Project Description

“Slitroll Sculptures” extends alternative process photographic techniques into a high definition, experimental animation realm. The resulting 4k video loops transform a subject in motion into an abstracted, dimensional sculpture.

Process Notes

Slitscan photography is a technique that has been explored for more than 50 years, and I have personally explored it for more than 20! I created my first rolling slitscan images to create animations in 2002 with a miniDv camera, a gearbox from a military aircraft, a hobby motor, and a 9-volt battery while I was studying alternative process photography with Andrew Davidhazy (iykyk). Since then, I’ve built a half dozen contraptions to explore slitscan photography, but I couldn’t create high definition slitroll animations until recently with the affordability of high-frame rate, high resolution digital cameras. For this series, I shoot native 4k video at 120 fps, then I use custom software to reinterpret the frames to mimic slitscan photographic processes. Executed one frame at a time, every frame is a composition of over 4000 images. Each artwork requires over a week of processing on a purpose built, high end workstation with hardware accelerated rendering.

Technical Notes

The videos loop perfectly, but a hiccup may be noticable on looped playback on some machines (faster machines can smoothly play the media). The digital artworks are collectable as 1/1 NFTs, minted on the Ethereum blockchain. The artist will provide digital asset management and display assistance to any collector (Matto is an expert in this area).

Editioned Prints

1 frame from each sculpture may be selected for use as a digital edition or ‘poster print’ at a later date. At this time, no such editions are available.

Artworks:

Spinning Dancer #1

A posed model frozen in dance, transformed into sculpture. 2160 x 3840 (vertical 4k), 59 second loop. B/W.

Spinning Nude #1

A posed nude, transformed into sculpture. 3840 x 2160 (4k), 29 second loop. B/W.