XW: Near and Distant Pasts-Van Nelle Fabriek and Membrane

i wonder how we might plant membrane more deeply into the local history of the van nelle fabriek. looking at the historical footage i was struck by the repetitive taylorist movements of the workers in the factory, so modern so sleek, such a dream for these women and men.
intercut with the chained cadence of paper rolls folded by mechanical blades, and boxes of coffee moving in perdiodic rhythm across the flying corridors. all in the very same spaces that the exhibit will be in. we have a rare opportunity to excavate the images of true ghosts from the very same space in which the visitors will be standing at deaf04.

van nelle 1930's



Attachment converted: salt:vn1_handout2.tif (TIFF/8BIM) (00054D3A)
Attachment converted: salt:vn3_coffeeboxes.tif (TIFF/8BIM) (00054D3B)


i was thinking that as the live (present day) activity drops around a membrane, that the system would pull footage from more and more distant past (all the way back to the 1930's...)
and feed that footage into the current "instrument" (whether it's some parameterized version of string or wave or smoke) to drive the synthesis of effects video. also the energy of the near-person's activity would be used to mix between a pass-through feed of the remote person and the effect video.

this would be away of recalling past in palimpsest, excavated or surfaced by foreground activity, a more nuanced refinement of my suntrust membrane.

we can tone the most ancient images in reduced range too (tinted earth) or use a different effect to clarify difference between membrane's synchronous to "current" data and its response to ancient, replayed data.

- xinwei