fort // da

the original ghostbuster

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:43:58 +0100

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AFTER SEEING HIS EXHIBITION THIS WEEK YOU CAN HAVE A THOUSAND THRILLS AT HOME.

BE YOUR OWN MEDIUM.

IT IS POSITIVELY EASY AND SIMPLE.

harry houdini: performance poster. the palace at keith theatre, cleveland // ohio, ca. 1920.

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to baltimore and the great beyond

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:13:00 +0100

samuel f b morse: patent concerning mode of communicating information by signals by application of electromagnetism. us patent usre79, jan 15, 1846.

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“Spiritualist beliefs crossed the country along with the unreeling cables of the telegraph companies.”

jeffrey sconce: haunted media. durham & london 2000, 24.

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spirits from the sky

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:12:26 +0100

the ‘celestial telegraph’.

andrew jackson davis: the present age and inner life. ancient and modern spirit mysteries classified and explained. a sequel to spiritual intercourse revised and enlarged. 1853 (reprint: rochester: austin publishing 1910)

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check:

jeffrey sconce: haunted media. electronic presence from telegraphy to television. durham & london: duke university press 2000, 13.

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spirits in the sky

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:02:05 +0100

benjamin west: benjamin franklin drawing electricity from the sky. ca 1816.

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benjamin franklin: “letter to mr. peter collinson, concerning an electrical kite”,

in: philosophical transactions (1751/52), 47, pp. 565-567.

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enters ghost, visible

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:55:41 +0100

dickens, charles: the haunted man, and the ghost’s bargain. london 1848.

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“No one could actually make a misty, glowing ghost materialize on stage, haunt the scene, then dissolve through walls or disappear in front of your eyes. Before 1862 those sorts of ghosts could only be imagined.”

“The ghosts a the [Royal] Polytechnic first materialized on December 24, 1862, to enhance a dramatic scene from one of Charles Dickens’s Christmas stories, “The Haunted Man”. […] The curtain opened on a simple story in pantomime. A student toiled at his desk, studying by candlelight. Suddenly a ghost image appeared in front of him, a glowing skeleton draped in gauze […]. Perhaps the most alarming part of the demonstration was the way the skeleton materialized from thin air - hazy at first, then brighter and brighter, until it seemed to glow in a transparent, unearthly way. The student lunged from his chair, grabbed a sword, and swung it at the ghost, which suddenly disappeared. […] The audience response was intantaneous and electric.”

steinmeyer, jim: hiding the elephant. how magicians invented the impossible. london: arrow books 2005, pp. 24/25, 29/30.

check: http://www.jimsteinmeyer.com

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a stage for the invisible

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:16:29 +0100

giambattista della porta: magia naturalis // natural magick. naples 1558 // london 1658.

book 17: on strange glasses.

chapter 12: how we may see in a chamber things that are not.

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the transparent man

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:50:00 +0100

count orloff - the transparent man (1864-1904)

Ivannow Wladislaus von Dziarski-Orloff was born in Hungary in 1864. His skin was paper thin and his musculature so atrophied that – with the aid of a bright spotlight – spectators could actually see the blood coursing through his veins. Not only that, but when a bright light was placed behind Orloff, the warm glow could actually been seen from the other side.

[Some promoters claimed] that a person could read a newspaper through the body of Orloff. Orloff was known primarily as “The Transparent Man”, but later in life he adopted the moniker of “The Human Window Pane”. Eventually he went into business for himself – he owned his own successful sideshow.

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http://thehumanmarvels.com/?p=112

http://www.phreeque.com/orloff.html

http://sideshows.wikia.com/wiki/Count_Orloff

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staging the invisible

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:30:55 +0100

shakespeare, william: the tempest. london 1611. act ii, scene i.

“enter ariel, invisible.”

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shakespeare, william: the tempest. london 1611. act i, scene ii.

prospero [to ariel]:

“be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every eyeball else.”

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overhead projector, lacanian style

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:29:17 +0100

john p. muller: beyond the psychoanalytic dyad: develepmental semiotics in freud, peirce and lacan. london: routledge 1995, p.120.

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writing on the wall

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:40:07 +0100

harold g. fitzgerald: projector for handling transparent slides, 1947.

us patent 2,564,057.

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“Der Overheadprojektor ist ein Oszillator zwischen Präsenz und Präsentation.”

Claus Pias: “‘electronic overheads’. Elemente einer Vorgeschichte von PowerPoint”, in: Wolfgang Coy // Claus Pias (Hgg.): PowerPoint. Macht und Einfluss eines Präsentationsprogrammes. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer 2009, 16-44, hier: 21.

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monochrom: farewell to overhead (the song):

http://www.monochrom.at/farewell-overhead/monochrom_at—-farewell-to-overhead.mp3

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i am going to record your voice and then play it back to you

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:12:00 +0200

The King’s Speech. GB//US, 2010. Tom Hooper (Director), David Seidler (Script). Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter et. al.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEOK6YMI_w8

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Text read by Colin Firth//King George VI:

To be or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them? To die: to sleep; […]

William Shakespeare: The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Act III, Scene I.

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1446010

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so you think you can tell

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:45:00 +0200

Victor III Phonograph Advertisement - Caruso (1908)

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Die vorsätzliche Konfusion von menschlicher Stimme und Maschine wurde in den sogenannten ‘Klangproben’ auf die Spitze getrieben, mit denen Edisons Phonographen und ihre Aufnahmen zwischen 1915 und 1925 in den Vereinigten Staaten vermarktet wurden. In über 4000 solcher Tests demonstrierte die Company insgesamt vermutlich ca. 2 Millionen Theaterzuschauern, daß sie als Hörer den Unterschied zwischen einer realen Stimme und einer Aufnahme eben dieser Stimme nicht erkennen würden. […] Dazu erläutert Edison: ‘Der Sänger oder die Sängerin steht neben dem Phonographen und singen mit einer Aufnahme, die er oder sie vorher gemacht haben, mit. Plötzlich hört der Sänger auf, aber das Llied geht weiter und das Publikum bemerkt den Unterschied nur daran, daß der Sänger seinen Mund geschlossen hat.’

Durham Peters, John: “Helmholz und Edison. Zur Endlichkeit der Stimme”, in: Kittler, Friedrich // Macho, Thomas // Weigel, Sigrid (Hgg.): Zwischen Rauschen und Offenbarung. Zur Kultur und Mediengeschichte der Stimme. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 2002, 291-312, hier: 305.

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you are there but i cannot see you

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:14:02 +0200

“2009 bestellte ein gewisser Robert, wie wir erfahren, “15 Minutes of Opportunism”: Müller solle erstmals seit 2002 endlich wieder mal selbst auftreten (und sich ja nicht einfallen lassen, ein Video von sich zu projizieren!).”

http://www.nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5618:60-minutes-of-opportunism-ivana-muellerhat-in-wien-einen-auftrag&catid=388:brut-wien

“60 Minuten lang kommentiert Ivana Müller ihren live performenden Körper mit ihrer eigenen aufgezeichneten Stimme.”

http://www.kampnagel.de/index.php?page=detail&cluster=726105

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also highly recommended:

müller, ivana: you are there but i cannot see you, video, 15 min 13 sec, 2007.

http://www.ivanamuller.com/videos/

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an electronic arts intermix presentation

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:04:00 +0200

Chris Burden: Documentation of Selected Works (1971-1974)

“I’d like to introduce myself: my name is Chris Burden.”

http://www.ubu.com/film/burden_selected.html

Duration: 35:00

Chris Burden’s provocative, often shocking conceptual performance pieces of the early 1970s retain their raw and confrontational force in these dramatic visual records, shot on Super-8, 16mm film, and half-inch video. Guided by the artist’s candid, explanatory comments on both the works and the documentative process, these segments reveal the major themes of Burden’s work — the psychological experience of danger, pain, and physical risk, the aggressive abuse of the body as an art object, and the psychology of the artist/spectator relationship. This compilation is an historical document of one of the most extreme manifestations of 1970s conceptual performance art. Included are the infamous Shoot (1971), in which Burden allows himself to be shot in the arm; Bed Piece (1972), in which he stayed in bed in a gallery for twenty-two days; and the notorious Through the Night Softly (1973), which featured Burden, arms tied behind his naked torso, dragging himself over shards of broken glass. Also included are: 220 (1971) Deadman (1972) Fire Roll (1973) Icarus (1973) B.C. Mexico (1973) TV Ad (1973) Back to You (1974) Velvet Water (1974).

Film: Michael Brewster, Barbara Burden, Don Von Valkenburg, Phyllis Lutjeans, Paula Sweet, Charles Hill. Video: Andy Mann.

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“Many of the photographs are blurry, scratched, over- or underexposed - barely adequate. [ … ] The videotape compilation of his work that was shown at the Feldman Gallery last year has similar shortcomings. It includes, for instance, a short film of “Shoot,” his most notorious piece and the one that first brought him to international attention. The image quality is grainy and further degraded by the transfer onto tape, and on the soundtrack, the report of the rifle is all but lost amid the informal chatter and milling around of the spectators. This is not to say that the casual, and frequently underwhelming quality of the documentation detracts from the work itself. Quite the contrary.”

Horvitz, Robert: “Chris Burden”, in: Artforum magazine, Volume XIV No. 9 (May 1976), 24-31.

http://www.volny.cz/rhorvitz/burden.html

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die gegenwart des mediums

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 01:48:00 +0200

Für [Herman] Grimm ist die Vorführung von Kunst via projizierter Reproduktionen sogar den Vermittlungsleistungen des Museums – dem Ort der Originale – überlegen; in ihm erkennt er etwas „hinten unseren Zeiten Zurückliegendes, Abgeschlossenes“, ¹⁷⁵ [ … ]. Ein Werk in reproduzierter Form anzuschauen, stellt für ihn [Herman Grimm] nicht nur keinen Notbehelf dar; vielmehr ist er, ganz anti-platonisch, der Überzeugung, dass die Wahrheit sich erst im Medium offenbart. Nur durch die Vermittlung [so Grimm] komme die “unmittelbare Gegenwart” des Kunstwerks zur Geltung [ … ].¹⁷⁹

¹⁷⁵ Grimm, Herman: „Die Umgestaltung der Universitätsvorlesungen über Neuere Kunstgeschichte durch die Anwendung des Skioptikons“ (1892), in: ders.: Beiträge zur Deutschen Culturgeschichte, Berlin 1897, 276-395, hier: 327.

¹⁷⁹ ebd., 388.

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Ullrich, Wolfgang: Raffinierte Kunst. Übung vor Reproduktionen. Berlin: Wagenbach 2009, 96f.

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Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, Autorenkollektiv, Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, Leipzig und Wien, Vierte Auflage, 1885-1892; 10. Band: Königshofen - Luzon, Seite 540f.

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http://www.peterhug.ch/lexikon/skioptikon

schatten ohne körper

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:24:06 +0200

Plinius: Historia Naturalis, Buch XXXV, Kap. 43 - Zum Ursprung der Malerei.

“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.”

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David Allan, The Origin of Painting, 1755, Öl / Holz, 38,7 x 31 cm.

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http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=35:chapter=43

der schatten und sein körper

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 02:17:11 +0200

Preface

I need not explain how these Shadows were suggested, to any one who has seen WILKIE’S picture, “The Rabbit on the Wall.” But by what pains they were invented can never be revealed; for it is known to my tortured digits alone, and they, luckily for me, are dumb. I calculate that I put my ten fingers through hundreds of various exercises before my “Bird” took wing; my left little finger thrills at the memory of “Grandpapa”; and my thumbs gave in no less than twenty times before “Boy” was accomplished. ( … )

HENRY BURSILL

December, 1858.

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Bursill, Henry: Hand Shadows To Be Thrown Upon The Wall. A Series of Novel and Amusing Figures Formed By The Hand. From Original Designs by Henry Bursill. London: Griffith and Farran 1859.

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http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12962/12962-h/12962-h.htm

backstage

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:29:00 +0200

backstage

das tanzende skelett

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:25:00 +0200

das tanzende skelett

der schatten der abwesenden

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:04:00 +0200

Das chinesische Schattentheater, so wird erzählt, wurde erfunden, um das Abwesende wieder anwesend werden zu lassen. Der Magier Shao Weng habe die verstorbene Konkubine des Kaisers wieder auferstehen lassen - mittels einer Silhouette, einer Schattenfigur hinter einer rückseitig beleuchteten Leinwand. Später sei der Kaiser dem Magier allerdings auf die Schliche gekommen und habe ihn seinerseits hinrichten lassen.

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“L’année suivante (121 av. J.-C.), Chao-wong, qui était originaire du pays de Ts’i, fut admis en présence de l’empereur à cause de sa science dans les choses qui concernaient les mânes et les dieux. L’empereur aimait beaucoup sa femme (345) Wang (346) ; cette femme vint à mourir. Chao-wong pouvait par son art évoquer, pendant la nuit du moins, la femme Wang et la figure du génie du fourneau. Le Fils du Ciel, caché derrière un rideau, les aperçut de loin ; il honora donc Chao-wong du titre de maréchal de la savante perfection, le combla de présents et le traita avec les rites des hôtes.”

Les Mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts’ien, Tome troisième,
traduits et annotés par Edouard CHAVANNES (1865-1918).
Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient Adrien Maisonneuve, 1967, p. 470.

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Loewe, Michael: Chinese Ideas of Life and Death: Faith, Myth and Reason in the Han Period. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982, p. 112.

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