The Dead Media Notebook
Page 16
“In the Fifties every city youth had his own collection of so-called bone music. ‘Bone music’ was a sheet of X-ray film with a homemade copy of some jazz piece on it. The technology of the copying process was beyond my grasp, but I trust that it was a relatively simple procedure, since the supply was steady and the price reasonable.
“One could purchase this somewhat moribund-looking stuff (talk about the nuclear age!) in the same fashion as those sepia pictures of Western movie stars: in parks, in public toilets, in flea markets, in the then famous ‘cocktail halls”
[Bruce Sterling adds: Artemy Troitsky’s BACK IN THE USSR, a history of the Soviet pop underground, also describes the very extensive Soviet practice of creating and circulating illegal recordings on used X-ray plates.]
Source: A Western Boyhood, in Russia, by Joseph Brodsky. Excerpt from his essay Spoils of War, in the recent book ON GRIEF AND REASON. Harper’s Magazine, March 1995, p34.
The Talking View-Master
From Dan Howland
While the View-Master is not a dead medium, this 1970s variation certainly is. The Talking View-Master uses a special disc set consisting of a standard View-Master disc (fourteen 10mm X 12mm [16mm film?] slides making up seven stereoscopic views, sandwiched between two 9cm cardboard discs) and a smaller, free-spinning phonorecord behind it.
The two discs are inserted into the viewer/player, the first scene is located by pressing and releasing a lever, and a red reset button is pushed.
Then a Sound Bar on the front of the machine is pushed, which activates the “turntable” motor and presses the stylus into the first track. Thereafter, the stylus will advance to each subsequent track with every press of the Scene Change Lever.
On this model, only the motor which spins the phonorecord is electrical; the sound is transmitted mechanically from the stylus to a speaker cone. In order to allow enough light to reach the slides through the translucent record, there is a single sheet of clear plastic (65mm X 100mm) molded into two fresnel lenses on the side facing the light source.
This is not an entirely successful solution; with common household light sources like lamps, it is difficult to get an equal amount of light to each eye.
Talking View-Master Stereo Viewer is sturdy and easy to use. PUT in the reel. CLICK the lever.
PRESS the sound bar.
SEE in 3-D, and HEAR cartoon favorites, travel thrills, adventures in science. Operates on two ‘C’ batteries, not included
Another model featured a built-in light, volume adjustment and was two-tone blue. (Not pictured is the 80’s talking viewer, completely redesigned and not compatible with the earlier talking reels.) It is worth noting that while standard, non-talking View-Master reels were first marketed in 1939, they are still compatible with currently available viewers.
Source: personal observation; thrifted one this past weekend. TALKING VIEW-MASTER. Manufactured by GAF (General Aniline & Film). Circa 197?. Two-tone beige plastic. 125mm X 125mm X 200 mm. Power supply: two C batteries.
Dead photographic processes
From Mark Simpkins
Brief notes from this fairly comprehensive encyclopedia, with possible avenues for further research. I realise some of this is not radically unknown, but it needs recording. The term ‘Photography’ came from the Greek phos, photos, ‘light,’ and suffix graphos, ‘writing’. The word was first suggested to William Henry Fox Talbot by Sir John Herschel in a letter dated 28th February 1839. Obsolete printing processes.
[Note that the encyclopedia entry for this section suggests that these processes are prototypical rather than obsolete.]
CALOTYPE or TALBOTYPE. Paper sponged over with or floated on solutions of silver iodide and potassium iodide. When partially dry, the excess potassium iodide was removed by bathing in distilled water. Paper was sensitized in a solution of silver nitrate, acetic acid and gallic acid. After printing a feeble image was brought up to the required strength by an application of a solution similar to the silver nitrate sensitizer. Talbotypes produced rich warm brown images.
FLUOROTYPE. Paper washed with solution containing 2 per cent potassium bromide and ¼ per cent sodium fluoride in distilled water. Sensitized by floating in a solution of 15 per cent silver nitrate for two minutes. Very sensitive to light. The inventor claimed an image of a brightly lit scene could be obtained in the camera by an exposure of only half a minute. The image was feeble though, and had to be intensified by brushing over with a weak solution of sulphate of iron. Fixed with hypo and washed.
CYANOTYPE. Invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842. Blue print process, mostly used for copying drawings giving a white image on a blue background. Still in use [at least at time of this 1965 edition].
PELLET PROCESS. Variation of cyanotype, gives blue image on white background. Introduced by H. Pellet in 1878.
FERRO-GALLIC and FERRO-TANNIC PAPERS. Introduced by A. Poitevin in 1861. Image formation relied on similar action to cyanotype (the reduction of ferric salts by light). Image formed by combination of ferrous salts with gallic or tannic acid, yielding a deep purple or brown insoluble organic compound.
ALBUMEN PROCESS. Paper coated with egg white before sensitization by floating on a silver nitrate solution. Resultant prints were toned with gold chloride. Remained in use for the next thirty years, superseded by printing- out papers using collodion or gelatin as a vehicle for the sensitizing salts.
ARGENOTYPE. Invented by Herschel in 1842. A silver image produced by utilizing the action of light on ferric salts. Printed out in daylight.
KALLITYPE. Introduced by W.J.Nichol. Sensitizer was ferric oxalate, reducing to ferrous oxalate. Yielded warm sepia tones.
PALLADIOTYPE, PLATINOTYPE. The papers for these processes was purchased ready prepared [ unlike the previous processes which were do-it-yourself.]. The final print consisted of a deposit of platinum or palladium on the paper support. Palladium was introduced during World War I when platinum was difficult to get. Both produce rich blacks unobtainable with silver. The image was permanent. These papers were very sensitive to damp. Special precautions had to be taken when opening the tin in which they were sold to keep them dry. During printing the paper had to be protected by covering the back with a sheet of rubber. Out of use due to scarcity and high cost of materials.
URANIUM PRINTING. The action of light reduced uranyl nitrate to a viscous compound. Produced a brown image, unless silver nitrate was used in the development, which produced a grey image due to deposited silver.
POWDER PROCESSES. Several processes were popular for a time, especially on the Continent. Certain substances such as sugar, dextrine or gum, treated with potassium bichromate, lost their natural tackiness when exposed to light. A dark powder was dusted over an exposed plate (or paper). This powder would adhere in proportion to the degree of the action of the light on the hardening of the coating. Plumbago or graphite powder was used. The plate was protected with a collodion coating. The same principle is still used, employing certain resins, in various photomechanical processes.
PIGMENT PRINTING; OZOBROME PROCESS. Poitevin made photographic prints on paper coated with gelatin mixed with colouring matter and sensitized with potassium bichromate in 1855. This led to the carbon printing process. In 1905 Thomas Manly invented the ozobrome process which eliminated the use of bichromated paper; the pigment image was made direct from a bromide print as in present day carbo process.
ARTIGUE PROCESS. Invented by M. Artigue of Paris. Gum, mixed with any desired colour pigment and sensitized with potassium bichromate, was coated on paper or other support and after exposure under a negative was developed in a soup-like mixture of sawdust and water. Capable of producing very delicate results.
OIL PRINTING. Introduced in 1904 by Rawlins, based on early lithographic transfer procedures of much earlier date. Depended on the action of light on bichromated but unpigmented gelatin coated paper. The bromoil process is based on this and is still used today by some pictorial photographers.<
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CHROMOTYPE. Described by Robert Hunt in 1843, a process by which either a positive or a negative could be obtained depending on the length of exposure, the latter presumably by solarization.
BREATH PRINTING. Discovered by Sir John Herschel. Latent images could be prepared which could only be seen when breathed on or subjected to a moist atmosphere. Paper was coated with the dissolved precipitate formed under certain conditions by the addition of silver nitrate to ferro-tartaric acid. Printed under a negative in sunlight the paper so prepared would, by the right exposure, be impressed with a latent image which was not visible unless breathed on or subjected to a light aqueous vapour, when it acquired an extraordinary intensity.
DIAZOTYPE. Designed in 1891 for printing photographically onto fabrics on which a range of colours could be produced. Prints could be made on paper but the colours were dull and whites impure. The term is nowadays generally applied to a number of similar processes.
PINATYPE. A transparency was made on a soft emulsion of the lantern plate variety and developed in a tanning developer. The “printing plate” so obtained was bated for about two minutes in an engraving black or photographic brown pinatype dye. The dye was held in suspension by the gelatin in direct proportion to the extent to which it had been hardened by light action during printing. The plate so charged with dye was then washed free of the surplus dye and finally brought in contact with a sheet of paper coated with plain gelatin. The two were squeegeed together and left for several minutes, when the dye in the plate was transferred to the virgin gelatin. When separated, the gelatin bore the dye image. Any number of prints could be made by dyeing-up the printing plate and repeating the imbition process.
WOTHLYTYPE. A printing-out paper invented by J. Wothly of Aachen, 1864. The paper coated with collodion containing uranium and silver nitrate, was considerably more sensitive than the albumen paper then in general use, but the claim for permanence, due to the uranium, was not fulfilled, and after a couple of years the Wothlytype was abandoned.
Source: The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography (2 Volumes) 1965 edition, 2nd reprint. Editorial Board: L.A. Mannheim, Daphne Buckmaster, Frederick Purves, P.C. Poynter, Norah Wilson, Paul Petzold, A. Kraszna-Krausz.
The Luba Lukasa
From Mark Simpkins
The Lukasa was a mnemonic device once used by the Luba people of Zaire. The Lukasa is a hand-held flat wooden object.
The flat part is divided into male and female sections, and either studded with beads and pins, or covered with incised ideograms. It was used to teach lore about cultural heros, clan migrations and the introduction of sacred rule.
It was also used to suggest spatial positions of activities and oracles within the kingdom or inside a royal compound. Lukasas were used to order the sacred prerogatives of officials with regard to their contact with earth spirits and the use of natural resources.
Each Lukasa elicits some or all of this information but the narration varies with the oratory skill and knowledge of the reader. The Lukasa encodes not a symbolic representation of the information, merely a mnemonic, or spatial representation map of it.
The kinds of information encoded may include journeys, kings and courtiers, genealogies, and lists of clans. The instrument was used by an association called the “Mbudye,” who trained men of memory who could recall genealogies, royal lists and episodes in the founding of the kingdom.
It seems to me that this is not merely a single medium but an entire approach (mnemonic encoding as opposed to symbolic representation) that is disappearing from living media.
Source: STAFFS OF LIFE (ed. AF Roberts, Iowa City 1994)
PhoneVision
From A. Padgett Peterson
Zenith had experimented with subscription television since 1931, and had completed a system in 1947.
“Phonevision” was trademarked. In 1951, with FCC approval, a limited test involving 300 Chicago families was conducted. Each day for 90 days, Zenith broadcast a Hollywood motion picture available to any family for $1 (not cheap, a new Buick was $1800 then).
The families watched an average of 1.73 movies per week. More than the average, but not enough to justify a commercial venture. In 1954, a second test of an improved system was made, this time in New York City using WOR facilities to determine the effectiveness in a high broadcast density environment. The over-the-air coding/decoding mechanism worked well and the test was considered a success.
In October of 1954 the first contract was concluded for the use of Phonevision for Australia and New Zealand. I do not know what happened as a result. The mechanism lingered on until the seventies without any real success.
In 1971 a test of a limited number of subscribers was made in Hartford, Connecticut, but again the setup expense was considered to be to high for commercial viability. It took the mass-market penetration of cable to make pay-per-view effective.
The original PhoneVision required a dedicated phone line to each subscriber’s house. Later ones used on-the- air signals, but all required a special decoder box. Two types of billing saw experimental use.
The first had a coin-operated box on top of the TV. When the proper amount was deposited, it would retrieve the decoding information over the phone line to unscramble the signal.
Later designs required the user to call a number on the telephone and authorize the charge in exchange for a code. Entering the code into the box unscrambled the picture. Today Zenith is one of the top manufacturers of cable TV decoders. Few realize it all started back in the ‘30s.
By the way, Zenith began regular colour TV broadcasts in Chicago back in 1940 using a “colour wheel” mechanical method and field sequential transmission. When the American standard NTSC (known as “Never The Same Colour”) was adopted in 1953 by the FCC (under tremendous lobbying pressure by RCA), the field sequential colour TV system also became “dead media.”
Source: The Zenith Story, an inhouse Zenith publication from 1954.
Sonovision
From Jack Ruttan
This is a book full of information about kinetic and early computer and holographic art. I’ll quote something relatively contemporary, from “SONOVISION: A Visual Display of Sound,” by S. R. Wagler:
“A new device has been invented by Lloyd G. Cross that makes a visual display in color correlated to sound by projecting a krypton or helium-neon laser light beam on to a translucid screen or opaque surface [below is a diagram, which simply shows a laser beam being reflected off a membrane stretched over the cone of a speaker, and hitting a screen or wall].
“When there is no sound input to the device, the beam gives only a pinpoint of light. When one simple sound or musical note is introduced into the device, the dot moves in an ellipse at the frequency of the sound supplied. The size of the ellipse is related directly to the loudness of the note and can be adjusted by turning a knob on the control panel. When the note is changed to another one, a different ellipse with a new orientation is formed. When two notes are introduced simultaneously, the laser beam produces a combination of the two ellipses, similar to the Lissajous patterns obtained from cathode- ray tubes. Thus a symphony of notes will result in a symphony of ellipse interference patterns on the display screen.
“Repeatability means that a way is now available for the deaf to ‘see’ music and obtain a new experience and the device may also be useful in speech therapy.
“A second mode of operation is available in the same set. A spinning prism produces a circle in place of the dot when the beam is at rest. When one or more notes are fed into the device, petal-type deviations from the circle result.
“The invention of Cross has been incorporated in several kinds of commercial units under the trade name Sonovision. Editor’s note; Attempts to contact Sonovision, Inc. and S.R. Wagner in 1972 were unsuccessful.
Source KINETIC ART: THEORY AND PRACTICE, Selections from the Journal Leonardo, Frank J. Malina ed, New York, Dover Publications Inc. 1974.
U
nion telegraph balloons, Confederate microfilm
From Bruce Sterling
War and espionage seem to be great generators of dead media. They produce desperate extremes in which communication is a matter of life and death, and in which normal means of communication are subjected to severe enemy attack. Necessity gives birth to invention, and when necessity ceases those inventions often vanish, into legendry or utter obscurity.
Diplomacy, espionage, courier service, scouting, reportage, and postal service are generally seen as distinct activities, but the lines between them blur under stress. Markle’s book on US Civil War espionage and its tradecraft offers interesting period parallels to the 1870-1871 siege of Paris, with its microfilm, mail balloons and pigeon post.
“Late in the war Confederates reportedly used an advanced form of photography to prepare their messages for courier movement to Richmond.” [Markle quotes the following letter.]
United States Consulate
Toronto Prv
Jany 3, 1865
Honorable W. H. Seward
Secretary of State
Washington, D.C.
Sir,
The following facts having been given to me: The Rebels in this city have a quick and successful communications with Jeff Davis and the authorities in Richmond, in the following manner.
Having plenty of money at their command, they employ British subjects, who are provided with British passports, and also with passports from Col [blank] which are plainly written; name and date of issue on fine silk and are ingeniously secreted in the lining of the coat.
They carry dispatches, which are made and carried in the same manner. These messengers wear metal buttons, which, upon the inside, dispatches are most minutely photographed, not perceptible to the naked eye, but are easily read by the aid of a powerful lens.