The Dead Media Notebook (81 page)

“During the siege of Paris during the 1870 war , the capital is cut from the rest of France and particularly Tours or subtracted the provisional government.

“ From September 18, 1870 , the capital was encircled by the Prussians. To communicate, Nadar which is in urgent balloon company.

“ It sends the 23 , a first ball leaves Montmartre carrying 125 kg of mails . During the five months of siege , 64 balloons quitted Paris. It was possible to make out balloons in Paris, but at the option of the wind, saut√© in the city was impossible . Nadar thought back to Rene Dagron he had seen in the exhibition , 1867. Aussitut , Dagron was taken out of Paris by balloon to improve his photographic process. on a collodion film fifteen centimeters edges, ultra mild , he succeeds in 3000 to fit mails . the films thus formed were then sent to Paris by carrier pigeon .

“ upon arrival , the birds were freed of their precious burden and projected films on an enlarger , copied and distributed . 355 pigeons left Paris in a balloon, only 57 returned to their loft. But it transported a total of one and a half million mails , the record being detained by a pigeon that carried 18 films to be 54,000 mails . The micro- film career had begun.“

From Marcus L. Rowland

The Kromskop (the “o”’s are accented) was a colour separation stereoscope, combining light from six monochrome transparencies, through various coloured filters and mirrors to produce a “Kromagram,” a coloured stereo image.

It was invented by Frederic Ives of America, and slides and viewers were available in Britain from 1897 onwards. It is described in the article below, from Pearson’s Magazine December 1897 (which incidentally contains the last installment of the magazine serialisation of the War of the Worlds).

The article was accompanied by a picture of Ives and pictures of a Kromskop (viewer) and two Kromagrams, and with some experimentation it is possible to combine the images in a graphics program to replicate the effect. Unfortunately there seems to have been some distortion in their reproduction, and results are poor.

I am attempting to produce better results. Incidentally, versions of the beam-splitter technology used to produce Kromagrams were used for colour cinematography up to the 1960s; Technicolour and Cinerama used separate negatives for the primary colours, combined in printing the film. For Technicolor, a “beam splitter” was used ‘the three “cameras” were mounted in one huge assembly, with a common lens, splitter and also common mechanics to ensure synchronisation. The Cinerama rig consisted of three of these “triple-strip” cameras.

from Pearson’s Magazine, December 1897 THE NEWEST MARVEL OF SCIENCE Being the Invention of an Apparatus which will Photograph Objects of every Description in their True Colours

By Wm. H. Ward

“For many years photographers, amateur and professional, of a scientific turn of mind, have been trying to solve the problem of colour photography.

“But to reproduce the actual colours of Nature by any process at all similar to that employed in black and white photography is physically impossible, and like the problem of perpetual, motion, might as well be once and for all abandoned as insoluble. For consider for one moment the composition of a photographic print, whether silver or platinum.

It is simply a deposit of the metal in a finely divided state, distributed according to the light and shade of the original object. Such a metallic deposit can only have its own peculiar monochromatic (one colour) tints, and cannot under any circumstances assume the varied colours of the rainbow.

“Many attempts have been made in other ways to obtain by mechanical means photographs in colour, but, till the coming of Mr. Frederic Ives from America, very little success had been attained. This gentleman, however, has perfected a method of photography, or, rather, of recording by means of photographic films the actual colours of the objects before the camera. Through the agency of the Kromskop, an optical instrument designed by Mr. Ives, these records can be so arranged that when viewed through the instrument the objects photographed are presented to the eye in their natural colours, with the added realism of stereoscopic relief. In fact,they are absolutely lifelike. They may be exhibited at any time, and are permanent for all time.

“The value of this invention is at once apparent. Travelers in foreign lands can bring back permanent records in colour of scenery, flowers, plumage, the costume of the inhabitants and other features of interest, which in the ordinary photograph, for want of colour, lose half their charm.

“Exact reproductions of all the noted pictures of the world may be made with very little trouble and at comparatively trifling expense; a National Gallery in miniature may thus be set up in every village; and in a thousand other ways the possibility of obtaining a fixed record in colour of any desired object will prove most valuable.

“In any but a purely scientific magazine, it would be out of place to enter into the technicalities of the construction or the-working theories of the camera, by which the natural colours of the objects are recorded, or of the Kromskop, through which these photographs are exhibited. just a general outline must here suffice.

“The theory of colour-vision promulgated nearly one hundred years ago by Professor Young, and elaborated more than half a century later by Helmholtz and Clark-Maxwell, forms the scientific basis of the system to the perfection of which Mr. Ives has devoted many years.

“By this theory the eye sees all colour by means of three distinct sets of organs, sensitive respectively to red, green, and blue light, or to the rays which produce the sensation of red, green, and blue. When all three are excited equally, the result is white; when mixed shades are reflected to the eye, the organs are excited unequally; where black exists in the field of view, no light is reflected and such parts are seen as black by contrast.

“Light, when analysed by the prism, is seen to be made up of many colours, but there are three particular kinds of rays, red, green, and blue, which equally combine to produce white, and these correspond to the three fundamental colour sensations of Young’s theory.

“All the varied hues in Nature can therefore be obtained from mixtures in various proportions of the three simple colours, red, green, and blue; and if more or less of one or other of these colours be admitted, it is possible to produce every shade and every delicate graduation of colour.

“How, then, is the Ives colour photograph made? “By the aid of a special camera, fitted with an arrangement of mirrors, prisms, and light filters, three pairs of images of the object are thrown on the sensitised plate at the same time. One pair is made by the red and such other rays as excite the red sensation on the eye, all other rays being excluded from this pair of images from the filtration of the light through specially tinted glass and other transparent substances; another pair is made in the same way by the rays which excite the green sensation, and the third by the rays which excite the blue sensation.

“A pair of images of each colour, it may be explained in passing, is taken, so that in the viewing instrument-the Kromskop-the colour photographs may be observed with both eyes, and the picture consequently seen with the relief and perspective familiar to ordinary vision.

“The sextuple negative having been made and developed in the ordinary way, a photographic dry plate is put in contact with it, exposed to gas light for a few seconds, and developed in the usual manner. The positive when dry is cut into three parts, and mounted in a folding cardboard frame, thus forming the Kromogram.

“The three images of the Kromogram, which are similar in appearance to ordinary lantern slides, represent, by differences in their light and shade, the distribution and proportions of the three simple colours in the object photographed. These three transparencies, therefore, though themselves of no colour, form a true colour record, just as the wax cylinder of the phonograph, although emitting no sound itself, preserves the record of sound, and the Kinetoscope or Kinematograph ribbon contains the record of motion.

“The cylinder must be placed in the phonograph before the sound recorded can be reproduced, the ribbon with its myriad images must pass through the Kinetoscope in order to visually reproduce the moving scene, and in like manner the Kromogram must be seen in the Kromskop in order to reproduce in colour the object photographed, which it does so perfectly that all suggestion of photography vanishes, and the object itself, be it flowers, fruit, portrait, landscape, or a work of art, seems to be actually before the eyes.

“This wonderful effect, which must be seen to be fully appreciated, is obtained by an ingenious arrangement of mirrors and coloured glass screens in the Kromskop, so fitted that the three images, illuminated respectively by red, green, and blue light, are blended in such a way that the observer at the viewing lenses of the instrument sees the object in all its perfect reality of colour.

“Our illustrations show the form and general appearance of the Kromskop and of a Kromogram. In the larger representation of the Kromogram images, the upper pair shows the amount of red, the middle the amount of blue, and the lower Pair the Proportion of green, which combine to produce one of those brilliant iridescent blue Brazilian butterflies.

“There is no kind of colour which is not reproduced. in the Kromskop; the bloom of grapes, the velvet of the peach, the shiny red cheek of the apple are all faithfully rendered; while the iridescence of glass, the delicate shades of the opal or mother of pearl, the dull gleam of gold or silver, all of them tints most difficult to reproduce, are displayed with perfect naturalness. Nor will any colour recorded by the Kromskop ever fade. For time has no effect on the images of the Kromogram and light is always the same.

“No special scientific skill or tedious training is required in taking the colour photographs. The operation is as simple as ordinary photography, and the development is just the same. Some practice will, of course, be necessary, but any amateur who understands the art of photography will quickly acquire the skill to successfully carry through the new colour process.

“Before long there is every probability that the invention will be extended to life portraiture. The only obstacle at present to this development is the length of exposure required for port- raits-about a minute in a good light. Unfortunately but few mortals can keep perfectly still for so long a period as sixty seconds, but Mr. Ives is quite confident that sufficiently rapid plates can be prepared, and it will then be’ possible to have photographs of one’s family and friends in the true colours of Nature and in all the reality of life.

“The Kromskop and Kromograms can be obtained from the manufacturers, 121, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, but the camera is complicated, and will not be obtainable just yet. When certain difficulties in its construction have been overcome, simplifying its operation, and making it possible to produce the camera at a popular price, careful amateurs will be able to make their own colour photographs, and a new pleasure will at once be attainable by all who are familiar with ordinary photographic manipulation.”

Source: Pearson’s Magazine, December 1897

From Bruce Sterling

“The Birth and Death of Memory” from “The Future of Memory” Conference International Center for Semiotic and Cognitive Studies Republic of San Marino May 21-23, 1999

Hello, my name is Bruce Sterling, I am a writer and journalist from distant Texas. My speech today concerns “The Birth and Death of Memory.”

This part is the birth of my speech. Very soon, I promise you, we will have the death of my speech. In between, I hope to say something memorable.

So, let us begin with the birth of memory. When was memory born? I am a writer, I am not a neurologist.

My interest lies in forms of memory that can survive the death of the individual brain. Not memory within consciousness, but memory’s lasting traces in the physical world. In other words, symbols: Records. Archives. Language. Media.

Therefore, I re-phrase our question. When was media born?

The earliest physical evidence of symbolic records are found in bones. These prehistoric artifacts are prepared sections of animal bone, about the length of one’s hand. These bones have grooves cut into them.

These are deliberate, intentional, symbolic marks: long, careful rows of parallel cuts. Microscopic analysis of these cuts shows that they were not made all at once. They were not decorations. They were accounts.

These grooved bones are records. We do not know what they were recording. There have been many speculations, of course. They might be phases of the moon, astronomical records. They might be calendars, records of days passing. Perhaps they are economics: days spent in some kind of labor, or accounts of gifts, or accounts of services.

This is all theory.

All we know is that these notched bones are, by far, the longest-lived system of records that the human race ever created.

These bones were born about 100,000 years ago, and they died about ten thousand years ago. This bone technology was very widespread and successful.

Notched bones of this type have been found in prehistoric excavations all over the planet. The technology never advanced, and the technology never decayed. The notched bones always looked very similar, no matter where they were found.

This practice lasted ninety thousand years. This much is well-attested.

But were these bones were the true birth of media? I fear we underestimate our ancestors.

The bones are fossil media, but the fossil record is untrue to the past. Time does not preserve reality: time preserves only what time fails to destroy. The Stone Age left us a lot of evidence in stones, but this does not mean that stones were the core technology of the Stone Age. If you study the lives of contemporary Stone Age people, you soon come to realize that their world is not made out of stones.

Their world is made out of wood, bark, fiber, bone, shell, juices, poisons, toxins, drugs, thorns, hide, leather, string, skin, hair, fruit, seeds, roots, meat, and feathers. These are all organic materials. They rot easily, they decompose, they are very temporary. Time does not preserve them.