Archive

Paradoxical Shadows

Duchamp’s Paradoxical Shadows

October 1, 2011
Paradoxical Shadows
Leave a comment

3D detail, Tu M' (Marcel Duchamp)

Here are a couple of stereoscopic views of Duchamp’s Tu M’. The painting has a perspectival pictorial structure with three painted shadows of readymades landing on the canvas (not on the objects described in perspectival depth).  A real bottle brush sticks out form the canvas and casts a shadow in the same way as the absent readymades.

Detail Tu M' (Marcel Duchamp)

The pictures are taken from two different horizons.If you are new to this blog, to resolve the stereoscopic pair of images, go cross eyed so that a feature in one image corresponds to the same feature in the other, and try to relax until the depth emerges. If you are having difficulty seeing it, reduce the size of the image on the screen.

Peepshow

September 30, 2011
Paradoxical Shadows
1 Comment

Van Hoogstraten in Nat's Office

This is a short post as I am away at the moment, but this is a model of Samuel Van Hoogstraten’s peep show (from the National Gallery, London) with the doors removed so that you look through it into my office. The photograph is taken with a camera I built to take the ideal picture to resolve the anamorphic view. The camera is built with a lot of shift to achieve this and to fill the frame. In the peep show there is a disturbance between pictorial and material space and this is played on with a (real) light coming through the doors that lands on the ceiling of the box. The furthest part of the ceiling of the box pictorially represents the wall of the room, so the light appears to land on the inside surface of the exterior wall it comes through. More paradoxical shadows. As we implicitly believe light, this disturbance takes a moment or two to register.

Van Hoostraten's peepshow unfolded

The unfolded view of the peepshow shows the anamorphic distortions of the room to get it to make sense when folded into a box. The two peep holes can be seen at either end.

Van Hoogstraten's peepshow in Nat's office

Van Hoogstraten's peepshow in Nat's office

There are some views looking back the other way that I will dig out.