11 experiments, newest first
things we made around our shorts, to listen to and play with. each one starts from a short: the sound in it, or the picture, taken further than a minute allows. the music to go with them is in playlists.
11 · picture
in the english of 1917, a berlin meteorologist wrote that some of wilson bentley’s snow crystal photographs were “much retouched”. in 1918 bentley printed his own before and after, and left the verdict to the reader. slide each from the original to after.
see his before and after →10 · picture
harvey ball drew the smiley face in 1963, freehand: “nah, do it freely. give it some character.” on his, the eye on the right is larger. draw yours on a yellow button, and measure its two eyes.
draw it freely →09 · sound
george martin played the solo in the beatles’ “in my life” (1965) on a piano at half speed, then sped it up. slow it back down yourself: half as fast, an octave lower. and the organ he tried first.
slow it down →08 · picture
in 1652 the friars made the door under leonardo’s last supper bigger, right through christ’s feet. move a lens over the wall to see a copy painted around 1520, lined up with it, that still has them.
move the lens →07 · picture
as a boy, ingmar bergman looked up at the paintings in the churches where his father preached; one, he remembered, showed death playing chess. look up into täby church’s painted vaults, see its death playing chess up close, and walk the dance of death of lübeck, the likely source of his film’s last vision.
look up →watch the short ↗06 · picture
the man who drew the peace sign said it was a picture of himself, in despair, and asked for it upside down on his grave. turn it over, or spell your own from two semaphore flags.
turn it over →watch the short ↗05 · picture
joseph cornell filled his boxes with europe and never went there. name a place you’ve never been, fill a box for it from old prints, and keep it.
make a box →watch the short ↗04 · sound
“20211201”, from ryuichi sakamoto’s last studio album, 12: a piano sketch recorded at home after a major operation for cancer. turn the piano down and listen between the notes.
listen →watch the short ↗03 · sound
the 1961 recording of an ibm computer at bell labs singing “daisy bell”, the song hal sings in 2001: a space odyssey. pull hal’s memory, block by block, and it slows down.
listen →watch the short ↗02 · picture
escher’s print gallery, filled in by a leiden team in 2002: the same picture again, 22.58 times smaller and turned, for ever. zoom in yourself.
zoom in →watch the short ↗01 · sound
the windows 95 start-up sound, by brian eno, 1995, and the same sound slowed down forty times: four minutes of it.
listen →watch the short ↗
