The Renaissance of the Viewmaster

Vladimir constructs a very nostalgic and unique media experience through her revival of the viewmaster which she calls "Vladmaster." Each story is comprised of four discs and an original soundtrack. The images she makes are all well compsed and manage to hold my attention for an extended period of time. The 3-D effect also adds another interesting characteristic to the experience, allowing the images to interact with the viewer on a more realistic and personal level. One of the most impressive aspects of this entire presentation, besides the fact that she constructs all of the materials by hand, was the soundtrack for all of the Vladmasters. The voices of the narrators provide a very dramatic and interesting climate for the audience and the music is always well composed. The only real downside of the experience was having to hold a crudely shaped plastic bax against your face and up to the light the entire time, but even relief of that held th eimpressive sight of a massive audience all totally entranced in hundreds of viewmasters. Her first Vladmaster was titled "Lucifugia Thigmotaxis" or, coackroach. It was a fictional story of the secret life of a cockroach named Stanley as he ventured out from behind the refrigerator. While the images managed to be a little gross they were all eye-popping, and along with the narration, allowed the audience to attach a feeling of sentiment and sympathy to Stanley the cockroch; an insect normally thought of as repulsive to most human beings. Vladimir also incorporated some interesting informtion with Lucifugia Thigmotaxis giving insight into the anatomy and nature of the cockroach. Apparently they are unable to see the color yellow? That is kind of a weird thing to think about...
Next we saw "The Public Life of Jeremiah Barnes." This story was an incredibly enthralling story about an outsider who steals heavy machinery from across the country and keeps them as some sort of showpieces in the middle of the woods. When Vladimir was answering questions of the audience I was kind of upset to hear her say she had made the story up, as if she would have let us go on thinking it was truth before the question was asked. But in actuality it seems to be more impressive that she was able to create such a stroy by herself. The images of this Vladmaster were composed with hand carved wooden characters and small plastic toys. She said she chose to do it that way because she is somewhat of a control freak or perfectionist so this would allow her to manipulate and move all of the objects with ease. Hearing the idea of just photgraphing toys does not sound all that impressive but the way she frames the shots and uses the 3-D animation, though admittedly mostly by accident, turns a photograph of a small toyland into something much more real and compelling.
"Fear & Trembling" was the next installment. This was easily my least favorite of the four. It was a somewhat ambiguous portrayal of posed human limbs combined with seafood and a dining room. Watching this gave me the feeling that Vladimir might have been a veagan; portraying some person with a god-complex needlessly butchering sea creatures and butchering them with a fork. Mainly I did not liek this video because I just didn't understand it or the realu purpose it served. The soundtrack was very experimental and abrasive which I enjoyed a lot, however its juxtaposition with the images did not work for me.
Last was "Actaeon at Home." This was one of the best of the presentation utitizing more of a standard narration and more audience interactivity. Actaeon at Home reminds me a lot of the Twilight Zone television series. Eerie black and white images and a creepy soundtrack provide a lot of intrigue and suspense. Even the standard "ding" to remind the audience to change the picture or card was replaced with a strange piano lick. In culminating the story the audience almost becomes involved in the soundtrack. The signal to switch the slide starts repeating faster and faster and the clicks of the viewmasters create a train-like sound to accompany the images of the steaming locamotive.
What Vladimir has managed to achieve in the medium of the viewmaster is incredible. For the most part her work is effective, extremely engrossing, and very unique. I was shocked to see how well this format can operate as effective storytelling, but much credit has to go to Vladimir for her innovation and resurrection of a "dead" technology.

Ethan Jackson's Camera Obscura

Ethan Jackson's presentation of his camera obscura in Kenilworth Square was an astounding sight. As you looked up at the wall with light holes carefully positioned on it a picture perfect image of the surrounding street and scenery was shown. The image was inverted just as it is when it is first seen by the human eye. I was not expecting to be able to see such vivid colors or detail in the image, I was more expecting a shadow than an actual large-scale picture. Most interesting about this sight was the movement outside. As people walked by or cars drove past they seemed to be like ghosts, dissapearing behind stationary objects that were a more permanent fix in the image. When Jackson presented a short video of a camera obscura he had installed in a former church i was amazed. The walls on the church completed a natural, ever changing mural. It is surprising that this is not a more common practice in modern art. Museums could incorporate this technique not only as an exhibit but as a way of design and accentuation of architecture; artworks could be displayed in correlation with the images presented by the camera obscura image.
The work presented in Monday's March 7th class by Minyong Jang acted as a precursor to this exhibit by Jackson. When watching Jang's video The Dark Room I wasn't impressed until i realized that the flowing, shimmering images of water were captured, in essence, in a second party view. His images were so clear and detailed I din't think that it could have been made from filming the inside of the camera obscura.