Upon seeing this, her father filled in the outline, by compressing clay upon the surface, and so made a face in relief, which he then hardened by fire along with other articles of pottery.”

Although Pliny does earlier say that multiple cultures agree that painting began as a shadow trace, the above anecdote clearly describes the origin of sculpture more than painting. Pliny is clear that he is finished talking about painting and is now talking about the “plastic arts”. This may have subtly affected the depiction of the shadow in the 18-19th c. Because the shadow trace was to be filled with clay, the shadow is painted as solid, and not translucent. Schinkel, the architect, familiar and dependent on the line as part of his trade, is the only one to depict the line.

So why has history transposed the origin of sculpture into the origin of painting? And why was this such a popular topic for a specific 50 year period more than 1700 years after the story was told? The popularity of the image came after the Renaissance revolution in representation. Perspective, orthography, and even lenses and other optical devices were already well known, and as a result, projective methods were standard techniques in the late 18th century. Their visual paradigm of translation of 3D information into 2D was well established. The role of projection in the service of verisimilitude was a foundation for the artist’s perception. Pliny was of another time, where, as posited in the “Sculpture vs. Painting” blog post below, the method that enabled accurate dimensional translation did not yet manifest in painting as a desirable treatment of painting’s subject. The use of this allegory was in line with artistic trends of the late 18th century, when artists such as Jacques Louis David became fascinated with the ancients, and a “Neoclassical” movement had many looking to the past*

Jacques Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787. Classical themes and stories told through 18th century painting.

While painting is given this compelling origin myth, which would seem to be a smoking gun for those of us seeking the earliest applications of projection, it is more likely that this tale was the early development not of sculpture, but of realistic sculpture. Sculpture like the busts of Caracalla and Agrippa outlined below are the product of a desire for verisimilitude in sculpture. The shadow alone could not perform that task, but it doesn’t matter because the role of a precise instrument, one that would translate with such fidelity that Dibutades would recognize and remember her lover through its accuracy, is the ancient domain of sculpture. Painting would have to wait for a paradigm of viewing to establish its domain as a projective art as high fidelity as sculpture.

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Notes:

*This neoclassical trend also aligns with the early American fascination with Greek and Roman architecture, making civic and institutional buildings in a classical style that we still see today. It also explains the town names of places like upstate New York (Athens, Ithaca, Syracuse, Troy, Rome, Cairo, etc.) where the ancients were clearly in mind when settling these areas in the 18th century.

I spend most of my time on this blog “curating” content from around the web and, at times, from my personal collection of images and observations about the relationship of Projection Systems to everyday experience. From time to time, I would rather use this blog as a space to conjecture and even ponder out loud some questions about my chosen field of inquiry. So here goes:

Bust of Agrippa, circa 25BC

I took the above photo in the Louvre, and it is standard fare for those of us who have spent a lifetime going to museums containing antiquities. Countless examples of the artistry of the Roman period, showing emperors and nobles, slaves and generals, typically heraldic poses or as dramatic busts. We’ve seen them carved from stone, cast in metals (usually bronze), and studied in plaster and terracotta. That they are 2000 years old does not generally seem to phase us, as there are thousands of prime examples in collections around the world. Some are more famous, such as the statue of Augustus Caesar as warrior (see below), some are less so, and are just examples of the sculpting skills of the times.

Augustus Caesar, striking his familiar pose.

Bust of a Patrician (nobleman), circa 50BC.

While those of us who study perspective and projection in general focus on the major achievements of the 15th century, notably Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Piero della Francesca, as well as the proto-perspectival spaces from Giotto to the Renaissance, we don’t seem to find incongruity with the parallel skill in sculpture. Most casual students of perspective have been taught that for the 5000 years of recorded history up to Brunelleschi (around 1425) there was no “perspective” per se, no geometric rules governing the apparent effects of vision: horizon, vanishing point, and convergence of parallel lines. We know this not to be exactly true, as Ptolemy showed in his Geographia of about 190AD that using projector lines that converge can help organize geographic information. Ptolemy was acting as a cartographer, but the projection technology is the same.

Implicit in the standard history is that there was something amiss with the pre-Renaissance artists, that they were not savvy enough to invent delineation in the service of verisimilitude. But we know that the projection technology predates the Renaissance (although some may have been lost in the Middle Ages). This leads me to wonder if the paradigm for perspective was not desired until then. It is plausible that the expectations of a viewer prior to the quattrocento are just different than those exposed to Brunelleschi’s perspective*. And the major case for this is the incredible skill in ancient (Roman and Greek) sculpture. The subtlety in muscle tone, facial expressions, and precision in proportion far exceeds the apparent skills of the contemporary painters. For if the three-dimensional arts were highly capable of verisimilitude, then why is painting of the era flat and cartoonish? Clearly there is desire for realism in sculpture, but maybe not in painting. Not only does there seem to be some evidence of linear perspective in Pompeiian frescos (see below), but there must have also been devices to help the sculptor make such high-quality likenesses. The technological capabilities of the Romans are well documented, so is it really likely that they did not figure out perspective? They used incredible projection skills to lay out entire cities, navigate the seas, plan engineering feats such as the aqueducts. The only logical answer is that there must be some cultural biases creeping in here. Just as early archeologists denounced Greek planning because all the 19th century person could imagine as “organized” was a grid, and the Acropolis is not based on that system, we seem to place emphasis on the Renaissance paradigm of linear perspective at the risk of misunderstanding the visual paradigms of previous millennia.

Pompeii frescoes, circa 50BC. The figures are competent but lack detail and modeling from light and shadow. This may be a product of the medium, as frescoes are wet plaster that must be pigmented before drying. Artists would have had to work fast.

Boscoreale fresco, 43-30BC. Perspectival projection reminiscent of early perspective trials by Masaccio and Piero della Francesca, only 1400 years earlier**.

Consider the below comparison: Roman fresco and Roman sculpture, made within decades of each other, and work made 1500 years later by Michelangelo. Clearly sculpture has not drastically changed, but painting made incredible strides to look like something else (more “realistic”, for lack of a better term).

Pompeii, House of Gavius Rufus, mid-first century AD.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Study for The Creation of Adam, before 1508.

Laocoon and His Sons, circa 45-20 BC

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Moses, for the Tomb of Pope Julius II, 1513-1515.

The other curious fact is that while sculpture retained its focus on verisimilitude from the Romans to the 19th century, and painting would take 1500 more years to achieve parallel results, sculpture before the Roman period was equally uninterested in lifelike representation. Consider the Etruscan sculptures below that predate the Roman sculptures described at the top of this post by around 300 years:

The leap may not be in skill, as is sometimes presumed, but in a desired visual paradigm. “Eyeballing” both painting and sculpture in pre-Roman days was a satisfactory method, where a degree of interpretation or abstraction was accepted into the visual vocabulary. At some point, Roman artists became both capable of and interested in rendering life-like sculpture. And to show that this was commonplace, consider these busts of Caracalla, presumably by different hands, but all contemporary (made during his tenure as emperor):

Each of these captures the subtlety of expression, the grimacing brow, the pursing of lips. There is little abstraction here, and the fidelity is so high that upon seeing one of these in a museum you would instantly recognize him from having seen him before in another collection, much as you would recognize a person you know. The liberties taken with painting make identification of persons at times difficult, as we recognize people from those subtle features and expressions, which are very difficult to replicate in 2D.

Painting seems to have not shared that interest or, possibly, that capability. In the 1500s, painting benefitted, almost simultaneously, from the proliferation of linear perspective, devices that aid in the drawing of that perspective, as well as lenses, mirrors, and other optical instruments that could project an image onto a surface to trace***. These techniques all share a common recipe: creating a picture plane, an imaginary sheet onto which elements of a 3D scene is projected onto this screen. Imagine a tree outside your window as the sun is cast through the branches and foliage onto your window shade. The 3D data is caught by your shade as a 2D drawing. This is the essential paradigm shift that occurred when projective methods were introduced to art and architecture, making them more “real”.

So did painting not realize this method until the Renaissance? We know, from Pliny the Elder Ancient Roman historian, and other sources, that projection was well known at the time. In fact, his “Origin of Painting” is the tale of a woman tracing her lover’s shadow onto the wall to remember him as he goes off to war (umbram ex facie eius ad lucernam in pariete lineis circumscripsit)****. Why did painting not evolve using this method? And conversely, did sculpture learn some techniques to copy from life with such fidelity? And did that technique become the manner of the day while painting was satisfied in its pictorial style? Whatever the reason, there is a 1500-year span where painting accepts as its mandate a form of depiction and, consequently, detachment from verisimilitude while sculpture strived for high fidelity we are familiar with today.

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Footnotes:

*Click here for examples of early Renaissance linear perspective from Masaccio and Piero della Francesca.

**I am struck by a present-day parallel, as cinema explores ever-increasing complexity and fidelity using digital effects. The apparent fidelity of digital effects, and, for that matter, all cinema special effects, is short lived. Effects from 10 or 15 years ago were impressive at the time, only to be surpassed by evolving technology. What also evolves is the audience. I distinctly remember the impression a film like Terminator 2 made, with its morphing “liquid metal” terminator. Looking back, it is not as impressive 17 years later. The change in ability also changes the viewer’s expectations of what is acceptable.

***For a more detailed argument about optical devices in the history of painting, see David Hockney, Secret Knowledge

****For more on the origin of painting, see Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

400 years ago today, Galileo unveiled his telescope. This is a red-letter day for science, so much so that it is the International Year of Astronomy, as sponsored by UNESCO and the IAU, as well as the International Year of Science. Even Google is in on it, making its Google Doodle into an ornate homage to Galileo’s telescope.

Galileo did not invent the telescope. That honor goes to the Dutch and Hans Lippershey in 1608. And the landmark discoveries Galileo made with his telescope, such as observing sunspots, the phases of Venus, the surface of the Moon, and the moons of Jupiter, would not be published for another year or so. If anything, the substantial contribution to knowledge is the 1610 publication of Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), containing many of the aforementioned celestial observations.

Galileo gets the praise because of his simultaneous application of a new device and the marketing of it for sale (becoming a lucrative business for his personal wealth). He deserves credit, and we all owe him thanks for his contributions to science. But when considering the power of a device that could not only magnify images far away but also make the very small more visible (telescopes would lead to microscopes), Lippershey gets short shrift. Records show Lippershey applied for a patent, but did not try to keep the material secret after the Dutch government denied his application on the grounds that the technology could not be kept secret. He was rewarded for producing “Dutch Perspective Glasses”, as they were known, for the government. Word gets out, leading to experiments by others, including Thomas Harriot in England and Galileo.

So why the anniversary today when this was clearly a multi-stage rollout, with long reaching consequences beyond the mere announcement of a device? I don’t know about that, but what I do hope others appreciate is the leap that occurred in 1608.

Galileo's description of his telescope's optical properties, from Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), 1610

Projection is, in all of its applications and variants, a virtual reality. It graphically simulates complex forms and spaces, it accurately describes 3D phenomena through 2D methods, and it can enhance existing vision. The telescope, and the manipulation of light rays to create new visual paradigms (far is now near, small is now big), is a perfect example of the power of projection systems. It is empirical (no calculation required), and it is automated (the lenses do all the work), making it not just a machine, but one that was easily used by a larger audience. It did not require special knowledge to look through a spyglass.

In months to come, I will write about other such breakthroughs and, more importantly, the adoption of those breakthroughs, especially around the time of the telescope. The dozen or so years around 1600 saw an incredible explosion of projective technology established and disseminated to the world via mechanisms and treatises. It also kicked into gear what we now refer to as the scientific revolution.

Below is “Keeping Up Appearances”, a competition entry by my firm Pablo Garcia/POINT for ReBurbia, an online competition sponsored by Dwell Magazine. It didn’t make the cut for the finalists, so I post it here. Sufficed to say, it attempts to use projection as a design motivator, in this case, the vision cones of both nosy neighbors and webcams.

“The Jones family, like many, owns an oversized suburban home rapidly depreciating in value. They are long-time suburbanites with multiple cars, long commutes, and suburban ideals of neighborhood conformity. As nationwide tensions grow in the face of financial unease, the entire neighborhood steps up their usual glances at fellow suburbanites’ lifestyles to find local indicators of suburbia’s future.

More than 50% of America lives in suburbia. It remains popular, especially to populations new to the suburban lifestyle. Meanwhile, alternative employment models have made suburbia increasingly viable, as new generations telecommute and make friends online. Social networks are no longer limited to physical proximity, as employment and online communities collapse spatial barriers.

The Smiths, city dwellers since graduating from college, move to the suburbs for more space. They move into the Jones’ house that has been subdivided to comfortably accommodate two families. They share entry and circulation, but have private quarters. The Joneses, keeping their consumption conspicuous, divide their house into zones visible to neighbors through windows, and “blind spots”—places in their house invisible to prying eyes. The Smiths live in the Jones’ blind spots, satisfying neighborhood expectations, telecommuting and living a sustainable lifestyle. The Joneses, meanwhile, live in the Smith blind spots, just outside their webcam cameras, giving the Smiths a suburban equivalent online.”

And in case you think this is either novel, or the shape is a direct result of the shadow study, consider Kenneth Franzheim’s Madison Ave. Tower (@22 E.40th St.) in New York, which was designed to eliminate shadow projections. It was completed in 1931. 

Henry Fox Talbot, Cascade of Spruce Needles, 1839

Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, was frustrated with his inability to draw with a camera lucida. He invested his time in figuring out a chemical method to fix images to paper. Early in the process, he made “photogenic” drawings, placing objects on light-sensitive silver nitrate-coated paper and leaving them in the sun. These are the first photograms, made even before cameras were in use. 

Adam Fuss, 2001. This photogram was made with a strong strobe flash capturing the artist dumping a bucket of water onto photo-sensitive paper

Adam Fuss, 1990

Adam Fuss, 1998

Adam Fuss, 1990. This photogram is made with a small light bulb on a string, hanging above the paper. Fuss swings the light and the image is made as the light-pendulum settles and slows.

Preston Scott Cohen GSD Personal Site

Preston Scott Cohen, Inc.

San Carlo ai Catinari

Embrasure

Also, the sun casts through the narrow slits between the fabric sheets. The lines of sun create section profiles of the space, outlining the shape of the architectural features. 

What makes Walters’ interview different is that Gov. Blagojevich is live in a studio audience, looking at a screen on the set, which is angled to accommodate his view as well as the audience visual angle. What is remarkable is that Walters’ sightline is calibrated to look as though she is looking at Gov. Blagojevich straight in the eye. For this to happen, she does not look into the camera. A monitor must be placed, off camera, at the precise angle to compensate for the angle of the monitor in front of the Governor. There is some fancy triangulation going on here to make what amounts to a simple agenda of overcoming the feeling of distance between two parties. Add the details like Walters’ background approximating the set of The View, and an unfortunate attempt to hide the monitor with a giant fern, and it is clear that the producers are trying to bridge the digital gap by using projection relationships.

Diagrammed, we have two figures, one on a set and one off set. At least one camera is trained on each subject. Each subject looks into a monitor, directly at the other subject. non of these are aligned in the traditional way. All is made to appear as two people talking directly to each other. Add the studio cameras shooting the conversation and this is a complex projection triangulation.