Proposal Juliana Borinski - June 2010

In the Soul of Film

Residency from september 15th till december 15 2010

In the Soul of Film is an art project focusing on abstract images based on microscopic chemical surfaces an their relationship with light. It regroups, mixes and confronts old and new light based picture’s reproduction and animation techniques such as analogue photogram, slide projection, digital photography, pixilation and photo engraving. Over the production of every single work, the aim is to present all the realizations of the eponym project within the frame of an exhibition.



The conceptual work began last year during an artist summer camp at timelab in the city of Ghent, Belgium, where I visited the Joseph Plateau Museum. Inspired by his researches and after developing a concept, the effective production began in March 2010 within an artist in residence program between the Art centre (Kunsthalle Mulhouse), the University of Mulhouse (UHA = Université de Haute Alsace) in France.

The whole project took as a starting point my expanded cinema installation LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), developed in 2008, which gained recognition through selections in different exhibitions and festivals in the last two years (ISEA 2010 Dortmund Germany, Almost Cinema, Vooruit Gent, Belgium, Art of the Open Surface, Malmö, Sweden…). Therefore In the Soul of Film is directly related to my visual art practice of photography, expended cinema and installation.
In the Soul of Film will be developed with the help of those different institutions and persons who already took part in the project since it’s beginning. Other institutions such as the Art School of Mulhouse (Le Quai) and the French national centre of scientific research (CNRS) ensured funding and human help for the work’s pursuit and I hope timelab will also show interest supporting a pursuit in art production.

Concept

In the Soul of Film is a research and production project focusing on observation, understanding, interpretation and aesthetical use of thin films. If the main wish is to “penetrate” inside the film’s skin (from photography or cinema) and to observe its internal structures, another goal is to extend this observation to other extra thin films such as soap bubbles and foams. My artistic interest is there to confront scientific concrete imaging with abstract aesthetics in a common research.

From a media archaeology perspective, this project is related to the 19th century scientist Joseph Plateau (1801-1883) and specifically his workgroup on thin films, liquid lenses using soap bubbles and other optical works such the ones on the retinal persistence. With the development of the phenakistiscope in the early 1830’s, he proved for example that twelve was the minimum number of pictures per second to produce the impression of a fluent motion on human eye. By the way, he is now recognised as one of the precursor of the cinema invention.

The pursuit of the work is divided through three crossing axes: observation of real thin films (solid and liquid), access to scientific images archives on this topic and use of chemical laboratory’s machines (such as different microscopes) and will result in the production of art works as described below.

Realization (project outline)

The project regroups 4 principal realization techniques. Each one is based on different practices related to the history of picture’s mechanical reproduction: photography, photogram, photo engraving and pixilation.

1- Photography: During the process of manipulation under the atomic microscopes, I will select twelve pictures. Those “photography” will then be enlarged as wide high quality c- prints (about 150 x 110 cm).



2- Photograms: With the help of a technician from the CNRS I build five of the Joseph Plateau’s wire structures for soap bubbles, which he used for its experiments on liquid optical lenses around 1860.



If the structures themselves will be presented as sculptures approximate 30cm x 15cm x 15cm, they will also be manipulated with their inner bubbles to serve illuminating photograms. Here also, the aim is to produce about twelve pictures (30cm x 40cm).



3- Photo engraving: Since two years, each different slide produced with the LCD apparatus is recorded as a digital image. Those photographs, document the installation’s projection at its last step; meaning the structure emerging at the end of the crystallisation process (see full description of LCD in the attached portfolio).



Among those images, I will select twelve to transfer them on paper through the technique of photo engraving in the dimension of 50cm x 55cm (see pictures). Two of them were already realized at the engraving atelier of the Mulhouse art School, Le Quai, during the first part of the residency with Kunsthalle Mulhouse la Fondrie and the UHA in March 2010.



4- Pixilation: Thanks to the French national centre of scientific research (CNRS), I have access to the photographic archives of chemical experiments on microscopic surfaces run between the 1970’s and 1990’s. As a found footage technique, I will manipulate and overlay those wide format black and white negatives (6 x 7cm) on different laboratory machines such as atomic microscopes to observe, record and then create new abstract patterns related to the images. With the technique of pixilation (or “stop motion”) I will create an abstract video animation showing the pattern’s emergence during the “zooming” process in the infra matter of films (estimated time: about 10 min.) under the support of a professional motion graphic designer. A specific sound composition would be done in collaboration with a sound artist specialised on optical sound techniques.