Movement Study
by: Zachery Teall
Introduction
The external world, outside our own mind, only exists through our perceiving senses - even the internal faculties of the mind depend on the experiences we gain from the external world. We can not invent a new colour in our minds, we must discover and experience a new colour before we can imagine with it. Being born deaf makes auditory experiences inconceivable, sound does not exist in the external or internal world to such a person. Our experiences with the external world get converted and stored in our minds as memories. By taking a photo of something you are experiencing, you are preserving that memory in the physical world as a frozen moment in time.
Eidetic Imaging
Eidetic imaging is the modulation of something that exists externally, into the virtual. Something that exists externally exists as a single form, or rather, exists as only one possibility of itself. Through eidetic imaging, the external is broken free from a single possibility into a visual palimpsest of possible states of being. To create an eidetic image is to deterritorialize what we perceive with our eyes and modulating it into our own interpretation. An eidetic image is a balance between the creator’s choices and the original appearance of the subject being modulated. The fate of the appearance of the eidetic image is at the whim of the creator. Although the creator may not have had the final appearance of the image in mind while creating it, the creator has complete control over how the image gets modulated. Therefore making eidetic images a form of interpretation of the creator. An eidetic image is an abstract scheme waiting to be interpreted in many possible.
The eidetic image I created (below) is a series of photos taken around an empty lot in Detroit layered and stretched on top of each other. To me, it suggest movement through the horizontal striations which were a result of the stretching.
Eidetic Mapping
An Eidetic Map is a map that depicts new information about a site that was not previously known. An eidetic map is the next step after eidetic imaging in that it further removes the creator from the end result, further removing the creator’s interpretations. With a traditional map, the landscape being mapped is the subject of the map. The creator intentionally records specific information about the landscape. With an eidetic map, the landscape becomes the tool necessary for the end result and the creator a channel through which the information can flow. Although the creator is not entirely removed from the end result as the creator decides what information to record. Drift is when the creator of the map aimlessly wonders around an area recording any information, which furthers the distance of the creator’s will from the end result. The less influence the creator has over the end result, the closer the map will be to a pure expression of the landscape superseding the information chosen to be recorded.
The image below is the first iteration of my own eidetic map. It depicts my own path taken while wondering around city blocks, straightened out to appear as a straight line. However, this can only be interpreted one way and therefore is not properly “eidetic”.
The map was chopped up and formed into a straight line
The map was chopped up and formed into a straight line
To remove myself as a creator of the map, I recorded my mouse movements while creating the first map. This image, however, is still a product of myself, unique to my own movements. Should someone trace my mouse movements, the first map may be recreated. Therefore still not properly eidetic.
The colours represent the speed of the mouse movements while the dots and circles represent pauses - the larger the circle, the longer the pause
In order to fully remove myself as a creator, I used a program that turns pixels into music notes based on colour. I then turned the song into sheet music. This is a proper eidetic map because it cannot be traced back to my own experience, it can be interpreted in multiple ways and is also free from existing in a single form.
The complete removal of the original interpretation allows for the image/map to become an object to be interpreted rather than be a representation of the creator’s experience through his/her own interpretation of said experience. A true eidetic image. It is important to keep this in mind so as to be able to properly depict movement as it exists rather than how we interpret it.
Movement in Film
Movement in Film is not truly movement. It is merely a simulation of movement. The simulation of movement is created as a series of stills being sped through very quickly. These stills are also projected or viewed on a two dimensional plane giving the illusion of space as well. This image depicts an example of how motion in film truly looks. In film, time is used as an independent variable in controlling the motion. As time in the movie progresses, the motion on screen progresses.
Movement in Photography
Movement in Photography most commonly uses the same techniques as film - an amalgamation of stills except they are superimposed on top of one another creating layers of transparency. This technique only goes so far as to suggest that movement is being made.
Movement in Photography takes a new technique in strip photography. Conventional photography shows a wide location(s) at a fixed time whereas strip photography shows an object in motion through space over a period of time. In strip photography, anything not in motion will appear as a horizontal blur while the objects in motion will appear clear. This is motion through space rather than through time. True motion happens through both.
Creating True Movement
Creating True Movement is to create a space-time plane in which to displace stills of the object in motion and connecting them using smooth forms. True motion is not seen through transparencies or blurs. True motion happens in real time through the space in which we exist. To depict true motion, there must not be any interpretation or control over the end result. The creator’s role is only to document and record. A true motion image must not be entirely obvious as to what is in motion, as motion exists universally among all objects. The space in which the movement is taking place is irrelevant, if the objective of the creator is to show what an object would look like moving through a non-euclidean space, then the subject is no longer the motion but rather the appearance of the motion, which would require interpretation from the creator. The purpose of a movement image is to show motion in its pure form, free from temporal stillness, free from existing only instances at a time. Similar to the strip photography, displacing stills temporally depicts the dureé not through space but over time in the space that the motion occupies. Any spacial motion is typically the result of motion in the limbs or other moving part thus the “gesture motion” is the primary motion that is being tracked with this method.
Combined stills of Ballerina - La Fille Mal Gardée
Tracking the limbs of a tai-chi performer, tracing their movement spacially and temporally
Combined stills of Ballerina - La Fille Mal Gardée
Movement in the Third Dimension
Movement in Third Dimension is when the space in which the motion is taking place becomes independent as well as time being independent. The results of which create representation of motion through both time and space. A record of actualized movement from a subject in a computer generated environment. Completely and utterly free of interpretation from the creator and now falls solely into the will of the object in motion. This final result can be very easily modified to become the form of a building. This strategy captures the grace of any motion in its totality.
render credits: dantheadman