Watercolour by E Valton, 1869
yall look at this site
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/marey.html
I've been enamoured of the Marey photos where he put people in black suits with white stripes and recorded the movement of the body. I'd like to try some Marey - influenced video experiments.
this other site looks good too, more of Marey's work:
http://www.expo-marey.com
but only the french part of the site works.
Étienne-Jules Marey's 'machine for imitating insect flight'
Early in 1869 Marey constructed a very delicate machine to demonstrate the flight of an insect and the figure-8 shape it produced during its movement. His artificial insect, with a body formed by a drum containing compressed air, could move up, down, and even diagonally.
"A mechanism actuated by an air pump produces alternate raising and lowering of a pair of wings constructed to the same design as those of the insects, formed, that is to say, with a rigid framework to the front and a flexible surface behind, made of rubber supported by thin steel shafts ... the small model which I present to the Académie [des Sciences, on 15 March 1869] develops a tractive force which may be measured by the dynamometer and which represents the raising of a weight of eight to ten grams. ... If the tip of one of the wings of this artificial insect is gilded, we see that all the movements and changes of shape in the flight of the real insect are reproduced in the mechanical apparatus."
2 comments:
I forgot to talk about Marey last night at the workshop. I am putting this comment here to remind me about this.
I would like to put the performers in black suits with glow in the dark or black light tape delinieating their form, and video them doing various actions - falling flinging jumping, etc.
it would create lines in motion that could be used as the basis for other videos, animations, etc.
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