Imaging

Stephen Colbert Portrait With Subliminal IR Message Marquee

Fortunately, Austrian filmmaker Benjamin Hable has discovered that you can use your cell phone, digital camera, or other CCD-equipped gadget (rather like the special sunglasses discovered by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s character in John Carpenter’s 1988 conspiranoia flick They Live) to see the fnords. Benjamin made Augmented Paranoia for a January 17 exhibition called bits and ohm, and used the public-domain portrait of Stephen Colbert released for the Colbert Nation Portrait Challenge. Reminds me of a project I did a few years back ( (also inspired by They Live) involving deliberately burning subliminal messages into the phosphors of analog TV tubes. [Thanks, Benjamin!]

Continue Reading March 16th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan14

Projecting Text with Lightbulbs and Magnifying Glasses

Pausations, an installation by Australian-born artist Ian Burns, uses lightbulbs and magnifying glasses to project the words onto the wall. It was on display at the Armory Show last week. [via colossal]

Continue Reading March 14th, 2011 Matt Richardson4

Polar Bear Spy Cams

These covert cameras employed by wildlife videographer John Downer imitate natural elements of the Arctic Norwegian environment to grab an insanely closeup view of the polar bear’s journey. Jacob Resneck at Cool Hunting writes: Downer employs three types of cameras to track the lives of two mother bears as they lead their clubs across Arctic […]

Continue Reading March 10th, 2011 Becky Stern3

Inexpensive and Readily-Available DIY Laser Dyes

My friend and fellow DC Dork, Jon Singer, does a lot of laser research and experimentation at the Joss Research Institute. This week, he sent me a link to a new article he’d posted, a report of his findings on lasing various fountain inks, invisible ink, “optical whitener,” and other readily-available materials, for creating DIY […]

Continue Reading March 6th, 2011 Gareth Branwyn2

DIY Ring Flash from Optical Fiber

Ring flashes are often used for macro and glamour portrait photography, but that kind of professional equipment can be quite expensive. Wolf made his own using a bundle of fiber optic strands originating at his camera’s flash and terminating at an acrylic ring he cut himself. The benefit of this method is that all of […]

Continue Reading March 6th, 2011 Matt Richardson2

IR “Paintings” Visible Only Through Your Digital Camera

This project is called Take A Picture, by Toronto artists Brad Blucher and Kyle Clements. Though described as “paintings,” it appears that their pieces are in fact IR LED mosaics assembled behind blank canvases. Invisible to the unaided human eye, the IR light is detectable by the CCD in your digital camera and/or smart phone. [via Hack a Day]

Continue Reading March 4th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan24

Dropless Laser Projection Microscope Takes Glass Slides

Interesting post from dusjagr over on Hacketeria, who reports success using a 100 mW green laser with the lens from a cheap webcam, in the arrangement pictured here, to make a projecting microscope that will accept conventional microscope slides, and is only slightly more complicated than a Planinsic-type water-drop projector. [via Hack a Day]

Continue Reading March 3rd, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan4

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