“A prayer for all the possibilities outside of these failed frames”
"The transit of Venus and the solar parallax...
Any measurement is only as accurate as the measuring instrument. Prior to 1874, astronomers had to rely on highly trained specialists for their observations. These specialists activated a timekeeping device once the Transit began and stopped the device to mark its end. But every observer had different reflexes, resulting in different times, and thus different calculations.
Another obstacle stood in the way of accurate observation. As Venus approached the border of the Sun, the planet appeared to liquefy. A phenomenon caused by distortions in the planet's atmosphere as well as the lens of the telescope. Astronomers called this phenomenon the Black Drop effect. The act of observation obscures the observation.
Where the world meets the image of the world, the image falls apart.
For scientists, the transit provided a unique opportunity for technology to overcome the limitations of the imperfect human observer. But not everyone was convinced of their success. The philosopher Henri Bergson, writing on the Transit, said that any attempt to record a true measurement was doomed to failure. Venus, as it appeared to the scientist, did not reflect the true nature of Venus, but merely the limitations of human observation.
He writes:
There is no form, since form is immobile and reality is movement. What is real is the continual change of form: form is only a snapshot view of transition."
"The photographic revolver inspired by the semi-automatic Gatling gun. Applying automation to observation. The human observer is removed. There are no original plates of the 1874 transit left in existence."
"Your camera. Your mount. And your hand. The only time it should leave your body is when it is on its charger. On your body. At all times."
"The Axon body camera's recommended placement is on the centre of the chest. It does not capture the direct field of view of the operator, but from a slight parallax. The operator is not seeing for themselves, but as an extension of the state. The wide angle of the lens is meant to capture as much of the surrounding environment as possible. But the wide angle also exaggerates motion. Subjects appear closer than they are. Their movements more severe.
Axon is the literal frame through which an event is seen. These elements are used to prove that the image was captured at a certain place, at a certain time, and according to a set of standard protocols. These protocols allow the image to be admitted into court as evidence. A neutral witness, free from the imperfections and bias of human memory. But a blind spot is exploited. The frame of the body camera erases the officer from its view. A view is placed in the body of the officer, watching what happened to them, and not what they did. The courts view this image as an objective witness, but the camera is designed to limit what can be seen by this witness.
There's always a body, behind the body camera."
Marey invented a new camera that improved and miniaturised Janssen’s design. He called his invention the photographic rifle. It was the first portable movie camera. With his rifle, Marey turned his gaze from the stars to life on Earth. In the studio, Marey performed a series of experiments that studied the mechanics of motion. To Marey, these cameras were not just a better eye, but an entirely new sensory organ, capable of revealing the invisible patterns of the world. He writes:
“Not only are these instruments sometimes destined to replace the observer, but they also have their own domain where nothing can replace them. When the eye ceases to see, the ear to hear, the touch to feel, or indeed when our senses give deceptive appearances, these instruments are like new senses of astonishing precision.
Our senses may lie to us, machines cannot.”
“Marey went beyond simply photographing motion, when motion was captured, it was automatically converted into data. Seeing and interpretation were already combined in the same device. Before these machines, the world becomes a resource for the extraction of data. They see. They measure. They compute. As a scientist, Marey hoped to uncover the natural order of the world. But his methods actively concealed the unnatural conditions of this process. These instruments do not reproduce the world, they produce new worlds.
His subjects were not in nature, but in the controlled setting of the studio. What would these images be without this theatrical set? Who gets to frame another as subject?”
“What is a science where the self is held intact?” —Donna Harway, ‘Persistence of Vision’
“The eye only sees in each thing that for which it looks, and it only looks for that of which it already has an idea.”
In Neubronner’s diary we encounter a dream: “A dream last night where I was flying over Kronberg. At some point in my journey, I looked down to see a man on top of a roof. On closer inspection, I saw that it was not a man, but one of my pigeons. A great vertigo overcame me. I didn’t know who was flying and who was standing still. I realised that we must be orbiting each other, tethered by the mutual gravity of our gaze.”
“We all feel that there is something more. That the curtain has not yet been lifted. There is a prophet within us, forever whispering that behind the seen lies the immeasurable unseen.” —Frederick Douglass
“An act of seeing is always an act. An intervention into the world. We do not see the world. We see this intervention.”
“The frame excludes the world beyond its edges. But if we look hard enough there’s always an edge that creeps back in.”
