2011. MMXI. The year of the rabbit, the International Year of Forests and the International Year of Chemistry. 2011 also marks the fifth year that I have been making miniature movies or as I like to call them, Vidoodles. As the world of analogue film gradually fades into the horizon and the rushing onslaught of digital rises like a Tsunami, there is no doubt we are in the middle of a collision. Film is based on persistence of vision: “the phenomenon of the eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second on the retina.” As a child, I would wander about rapidly blinking my eyes, pretending I was in a movie. Flipbooks and Eadweard Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope are examples of persistence of vision, consecutive still images moving in rapid succession, giving the impression of motion. Recently I came across the iPhone app called the “QuadCamera”, a camera application that can take 4 to 8 frames at intervals between 3 and 9 seconds. By stringing these still images together, the concept of P of V comes alive. With the exception of the first film of 2011, the vidoodles that I will be making this year, use this app. and pay tribute to the foundation of moving image theory. New movies will be posted on the 1st and 15th of every month.
The call of nature trumps theoretical discussions and critical thought.
Did you know that the Led Zeppelin version is almost 8 minutes long?
This video is contributed by Annie Onyi Cheung, welcomed as a guest artist to be part of Midi’s 2011 FPS vidoodle series. Annie is a performance, video, and installation artist based in Toronto. She attributes this video’s aesthetic, in part, to the influence of Midi’s prolific vidoodle serial projects.
Not much has changed since Edison’s 1902 version of New York.
There are few things that are written in stone, but this is one of them.
The front page story of the Nov. 27, 2011 NY Times makes for a strong backstory.