Embedded Files
These are video recordings of my early digital art work and experiments using a media programming application called Macromedia Director in the early 90's. The digital work was done in a collaborative exhibition (one of a number ) with Mark Barlow.
I'm indebted to a colleague at the Science Museum of Minnesota - Dave Evans. Dave is a fellow artist and was a one-person media production department for many years. He supported my curiosity and interest and growth in interactive art so long ago. He sent me home with a computer he had that had software (Director and Quicktime) for me to learn from. I didn't have (and could not afford) a newer computer at the time. I had come back from studying photography at Syracuse University with a strong interest in the future of art, media and computational tools. This was pretty new and interesting at the time. It still is.
Reconstructing the digital past.
Shared on this page are video recordings of a few animations that originally ran on a Macintosh LC color computer in an exhibition of sculpture, painting and photography at the wonderful Gallery Rebolloso . When I rediscovered these files they were on an old floppy disc. The hardware that was used to create them is obsolete. I used a USB floppy drive to access them. The software to create them was so expensive then. To build the animations I used the computer that Dave loaned me for my experimentation. To be able to recover the files I needed to use the same software. I found an old version of the software I created this in - Macromedia Director - online at a website that archives old Mac software. I was able to install it on a working, obsolete, original iBook to open my obsolete files. To get the software onto the computer I downloaded the installation files on a modern computer (compressed with Stuffit into .sit format) to put on a USB drive to move to the obsolete computer. I had to install another software to open these files (Stuffit Expander). Once I did thisI was able to install Director launched the program... and it worked! I saw a moment of old images moving... Then the software froze (crashed) my old iBook. And kept crashing and crashing until I remembered how fix it. Old muscle memory - increase the memory allocation for the program.. I rebooted the computer again because of course, they become so unstable after they crash...
And magically, after all that, I saw them open up and play for the first time in over 25 years.
Now how to get the animations off of the computer to play again on a modern computer (and then how to share them with anyone). I tried, really tried, to use a couple Mac OS 8/9 emulators - software versions of computers running on modern computers. But no, I just was unable to get all the necessary support files into the emulators. Then, now could others see the animation on the screen without being physically in front of this computer? Set the screen up and use my phone to record off the screen? I got my phone out and tried video recording. The recording was filled with moving diagonal lines. Interference. Looking this up I found out that the screen and my phone were out of "sync" the screen refreshed at a different rate than my phone camera. I wouldn't be able to get the software to play on a newer computer. But staring at the old iBook I realized that this old computer had NTSC-out port and a cable. This was intended so that you could connect it to a projector. I needed something to connect between the old old computer and a slightly less old computer for capturing the video files. I keep a suitcase full of obsolete computer stuff - parts, for this reason. I found an old device called a Hollywood Dazzle that bridged the old iBook with Mac OS System 9 ... through a cable with RCA connectors... to a slightly later Macbook with Mac OSX and with obsolete Firewire 400 connectors. I imported the files into an old version of iMovie, while they played on the old iBook. The looked a bit rough with much less resolution than the actual computer screen, but no lines running through the recordings. I captured the video feed of the old iBook desktop playing the animations into iMovie on the old Macbook. I then edited the clips and exported them to a modern video file format, and then onto a USB-A jump drive. To access the old-style USB drive I needed an adaptor for to get them on my new Macbook Air M1 with only USB-C connectors.
I played them on my new computer.
Then I copied them and uploaded to Youtube. And now you see them below.
Postscript:
I sent Mark a link to this page after I wrote the draft late last night. He asked short, good, thorough questions. I have made some changes to the intro text and flow as well as added his questions :
In the recovery process did you consider/attempt to play best version of video on best available screen and re-record with a digital camera? Maybe that is what you did! Good question but that wasn't possible with what I was using - and I would have had to have the files and software on a computer with an external monitor - I have an iBook with NTSC out, and am unable without more hardware to sync the computer and a video camera. Maybe there are other ways...
Thinking about the written descriptions, who is your audience, what is your desire/drive to do this?My favorite question(s). Last night I think my audience was myself and an imaginary me that would be interested in seeing the art again, revisiting the me/artist who made these and thinking about thinking. How have I learned, how have I aged who am I now and why might it matter to re-member and revisit the creative gestures I made as a younger learning artist. The other side of it I think is all about how do I learn and how do I remember? I guess part of my work is archaeology - reconstructing the past. Why work on inconsequential stuff - especially on tools that are ephemeral - and why not use what is simpler and more straight forward physically? Drawing and paint tools have worked well and haven't become obsolete. I think it may be because I approach this life as a learner. It seems very similar to the exercises I do in the morning. I don't really like or enjoy the process but in a fascinating way I feel good, better, after I do them. I'm inside my thoughts just a little in the process but then released after. I guess its all biological and thinking - building neural pathways feels good.
As of the date of writing this I'm teaching myself to paint with oil paint just in the last few months. It feels much more freeing than staying up late with wires and crashes.
Where will it all live? It seems like it just emerged again so maybe like a bulb or tuber some new ideas will blossom now that I am able to care for them again. The documentation will live here. The stuff will eventually be released from the metal, glass and plastic its currently stored in and disappear.
This was the first of a series of animations in the exhibit. Intended as a non-diegetic score. Text and sound.
GeekShow
For this work Mark Barlow had a series of images in mind that he wanted to photograph. I took the photos, Mark had them processed (old style photography that used film - which you shot without seeing the end result) and then sent in to have prints made. Mark painted these and I scanned them to put them into the program to animate. I don't remember who chose the order - pretty sure it was Mark with that last image - once we did that I made the title art (tape on paper with magazine cutouts), chose the font, typed the text and animated the series. The what? Mark can speak to this
Ware.
Because I programmed the animation for an older slower computer than the old computer I used to capture the animation, it runs very fast. It ran about a 1/4 of the current speed for the gallery show. The what? I be ware you be ware.
Pubica
This work is a digital version of one of a series of paper and sticks and glue Thaumotropes I made. The what? Trying to start a fire with green fig leaves and rubbing fingers.
Frenzal
I really still love this work. At the time video on computers was a labor. And the videos were small - in size and short in length. The Director application gave me a new understanding of how you could use video - compositionally. In the program you could have multiple "clones" of a video. In this work I used a heavily filtered (high contrast B/W) video and played with the sequencing of playback as well as visual alignment. (its amazing also because as you see on this page, you can do this with a web page now). The what is this? They're drawn out. The day is drawn out.
She?
Not in the show but has more experimentation of animated text and imagery that I suppose you can do any of in presentation apps now. The what is this? Play Ploy Words, this new medium of text and movement of images as glyphs versus punctum. I loved this new landscape of constructing poetry and baby steps - tool then work then tool then work.
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