Interventions with The Image Fulgurator

Julius von Bismarck's The Image Fulgurator is a reverse camera... instead of capturing images, it projects images. More specifically, it briefly projects an image when its light-detector senses the flash from another camera. The idea is that the artist can lurk around tourist sites and secretly overlay his own images onto the photographed subjects so that when the tourists look at their photos they'll find them manipulated.

From von Bismarck's site:

People's great trust in their photographic reproductions of reality was what motivated me to develop the image Fulgurator. A camera can be used as a personal memory tool, since people do not doubt the veracity of their own photographs. Hence, photos can reproduce the reality of an individual environment or public space. At sacred or popular locations, or those having a political connotation, an intervention with the Fulgurator can be particularly effective. Especially objects with a special aura or great symbolic power are good targets for this kind of manipulation. In other words, with the Fulgurator it is possible to have a lasting effect on those kinds of individual moments and events that become accessible to the masses only because they are preserved photographically.

This video below shows an intervention at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. The manipulation is intended to make connections between the former East Germany/West Germany border and the US/Mexico border today.


A compelling & interesting project, but I wonder about the gun-fetish aesthetic. Not only does the camera have a pistol grip, but von Bismarck's video has him assembling the camera ala sniper-gun movie cliche. The pistol grip seems particularly notable since it is counter to the (presumed) desire to have the fulgurator be as innocuous as possible.

His logo (above) references the Red Army Faction's (below). I honestly wonder if he's really thinking through and taking responsibility for using this kind of imagery (or if it is just easy dramatics).



The Image Fulgurator won this year's ARS Electronica Prix's "Golden Nica" for Interactive Art.

[via Make]

Help save Spiral Jetty

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty is in danger of being harmed by oil drilling development. Read more about it here.

Contact the state of Utah in protest of the development. The letters and calls they have received seems to be having an impact. Add your voice!

If you want to send a letter of protest to save the beautiful, natural Utah environment around the Spiral Jetty from oil drilling, the emails or calls of protest go to Jonathan Jemming 801-537-9023 jjemming@utah.gov. Please refer to Application # 8853. Every letter makes a big difference, they do take a lot of notice and know that publicity may follow. Since the Spiral Jetty has global significance, emails from foreign countries would be of special value.

[via Modern Art Notes]

[citation needed]

Citation needed is a link added to Wikipedia articles when someone thinks a particular statement needs a third party source to back it up (or someone just wants to imply a statement is false).

Matt at biphenyl.org created citation needed stickers to add to posters that make dubious claims. Read about it here.

Update: PO8 pointed out that this idea was borrowed from xkcd