These are the results of the second experiment exploring telepathic projections onto photosensitive materials. The first image is a close up from the influenced photographic paper, the second one is the negative side of the instant film, as the positive is too subtle to be scanned. Also the photographic paper had to be zoomed about 200% to be able to reveal the tiny stars covering the entire sheet.
I would like to publish the results of two artists, who have been experimenting with my “thoughtographic device” at a show “Wach sind nur die Geister” in Dortmund, Phoenix Halle:
Barbara Breitenfellner, Exposure ca. 15 minutes, Polaroid 667, black and white, 3000 ASA
Sam Ashley, Exposure ca. 15 minutes, Polaroid 667, black and white, 3000 ASA
Beside various experiments throughout last saturdays workshop about thoughtography, including projections and concentration onto different photographic materials, testing phosphoric influences and eye-kamera construction, the heartpiece of the day was the revelation of an overnight and long distance telepathic projection experiment with Lindsay Brown, artist and researcher, currently based in Dundee in Scotland.
Three different photographic devices were prepared and assembled in the darkroom kabinett: a polaroid land camera, loaded with a Fuji FP-3000 b instant film, a sealed sheet of photographic paper and a little piece of an Ilford 3200 ASA photographic film.
While the Ilford filmstrip remained unexposed and didn’t show any result, the Fuji instant film and the photographic paper did indeed.
I pulled out the first polaroid and it came out snow white, which means that it got completely overexposed:
Fuji FP-3000 b – 1
I pulled out the follow-up image, just as I always do to test the film.
This is the result:
Fuji FP-3000 b – 2
Afterwards I developed the paperprint in the darkroom:
Adox easy print 312
The scratches and fingerprints are from me during the developing process, as the paper is very fragile, but the round shape in the upper center of the image came out after ca. 3 minutes of developing time.
My next focus will be on gathering thoughts, reflections and speculations about how the photographic material could get influenced and exposed. I can feel already, that this not going to be easy at all. But as I have been experimenting with thoughtography now for quite a while in a very practical way, it is time to find some words and theories to accompany the images.
Meanwhile, Lindsay and me will continue to experiment within the field of telepathic projections.
Now completely sealed and light-reflecting through a second layer of aluminium foil, covering the black, heavy theatre molton.
Thought is a radiant, creative, almost material power, the fiat lux of
the bible. During the process of thinking, the soul turns the atoms of
the brain into waves and makes its phosphor glow. With concentrating
ones thought onto any object with simple outlines, like a bottle for
example, the fluidic thought image will be forced out through the eyes
to expose itself through the power of its glow onto the photographic
plate. The result is a photographic image.
[Louis Darget, 1911]
In “Light Unseen” participants will try, throughout a variety of
thoughto-photographic experiments, to focus, force, project and
possibly expose thoughts onto photosensitive materials.
All necessary materials, including photographic emulsion, chemicals,
film, paper and polaroid will be provided. Containers or devices may be
constructed here or welcome to be brought along.
Thoughts are welcome. Results cannot be promised.
No experience required.
Cost: €10 per participant (this includes materials, and food)
Please email m@1010.co.uk to reserve a place (strictly limited)
_____-micro_research, pickledfeet, Linienstrasse 54, Berlin 10119
U2, Rosa-Luxemburg-Pl.
U8, Rosenthaler Pl.
Meanwhile my favourite giallo “La tarantula del vientre negro” is looping in the background, the kabinett is slowly taking over the studio. Unfortunately the so called light tight molton leeks light — I will have to make another layer of that black monster. It’s time for a Campari Soda!
With nearly all the ingredients assembled, it is time to start the construction of my first mobile darkroom kabinett, to be able to proceed with new thoughtographic experiments at any time and any place. The mobile darkroom kabinett will be the bigger sister of a mobile laboratory for photosensitive chemistry and processings which has been successfully finished earlier this year.
It will be portable, stable – at least I hope so – and completely light tight. Just a comfortable seat has to be provided at the respective location.
Measurements: 1,30m x 1,70m x 2,20 m.
Materials: Aluminium, metal, molton and velcro
See images of the laboratory below, with many thanks to Lindsay
.
This is katiers first experiment concentrating into a mirror, coated with photographic emulsion, trying to focus, expose and reveal the image hiding behind the foggy blurriness.
Exposure time: 20 minutes
Developing Time: 9 minutes, using Adox Developer
Result: tiny, somehow suspicious black spots throughout the mirror
Image: scan of the exposed and processed mirror
The next experiments in katiers thoughtographic research involve a selection of handmirrors coated with silvergelatine. Details and results will soon be presented on this site.
Abbildung / Image: Agnès Geoffray, Night #3, 20 x 30 cm, 2005
‘Awake Are Only the Spirits’ – On Ghosts and Their Media
Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund
16 May – 18 October 2009
Thu+Fri 16:00-20:00, Sat+Sun 11:00-20:00
OPENING: FRIDAY, 15 MAY 2009, 19:00
The exhibition ‘Awake Are Only the Spirits’ – On Ghosts and Their Media is dedicated to a topic that appears, at first glance, timeless: it involves the presence of the supernatural – the appearance of ghosts and (trans-)communication with ‘the beyond’ facilitated by technical media. The exhibition begins with the audio-tape archive of Friedrich Jürgenson who discovered the so-called Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) in 1959. As a result of the strong interest in the topic on behalf of contemporary artists, the exhibition questions why – despite our faith in the rational – at regular intervals irrational properties are ascribed to respective new media and technologies, such as those purportedly serving as channels for messages from ‘the beyond’. The exhibition shows 22 international artistic positions questioning the existence of ghosts, exploring the integration of new media and technologies in spiritualist contexts, investigating the making-visible or making-perceptible of the invisible, and tracing the political implications as well as the aesthetics of such contemporary trans-communication phenomena.
Inke Arns, Thibaut de Ruyter
CURATORS
Inke Arns & Thibaut de Ruyter
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Lucas & Jason Ajemian (US)
Archive of an Anonymous Ghost-Seer (DE), curated by hans w. koch
Sam Ashley (US)
Corinne May Botz (US)
Erik Bünger (SE)
Damien Cadio (FR)
Michael Esposito (US)
Nina Fischer/Maroan el Sani (DE)
Agnès Geoffray (FR)
Kathrin Günter (DE)
Carl Michael von Hausswolff (SE)
Tim Hecker (CA)
Susan Hiller (GB)
Martin Howse (GB)
International Necronautical Society (GB)
Friedrich Jürgenson (SE)
Joep van Liefland (NL)
Chris Marker (FR)
Jorge Queiroz (PT)
Scanner (GB)
Jan Peter E.R. Sonntag (DE)
Suzanne Treister (GB)