Objects
Photography
The techniques that I used to photograph the slides as objects stems from the practices developed by Richard Crangle for Lucerna and Ludwig Vogl-Beinek as part of The Historical Art of Projection. Digital and experimental approaches to the archaeology of the screen. Illuminating the slide’s frame so that manufacturer’s labels are clearly visible makes it possible to reconstruct the slide’s production history in ways that would not be possible if these markings were cropped out. Information about the slide manufacturer’s address help establish a potential date of production. In cases like the slides below, labels and stamps also indicate the slide’s position in a sequence.Videography
Although I recreate some visual effects using powerpoint, the slipper resisted modes of digitization that did not represent it as a mechanical object. Because the slide contains two pieces of glass firmly embedded in a wooden frame, it would be virtually impossible to get photos of them that could be digitally manipulated without taking the slipper apart. With some types of slippers, it would be possible to use photoshop to break a photograph of the slide into its composite parts for animation. As you will notice in the video below, though, as the slide transitions, parts of the image on the slipping piece of glass can be seen as they slide in and out of view.Albeit a very small detail, this feature is a hallmark of mechanical slides and part of their charm. The imperfection of that moment when the slipper is transitioning between positions emphasizes the fact that this image is being created by the physical manipulation of apparati. To present the slippers, I opted for a hybrid strategy that emphasized the mechanical aspects of the slide, but I back lit it so that the viewer would get some sense of what it might look like when projected.
Photogrammetry
This model was created by Katie Chapman and Tassie Gnaidy who used photogrammetry to bring the improved phantasmagoria lantern into a digital environment. During this process, they photographed the lantern from all angles. As an embodied practice of knowledge design, photogrammetry emphasizes the need for multiple perspectives in object-oriented approaches to history. Livingstone’s lantern serves as a particularly rich node for African attitudes towards other ethnic groups and expanding trade networks in the nineteenth-century. Its digital counterpart gestures to the ways that digital projects rely heavily on collaboration, particularly across academic silos.
However, the visual vocabulary of the 3D model view elides the presence of Katie and Tassie in the digitization process.[1] The grey background places the focus solely on the object, removing it from any physical, historical, or social context. Instead, the model viewer structures an imagined encounter with the object itself; the movement of the model in reaction to a mouse click or a touch screen simulates a tactile experience with the object itself. The erasure of Katie’s and Tassie’s labor is compounded by logistics of hosting annotated 3D models and by Sketchfab’s auto-generated code for embedding the model on another site. Per UITS policy, the files generated as part of the digitization process belong to the owner of the objects. While this enabled me to upload, annotate, and host the file on my personal Sketchfab account, it separates the model from others that CyberDH has built and misrepresents my role in the digitization process by foregrounding my name as the author. To address this, I’ve added robust attribution clauses to the metadata on Sketchfab in order to represent their role more accurately, and I’ve edited the HTML of the embedding code to do the same.
[1] Jeff Rogers from UITS Visualization Lab also created 3D models of the lantern and its accompanying lamp with scanning equipment. Because parts of both objects were so thin, photogrammetry was the more suitable method of image capture. Katie and Tassie used an instance of Photoscan on Karst, one of IU’s supercomputers, to stitch the photos into a 3D model.
