the dossiers » art

Cut-ups and the Internet

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:02:16 +0000

[An online “overview,” first published 1999; most recently updated [$Date: 2004/03/29 19:14:39 $]]

The cut-up (or “cutup”) is a method of juxtaposition where a work (usually text) is cut into pieces and the pieces rearranged in a random order, similar to the montage or collage technique in painting. The traditional cut-ups of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs were done manually with scissors, razor blades, axes and other cutting devices. (Netmonkey.com has published an excellent summary of the theory behind the cut-up method, and another good one is in Brion Gysin’s own words.)

Scissors are no longer necessary for making cut-ups; they can be performed more efficiently using a digital computer. The following is a list of open source tools for cutting up etexts and other data using open-source software. The best of these tools improve on the process, generating Markov chains from text input and who knows what else.

Note that the cut-up does not free the artist from the duty of expression; cut-ups serve as a compositional aid and are not a substitute for the act of composition itself.

Florian Cramer’s “Permutations” contains what he calls “the only technically ‘proper’ CGI-Adaption of Gysin’s/Burroughs’ cutup method.” (All of the site’s Perl source code is GPLed.)
Lee Worden offers a similar cutup CGI which uses a different algorithm than Florian’s, but is also easy to use.
cutup, part of the tinyutils package (deprecated), is a small shell script for cutting up an input text file into four sections and then reassembling the slices diagonally. (a Perl rewrite should feature the ability to choose the number of x- and y- slices on the text.)
Luke Kelley’s Cut-Up Machine is a Web cgi that lets you insert up to 100 elements from Naked Lunch into the output text.
English as She is Spoken is Jonathan Feinberg’s Python script which takes text and runs it through AltaVista’s Translations service, and then runs the output through again, multiple times until no further “linguistic mutations” occur.
An earlier Translations tool is the Transmogrifier; this tool powers a multi-lingual chat room (within 10 years you will probably be able to select a default language in your net interface and see the entire Internet translated in such fashion.)
chef is a lex scanner for outputting its input text in the dialogue of a Swedish chef; the Debian filters package contains a bunch of these little text dialogue filters.
The Shannonizer takes text or URL input and outputs a translation by a number of famous writers, including Hunter S. Thompson and Lewis Carroll.
BABLE is a Perl script that generates Markov chains. It works best on large texts.
Dissociated Press is an Emacs function for “dissociating” the current buffer, combining words and characters to form newords and charcatures; in Emacs, type:

M-x dissociated-press <RET>
Jamie Zawinski’s dadadodo generates Markov chains of word frequencies. One of its best features is the ability to scan a given text and write a compiled object file which you can then use later to generate output based on the original text.
JWZ’s latest is webcollage, which builds a collage of random images from the Web on the root window of your X session.
Ideas for improvements/expansions to webcollage:
- ability to specify a single host or localhost directory tree when searching for images;
- ability to specify the number of random images to output (coupled with the above gives a random-image cgi that could be useful for Web sites).
- ability to save the image from the root window to a file (with as many of the original file properties saved as possible)
- ability to limit images from a site or sites (say, display random images from eBay auctions)
- integrated with the window manager so that a double-click with the left mouse button (say) opens a default web browser window with the URL of the originating image; a triple-click (say) pastes the URL to the X selection.
- option for outputting to an .html file, either with x number of lines or with an image map
- including a text option so that random pages/paragraphs/sentences/words/chars of text can be added to the output

This last one leads to an idea for an avant-garde web-art project: you write a program that obtains random text from the Web and then outputs that text in HTML, with random links interspersed through the text (the link heuristics are configured by a filter file whose entries contain two lines: the pattern to match in the input text and the link to use in the output, either a specific URL or a text value, in which case it uses a random URL containing that text); the resultant page is then a hypertext cut-up. Will sites allow you to link to them in such a context? Will linking out of context be outlawed? Or will popular browsers eventually contain cut-up-mode toggles, enabling a network of enthusiasts to trade and morph their filters, even holding filter-contests for the most unique views of/traversals through the Web?

Free software cutup tools are described in The Linux Cookbook, 2nd edition.

Related to this subject is a page on computer-generated writing.

As is Fuse by Scott Draves. The algorithm is inspired by dissociated-press but works on images, not text.

Another related subject is generative art — art where devices such as computers are used to generate source material (which, as with cut-ups, may then be reinterpreted, modified and otherwise used by the artist). Like cut-ups, it poses interesting philosophical issues of authorship and the creation or invention process. The definitive site for generative art research and free software tools is www.generative.net.

Street photography

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:18:19 +0000

A collection of links and information on street photography.

Techniques, issues and instructions

“Photojournalism Assignments and Techniques”

Lens stabilization is key to making good SP images.

An illustrated essay on legal issues with photojournalism

Getting sued for taking street portraits

Still alive, a photoblog with technique and how-to articles of interest to street photographers, all part of Nitsa’s “no rules” site of nonphotography (freeform street photos). (Example: Holga of Randy’s Donuts)

Good discussion: “Gettting those great candid shots. I am too shy or scared. What do you do? got any horror stories?”

Nick Turpin was featured on Strobist in 2009 for an interesting Men’s Health photo shoot he did: in taking street photos of various well-dressed people, he underexposed the ambient light and then used a few strobes to “carve in some highlights”; and since he didn’t need tripods or stands for such shots he was fine even in a photo-unfriendly city like London (In-Public is Turpin’s street photography site.)

Examples and tips of getting architecture on the streets.

Good examples of street photography

Todd Gross, NYC: Quarlo.com

Philip-Lorca Dicorcia, NYC: Times Square shots, a series called street portraits

Joe’s NYC

photoethnography

126 Instamatic film

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:19:11 +0000

Used on vintage cameras as well as for making pinhole images.

Tutorial with a history of the 126 Kodapack.

(Sold by the frugal photographer.)

Need a manual for a vintage Kodak 126 camera?

Holga

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:41:51 +0000

Plastic Russian-made medium format camera (b. 1982). Leaky, unpredictable results, great bright colors. Used for lo-fi art photography.

“Plastic fantastic!” is a nice introductory article, with illustrations.

Once you’re sold on it, you need to get one. You can get a low-cost cheap Holga itself, or spend just a few bucks more and get a lomo starter kit that comes with all kinds of accessories.

“Holga, my Holga” fun page with FAQs and info. Follow the tips for prepping the Holga when you first get it. [en français]

A page of holga hacks.

Holga cameras: site with tips and info.

Fuji still makes great film available at a discount in bulk (this is Velvia RVP 100 color slide film, great for the Holga).

HDR

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:54:21 +0000

HDR, high dynamic range imaging, an imaging technique developed in the 1930s and 40s by Charles Wyckoff, using tone mapping with bracketed image exposures for a resultant image with a very high dynamic range. Various methods for HDR and HDR-like effects are now popular with digital photography. [wiki] [google]

Notable HDR images and image galleries

I think one of the best diy HDR shots on flickr is this one.
Sometimes these HDR-like images look like a brightly-colored contemporary painting, such as this fantastic shot.

Smashing Magazine’s “35 Fantastic HDR Pictures” (scroll down). You can click on them and they’re pretty breathtaking when seen large.

HDRcreme.com has rated galleries. Do the rated gallery view first! One of my favorites — one of my favorite HDR photos ever — is this capture of the Griswold Inn, Essex Connecticut.

Good gallery of NYC in HDR.

“My first HDR” is a beginner’s group. It’s for your first attempt, and some of the results are quite fantastic.

Need more? Here’s 20.

HDR tutorials

This HDR tutorial also discusses when and why to use it.

The document “Recovering High Dynamic Range Radiance Maps from Photographs” contains many links to HDR programs and tools.

“Edit Away - The quest for a perfect HDR” tells you how to do it with Photomatix software (for Windows).

“Creation of HDR Images in CinePaint“ (2005)

Photoshop

On Flickr, you have to see this short, simple tutorial that shows “the technique that Dave Hill and Jill Greenberg use on their photos with PhotoShop.”

An easy, quick way with Photoshop (and a tripod).

The GIMP, Linux, free software in general

The oddly-named Qtpfsgui is a true HDR imaging application.

There’s a blog post on exposure blending using only free software.

One free-software suite for HDR is pfstools. There’s a discussion on using it.

Contrast blending with the GIMP

gimp.org’s tutorial on blending exposures.

Gimp has an HDR tools plugin, although I’ve yet to get it going.

There’s a Flickr discussion on how to achieve HDR effects with the GIMP.
There’s another discussion on faking it. See also these step-by-step tutorials on handmade tone mapping and simple photo blending.
You can do something similar by adjusting the intensity of the sky in a picture.

You can fake it by blending, if you only have one image: “How to create HDR images in Gimp with a single image” [more] [more] [still more]

Instructables.com comes through with “HDR photos with the GIMP.”

For further reading

Contemporary photographers

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:09:43 +0000

Photographers that are shooting today and whose work is interesting for one reason or another.

Eve Astrid Andersson, a careful photographer who uses Philip Greenspun’s photo publishing system. [random photo]
Bob Delaney, whose sharp, vivid images are shot by vintage and classic film cameras (as well as some contemporary point-and-shoot cameras).
David Adam Edelstein’s haunting b/w street photography and
film noir
Liam Frankland
Ellen Isaacs whose photos [example] are available for purchase as greeting cards.
Mesmeric aerial photography by Klaus Leidorf. [example]
Ex-Flickr member lyrical: where now?

Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre are two French photographers whose series, “The Ruins of Detroit,” covers much of the same ground as my older and ongoing project, “American Ruins”: the wreckage of a once-great nation on the edge of its final dissolution and decay. Although in their case the subject is limited to downtown Detroit, Michigan, the theme is identical.
Seb Przd’s original and mind-bending “images that cannot be taken with physical cameras.” (His open-source algorithmic, processed technique uses panoramas and stitching and overlapping, plus much more.)
Incredible portraits by an incredibly young Laura Taylor.
Booby Neel Adams, who has a series of age-blended portraits of the same person both young and old.
Various interesting photographers are features in the Five Points magazine online “art” archives.
Cole Thompson’s black and white images, like Gabriel of Newport Beach (2006).
Various artists represented by M+B (Los Angeles).

Philip-Lorca Dicorcia, NYC: Times Square shots, a series called street portraits
Quarlo’s NYC photography. (Todd Gross)
Joe’s NYC street photography.
Martijn van de Griendt.
Peter Miller’s photogravure etchings.
Good photos of space at the NASA Astronomy picture of the day.

Dorothea and Sy Barlowe

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:10:45 +0000

Artists and book illustrators. Specialized in nature art and illustrations of the natural world. Worked with Herbert S. Zim on vintage Golden Guides, including the Seashore Life volume.

Web site: http://www.barloweartnet.com/ (gone) [archive]

Dorothea Barlowe: [google]
[Works by Dorothea Barlowe]

Sy Barlowe: [google] [Works by Sy Barlowe]

Automatism in art

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:01:42 +0000

Automatism is a form of “instant art” — the destination, the final product, the aim of the work is completely and purposefully unknown at the time of commencement. It’s exactly like automatic writing, but a picture, not words: instant illustration. Automatic drawing and automatic painting.

Used by surrealists (surrealist automatism) [wiki] it’s a technique applied equally to drawing and painting. [wiki]

The topic is discussed in the book Poets on Painters, a collection of essays on art.

A good introduction to the technique and its history is found in this article from Answers.com, which lists out some of the early pioneers and more famous examples of artists applying techniques of automatism in their work. In 1933, Time magazine ran an article on automatic painting, profiling the artist Marion Bush. In more recent times it’s been called “yoga for artists” and a way to “channel” altered states of consciousness.

Automatic-art techniques

It’s simple. You just draw (or paint), going with an empty mind — you don’t think at what you’re trying to arrive at or what it is you are trying to illustrate. It’s all on process. The idea is to just start drawing, or painting, taking the instrument in hand and going — not thinking, not planning, but allowing for only the motion and the flow. It probably helps if you have the basics of painting already down, so a book like Instant Oil Painting is helpful at first just to learn basic craft.

Automatism as applied to art therapy and meditation

Techniques of automatic drawing are used for art therapy purposes because of their meditative qualities. Called “meditative drawing.”

In the literature, this appears in discussion at around the time of the surrealist painters. It’s the topic of a book by Milton H. Erickson, Use of Automatic Drawing in the Interpretation and Relief of a State of Acure Obsessional Depression, which was published in 1938!

The trademarked Zentangle technique is marketed as a form of relaxation, art therapy and meditation. [benefits] [theory] [galleries]