User:Christopher Noort

Digital Craft

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Fantastic Forgeries

Marcel Duchamp

Blainville 1887 - Neuilly sur Seine 1968

Rotoreliefs (optische schijven / Optical Disks) 1935

Offsetlitho op karton Offset Lithograph on cardboard

De ‘Rotoreliefs’ tonen Maercel Duchamps interesse in het weergeven van beweging op het platte vlak. Wanneer de schijven met

een bepaalde snelheiden draaien, ontstaat een illusie van diepte. De film ‘Anémic Cinéma’ laat vroegere versies van deze ’Rotoreliefs’

zien in combinatie met tekstuele zinspelingen. Voor de kunstenaar zijn de ‘Rotoreliefs’ niet alleen een artistiek, maar ook een

wetenschappelijk experiment dat zich richt op de waarneming van de toeschouwer.

The ’Rotoreliefs’ display Marcel Duchamp’s interest in the representation of movement on a flat surface. When the discs are

spun at a certain speed they create the illusion of depth. The film Anémic Cinéma’ shows early versions of these

‘Rotoreliefs’ were an artistic and scientific experiment aimed at the viewer’s perception.

Why did I chose this work?

There are three reasons why I’m interested in Duchamp’s “Rotoreliefs“. The phenomenon ‘Optical Illusion’ is a

subject that always fascinated me, but never had the time to really do research on the subject. It’s a enormous

undiscovered world for me, that I can explore not only in a textual matter, but also in an experimental way.

This leads me to the second reason I want to dive into duchamp’s world. The ‘Rotoreliefs’ offer a perfect change

to combine Digital craft with my major in Graphic design. Instead of seeing the two studies as two separate

fields, I want to know if they can enhance each other. The last reason why I want to discover Duchamp’s work

is the sea of possibilities I see when I think of enhancing the work with current day technology. Not only can I

improve the complexity of the graphics on the disks, The way the disks could be made, showed, used, presented,

formed, placed in the current day and age are endless in possibilities.

Research

'Watch the movie

Anemic Cinema

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anemic_Cinema

Anemic Cinema or Anémic Cinéma (1926) is a Dadaist, surrealist, or experimental film made by Marcel Duchamp.

The film depicts whirling animated drawings—which Duchamp called Rotoreliefs—alternated with puns in French.

Duchamp signed the film with his alter ego name of Rrose Sélavy.

Rotoreliefs were a phase of Duchamp's spinning works. To make the optical "play toys" he painted designs on flat

cardboard circles and spun them on a phonograph turntable that when spinning the flat disks appeared 3-dimensional.

He had a printer run off 500 sets of six of the designs and set up a booth at a 1935 Paris inventors' show to sell them.

The venture was a financial disaster, but some optical scientists thought they might be of use in restoring 3-dimensional sight to people with one eye.[1]

In collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allégret, Duchamp filmed early versions of the Rotoreliefs and they named the first film version Anémic Cinéma.

The Rotoreliefs are alternated with nine revolving disks with the following text in French, consisting of puns and alliteration by Duchamp

"Bains de gros thé pour grains de beauté sans trop de bengué." (BenGay was invented in France by Dr. Jules Bengué)

"L'enfant qui tète est un souffleur de chair chaude et n'aime pas le chou-fleur de serre-chaude."

"Si je te donne un sou, me donneras-tu une paire de ciseaux?"

"On demande des moustiques domestiques (demi-stock) pour la cure d'azote sur la côte d'azur.

"Inceste ou passion de famille, à coups trop tirés.

"Esquivons les ecchymoses des Esquimaux aux mots exquis.

"Avez-vous déjà mis la moëlle de l'épée dans le poêle de l'aimée?

"Parmi nos articles de quincaillerie paresseuse, nous recommandons le robinet qui s'arrête de couler quand on ne l'écoute pas."

"L'aspirant habite Javel et moi j'avais l'habite en spirale."

---

Optical Duchamp

http://www.abandon.nl/opical3.htm

In 1920 Duchamps special interest in motion and optical effects resulted in, what he called, 'rotoreliefs':

cardboard discs, printed with patterns creating an illusion of a 3D (spatial) object when turning around on

a 'phonograph' (record player) and especially for the rotorelief designed machines. Abstract figures, but

also objects such as a champagne glass or an egg-cup with an egg etc. where the 'motives' on these discs.

Maybe Duchamp hoped to realize the prophecy of Apollinaire that he was foreordained to 'be the conciliator of

art with people'. He rented a stand at the Concours Lépine, an annual fair for fancy domestic gadgets and general

inventions, and made a display with his rotoreliefs.

People were very interested, but nobody purchased any of the cardboard rotoreliefs: some rotoreliefs were for sale,

but there's reason to doubt this intention to be anything more than just another example of the inquisitive mind of Marcel Duchamp.

The rotorelief as an excursion to a non museal approach of the creative process however, is very real. Of course

Duchamp would humorously 'tone down' his act - as a result of his moderate (often referred to as nihilistic) philosophy

of life - but he wouldn't have made this 'invention' if he didn't take it very seriously as a creative process.

The 'déposée' (deposit) of the invention at the 'Tribunal de commerce de la Seine' in 1935 has to be -

almost beyond doubt - viewed in the same way: as an attempt to a non museal creative process.

In 1926 he also made a film "Anemic Cinema", in collaboration with Man Ray, based on the rotoreliefs and additional textual material.

Documentaries and other moving pictures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CFQY0Yf1iI

Duchamp interviews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwk7wFdC76Y

Marcel Duchamp 1968 BBC interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMAYHxqTBM8

Duchamp Docu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b1egysFRoY

Understanding contemporary Art

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvYAAh8RuU

MARCEL DUCHAMP – ANEMIC CINEMA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvYAAh8RuU

Rotorelief (Duchamp) – ‘Laterne chinoise’ (drehende Kreise)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_8fjd82v9s

Marcel Duchamp, "Roto Relief: Optical Discs, 1953". A replica of a 1935 original. Spotted at the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_XDJ0QRgxE

Rotorelief Disk 3D effect

Remake

Using the pictures i've had taken in the Boijmans museum and a few from the internet,

i've managed to recreate all the Duchamp disks. The disks are recreated in Illustrator

and therefore all the disks are in Vector. This means I can resize them in every possible size.

>>>>>>>> CLICK THIS LINK FOR A VIDEO OF THE MOVING DISKS <<<<<<<

Realisation

Re-interpretation

For my re-interpretation I wanted to focus on the fact that I have technology that Duchamp didn’t have.

Therefore my version of the disk could be way more complicated and precise. By making my own disks from scratch I could study the creation

of an optical illusions on a more detailed level. I started of with the goal too make as many disks as possible while trying to keep a certain level of quality.

C O N C E P T U A L L A Y E R

After making a lot of disks I noticed that I was struggling with the fact that there was no real
context or reason behind these complex shapes and forms. By adding a conceptual layer to the work - something Duchamp didn't have,
as he described the work as a visual experiment - I could define the things I was making and give deeper meaning too my 'art'.
Instead of presenting something that was visually entertaining too watch; I now saw the opportunity to communicate something with the audience

I want to use Duchamps hypnotic disks as a metaphor that tells the story of how we interact with the possibility to acces the entirety of information known to man. I see an optical illusions as malfunctions of the brain. Something the brain can not cope with. The perceived image is misinterpreted, which is translated by the brain into a new image that differs from the original. An optical illusion is a solution for the brain to handle complex visual data. This humongous phenomenon called the internet is starting to get so big, it’s hard to comprehend all it’s information. All this data could / should be the solution to the majority of our problems as the human race, but is mainly used to look at photographs of cats. We have the possibility to learn skills on the web that can help is in every aspact of our everyday lives, yet we simply don’t do it. By using duchamps complex optical illusions, I hope too create a installation that shows the audience that the complexity of the world wide web. I want to confront people with the fact that this Jungle of Information has altered their appreciation for information as they waste their precious time by scrolling thru useless one’s and zero’s. My disks are a visual interpretation of the hypnotic and addicted state we’re in as a data consumer.