Setting up phantogram piece...

Locale

This is a cgi video phantogram (I think it’s a first).  I don’t look at it as a film – experimental or otherwise.  The 3D effect projected horizontally leaves the viewers with the impression that they are looking at animated models or dioramas.  The thinglike (couldn’t think of a better word) aspect of the piece runs counter to the time-based ephemeral quality of film or video.

Locale was inspired by the writings of Robert Monroe – founder of the Monroe Institute and most famous for his book about out-of-body experiences published in the early 70s.

As an undergraduate, my thesis project dealt with the esoteric aspects of WB Yeats’ writings – primarily in his book, “A Vision.”  Yeats developed a cosmology (based upon his wife’s automatic writing) that was really striking in its depth and at the same time relevant to him as a poet – providing him with a rich source of inspiration in his later writings.  Since doing this project, I’ve been interested in the whole subject of cosmology and the implications different sorts of cosmologies have for human thought and behavior.

What struck me most in reading Monroe was the comprehensiveness of the cosmology he describes. The descriptions of his experiences are vivid and have uncanny, often frightening aspects.  Beyond providing inspiration for this piece, his work again brought the whole issue of cosmology to the fore.  It’s something that I plan exploring further in an artistic sense and it is an important issue in regards to the whole Gramática parda project.

Phantogram

Phantograms, also known as Phantaglyphs, Op-Ups, free-standing anaglyphs, levitated images, and book anaglyphs, are a form of optical illusion. Phantograms use perspectival anamorphosis to produce a 2D image that is distorted in a particular way so as to appear, to a viewer at a particular vantage point, three dimensional, standing above or recessed into a flat surface. The illusion of depth and perspective is heightened by stereoscopy techniques; a combination of two images, most typically but not necessarily an anaglyph (color filtered stereo image). With common (red-cyan) 3D glasses, the viewer's vision is segregated so that each eye sees a different image.

Phantograms can be created using drawn images, photographs, or computer-generated images. Phantograms are usually placed horizontally and are intended to be viewed standing back from the image, though they can also be placed vertically and viewed at an angle from above or below.