[PLUG-TALK] Art Institute of Chicago exhibit

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Mon Jun 27 07:00:19 UTC 2005


On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Russell Senior wrote:
> I was recently at the AIoC and saw an interesting exhibit.  Who here, 
> without looking it up, has heard of "camera obscura"?  I hadn't, 
> although like many things it is obvious once someone points it out.
>
> It is the use of a pin-hole effect to project an exterior image (usually 
> a landscape) onto the surfaces of an otherwise darkened and 
> suitably-located room.  A regular camera with a long exposure (like 8 
> hours or something) is used to capture the projection.[1]

I have a good friend who's really into this stuff.  Builds his own box 
cameras with pinhole lenses and uses THOSE to shoot pictures of rooms that 
are cameras.  Neat stuff.

> [1] Is it possible to do interesting long-exposure stuff with digital
>    cameras?  Or do the stupid embedded computers and their
>    programmers get in your way?

I'm pretty sure you can't do it.  Long exposure is an analog thing where 
intensity of light "builds up" on the film over time.  Sensors in cameras 
check instantaneous voltages.  You could fake it, but you may as well just 
take thousands of little pictures and add the light intensity at each 
pixel point over time.

> P.S.  The Art Institute was cool,

>      the Field Museum of Natural History was sort of lame,

With all due respect:  Fuck you, Russell Senior.  The Field Museum has a 
coelecanth AND a giant ground sloth.

Oh, and my roommate is in Chicago this week and she was really happy to 
see some exhibit in which a person "plastifies" corpses.  Have you heard 
of this?  Apparently some kind of transparent plastic is injected into the 
body and certain systems are removed while others are left in place.  In 
effect, you get various "Visible Men".  I guess there's one holding his 
own skin in his hands like a discarded suit (to show how big the skin is, 
I suppose).

I think I'd love to see that.

>      and the heat and humidity definitely sucked.

Yeah, but the last time I went to the Field Museum, my eyelashes froze 
together as I walked from the parking lot to the entrance.  There were 
literally ice crystals at the corners of my eyes.

J.
-- 
    -----------------
      Jeme A Brelin
     jeme at brelin.net
    -----------------
  [cc] counter-copyright
  http://www.openlaw.org



More information about the PLUG-talk mailing list