auge gottes kinocenter

the border issue

Contrast
is the difference in visual properties
that makes an object ... in an image
distinguishable from other objects
and the background
[from · this wikipedia article ·]

The Boder Issue - Intro


Very roughly said, there are two kinds of cells inside the human eye that can transform the light coming in into signals and forward them to the brain. There, the signals are composed into what we call "seeing".

These two 'kinds' of cells work in a way, that one kind can distinguish differences between light and dark but not colours (just grey !) - and the other is solely responsible for the colour part.
The ones responsible for the light/dark varieties are a few times more sensitive to light.

Letters and writing work this way

All colours will agree in the dark - or: all cats are grey by night. Ever seen a ginger cat in the moonlight ? Or the colours of the leaves in autumn under a harvest moon ? That's what I meant. You'll see the object, but colours come only with (the right amount and source of) light.

~ click for a more detailed view ~

The term outline can be used to describe the actual line(s) around letters/words - serving the purpose of highlighting the actual words in a picture for example.

In another meaning it can also describe the shape of something.
Like a silhouette, for example




or a warning sign
this here is actually about substances
that severely harm/destroy nature/life

do you also see a person standing,
a bottle in the hand raised, head bowed back a bit -
or is it just are this just wet traces on a sidewalk...





some more 'just' wet traces on a sidewalk...

The Border Issue - more examples

Boris Karloff as "The Mummy"
in the film's 1932 version

two stencils - found on a street in Vienna [2010]

a character from a film (work in progress) by Jessica Koppe
[note: this are fully pose-able stop-motion animation characters with armature !]

So what is the point ?

This is something persistently gaining weight in my mind and ...erm... 'thinking' about visual perception and photography. Now I'm not planning to issue any manifestos, reveal any hidden truths or such nonsense - I am just talking about something I became more and more aware of lately. Enough people wrote enough stuff about aesthetics and what "art" can/should/must be and with whom they will not hang out and is an rotten egg and stuff.

This is something I became aware of.

It might sound very stupid in its simplicity: easily readable, simple designs can be easily read and remembered. The most iconic (yes, like icon) characters in classic horror films can be reproduced with some simple lines.

This is a work in progress article - heading toward balancing things out against each other and lightning in setting up strong pictures in some so long planned and now being in reach to actually "happen" stop-motion animation stuff. Yay !



Oh, and for your visual desert - some onomatopoetia; because I just love the sound of the word itself... voila, and bon appetit !

vienna's seventeenth district

cellography ~ contrast

"Contrast is the difference in visual properties that makes an object (or its representation in an image) distinguishable from other objects and the background...

Because the human visual system is more sensitive to contrast than absolute luminance, we can perceive the world similarly regardless of the huge changes in illumination over the day or from place to place."

[from the wikipedia article]



The pictures above aren't from any study on the term "contrast", just a collection that I assembled over some weeks with my old cell phone's built-in camera. I really get used to this thingee and the way the pictures turn out...

cellography ~ further progress

some more pictures recently taken with my old cellphone's built-in camera.
Without any artsy-fartsy intentions in mind - I really like this lo-fi character.
And as long as my camera doesn't work properly, I need something to substitute it.

cellography, face perception and a marble floor

something I came across many many times was/is people - and especially me - recognicing faces in all kind of shapes. The highlight of a rather boring film from the late sixites I had to sit through was a very old continuous-flow water heater on the wall that looked like a Imperial Storm Trooper's Mask from Star Wars. No kidding ! I swear ! Just like in the movies !!!

A quite long dialogue between two students about revolution and art happend right under this gigantic monster mask water heater and I nearly fainted trying NOT to break out in hysterical laughter... people: it was hard to stand this one through.
The longer the dialogue lasted the more hilarious the whole scene became for me. Now I have a very profound glimpse of where George Lucas' team got the idea for this masks

Which leads me back to topic: Face Recognition. For the more interested among us/you here a wikipedia article for starters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_perception). I know this is cheap, but what the heck...

I had to wait several times on the same floor for long terms for some people - and while being there alone and without a book and no view and my old cellphone with built in lo-fi camera (it works, so what the heck !) I started to try out NOT seeing faces in the marble floor. Here some results.

still a human form, but I'm on the way...








way back, in a cave.... yes, this is a pattern I found in a marble floor.
A stone cut through, resulting in this shape. Amazing.









and then I found faces too....









... ghostly, human faces...





Yes, this are all patterns/shapes found in a marble floor. I am still amazed.

Sorry for the poor quality, but the ole cellphone was all I got.

some more cell-o-graphy

cell-o-graphy

When I bought my used currently in use cellphone about 18 months ago I first fumbled around with the built-in camera. It was the cheapest cellphone I was able to get, and the camera was a nice idea. Somehow I even become able to handle the limits of this camera and use them as my benefits.