Author Topic: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...  (Read 4686 times)

gothamtomato

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Does this even sound possible? http://beautifuldecay.com/2014/03/16/photographer-swallows-35mm-film-allows-digestive-fluids-create-astounding-images/

How could he get sharp pictures like these? They look like they were taken with a microscope.

Bryan

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2014, 03:00:58 PM »
Those images look like they are from an electron microscope.  I think the author is confused about what the images actually are.  I suspect they are the images of the film surface from the electron microscope they mention in the article.

Francois

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2014, 03:07:17 PM »
These are definitely electron microscope like. What I think we're seeing is not a reaction with the silver in the emulsion but various protein structures that have attached to the emulsion's gelatin.

I'm no expert on the subject but that's what I feel is the most logical answer.
Francois

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DonkeyDave

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2014, 04:26:13 PM »
basically its electron micrographs of shit stuck to a bit of film

inspired

Indofunk

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2014, 04:30:29 PM »
basically its electron micrographs of shit stuck to a bit of film

inspired

 ;D

Late Developer

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2014, 05:41:42 PM »
basically its electron micrographs of shit stuck to a bit of film

inspired

Damien Hirst is probably kicking himself he didn't get to this piece of conceptual bollocks first...!!!
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mcduff

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2014, 06:29:11 PM »
Yes these are electron microscope photos. Even the Wired article that the author links to mention this.

I thought it was funny that the author states that the photos "substitutes the artists’ own bodies and their fluids for the impersonal metal gears and glass lens of a camera."

This got double points for making me laugh on two fronts:
1) If you think 'metal gears and optics' on devices from 20-100+ years ago are "impersonal" then you are gonna have a hard time in this millennium!!!  :o
and
2) nothing warm and friendly and personal like a scanning electron microscope  ::)
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Hungry Mike

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2014, 06:37:20 PM »
I'm a bit confused by this article. So he put a bit of film into a capsule (a cellulose capsule? one that couldn't dissolve but had holes in it?) which some how "allowed for the acids and bodily fluids to process the film" and minimize the damage to his colon?
Quote
Each frame looks like a scientific image taken from a microscope.
Well yeah because they are micrographs. And yeah what we're looking at is most likely protein stuck to the emulsion.

Quote
The most miraculous aspect of the work lies perhaps in the tension that arises between the intimate and vulnerable bodily process and the somewhat impersonal aesthetic of the resultant images.

Ha - sure ::).  He should have included photos of the capsule coming out via colonoscopy! Then I would have been impressed. I could have lent him my half frame endoscope (too bad I sold it).

Ed Wenn

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2014, 08:16:34 PM »
"The project, titled “I turn myself inside out” is an almost uncomfortably intimate and human exploration of the photographic medium"

Or, it's a fairly interesting set of images from an EM - assuming you don't see many images from an EM, in which case I suspect they'd be quite ordinary - which prompt me to wonder whether we need to redefine the following words; 'uncomfortably', 'intimate' and 'photographic', because I'm not sure the way they're used here tallies with my understanding of their meaning.

If they'd swallowed bubble gum wrappers and then scanned them with an EM would it have been an exploration of the wax paper medium?

Either way, thanks for posting, Deborah; I really enjoyed reading the comments here and on the original article.


jharr

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2014, 08:47:51 PM »
I don't understand how stomach fluids could, by any interpretation of the word, "develop" photographic film. It would certainly degrade the gelatin layers and possibly remove the silver, but I imagine that what they ended up with was so extremely uninteresting that the best they could do was to take some SEM images and call it a day. They should've made a video of the whole thing and called it 'performance art'. Ah well, they got some attention for it anyway.
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Terry

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2014, 09:12:03 PM »
conceptual bollocks indeed; although it might be way to remove remjet......

Francois

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2014, 09:37:51 PM »
Personally, I would have found it a bit cynical if they had passed away from silver poisoning in the process...

Do they know that they make small video cameras in a capsule for recording the "passage"? (saw it on mythbusters)
It could have made for a perfect addition to their stunt...
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Indofunk

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2014, 11:48:43 PM »
I don't understand how stomach fluids could, by any interpretation of the word, "develop" photographic film. It would certainly degrade the gelatin layers and possibly remove the silver, but I imagine that what they ended up with was so extremely uninteresting that the best they could do was to take some SEM images and call it a day. They should've made a video of the whole thing and called it 'performance art'. Ah well, they got some attention for it anyway.

This was exactly my take on the order of events. Looked at the pooped-out film, determined it was extremely uninteresting, made a last-ditch attempt at saving it. Not a great save, IMO.

Hungry Mike

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #14 on: April 04, 2014, 12:42:24 AM »
Quote
Ah well, they got some attention for it anyway.

Well they are students after all. I've had my fair share of half-assed & conceptually bollocks explanations to save failed / drunkenly put together / made the night before projects so I probably shouldn't criticize either...

gothamtomato

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #15 on: April 04, 2014, 01:53:39 AM »
basically its electron micrographs of shit stuck to a bit of film

inspired


I wish there was a 'like' button for this one.  8)

LT

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #16 on: April 04, 2014, 10:47:59 AM »
basically its electron micrographs of shit stuck to a bit of film

inspired

this.

I am rofling.
L.

Francois

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #17 on: April 04, 2014, 01:51:40 PM »
For some odd reason I can't quite figure out, the contemporary arts world seems to have an obsession with poo.
<politically correct off> I don't know why but for some odd reason an old people nursing home doesn't come to me as a modern art place  :o </politically correct off>

Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

ManuelL

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #18 on: April 05, 2014, 12:15:36 PM »
<politically correct off> I don't know why but for some odd reason an old people nursing home doesn't come to me as a modern art place  :o </politically correct off>

I used to work at an old people nursing home and can imagine some associations to the dadaists or Samuel Beckett. - and I mean this lovingly  :)

Ed Wenn

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #19 on: April 07, 2014, 12:42:56 AM »
For some odd reason I can't quite figure out, the contemporary arts world seems to have an obsession with poo.

Well, that's the next collaboration gallery theme sorted out!!  ;) ;)

Francois

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #20 on: April 07, 2014, 03:01:46 PM »
Very funny  ::)
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.

Bryan

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #21 on: April 07, 2014, 04:12:30 PM »
For some odd reason I can't quite figure out, the contemporary arts world seems to have an obsession with poo.

Well, that's the next collaboration gallery theme sorted out!!  ;) ;)

I've got three dogs, I'm sure I could come up with something.

Francois

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Re: Photographer Swallows 35mm Film, Allows Digestive Fluids to Create...
« Reply #22 on: April 07, 2014, 09:18:56 PM »
I can always call my plumber, he's sure to come up with something ;)

Last time he was here for some work, he was telling me about the time he found something stuck in the toilet... it was the size of a housecat... :o
Francois

Film is the vinyl record of photography.