MECM90015 History and Philosophy of Media 2012

3. Problems of Periodisation: projection

Above: Hereford Mappa Mundi, c.1300; Right: Gall-Peters (‘Peteres”) Projection World Map, 1855/1973

'Perspectiva Corporum Regularium' [1568] Wenzel Jamnitzer

Gourraud Shadibng

Phong Shadibng

Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reach-ing all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prison-ers there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I see.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various ma-terials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners

(Plato, Republic, Book VII).

Teatro Olimpico Vicenza

Tim Mara, Alan’s Room, silkscreen, c.1973

Scan line - left to right, top to bottom, 525 lines per screen (NTSC) or 625 lines (PAL), two interlaced scans (odd and even lines) per image, 25 frames per second

Horizontal retrace: after each scan line the electron gun is switched off and returned to the beginning of the next line

Vertical retrace: after each field has been scanned, the electron gun returns to the top left of the screen to begin the next

Diagram of a mirror-lens condenser used in motion-picture projection: (S) light source (electric arc), (M) parabolic mirror, (L) lens, (G) film gate

coma chromatic aberration

200-mm f/2 Canon lens with 17 ele-ments in 12 groups; Canon Spring 2008 EOS System catalog

LEFT: 4-element compound lens fro abandoned rear-projection TV c. 1996

Stan Brakhage, frames from Song XII, 1965

DMD Digital Micromirror device

RIGHT: Daniel Coladon’s light fountain demenostrating toal internal reflection; as used (above) in con-temporary light fountains

schematic for confocal fibre optics

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