After my latest 'genius' move of hiding the projector with mirrors, I soon discovered that I was really just recreating innovations of early television sets in the 1930s and '40s. But first, we embarked on the first leg of the tour for our last field trip at a Barber museum in Canal Winchester, where we learned all about bloodletting and electrical stimulation. I of course got more candid shots of antique mirrors.
Second, we went to the doll museum nearby, and I had the privilege of seeing one of the first talking dolls that incorporated an Edison cylinder. Too bad I couldn't hear it work. This was one of the closest things I've seen to strange automata portrayed in Czech surrealist films.
The last trip was to the TV museum in Hilliard, a treasure trove of strange, obsolete electronics. I was fascinated by early optical devices using Nipkow discs. One could quickly tune the radio in order to get the television frequency and attempt to make out a blurry image as the announcer described it across the airwaves.
Lastly are the other TV sets, as said, mostly '30s and 40's units that were coming into homes. Apparently the TV tube was so large for a screen bigger than a few inches, that it made the unit terribly bulky. So the solution was instead to mount the tube vertically and project the image onto a mirror fitted into an upper lid, making the best viewing position the floor, I suppose. The image was flipped backwards and supposedly reversed in the signal to compensate for that distortion. My oh my. Funny how I thought about all those things last week. I think I'll leave my video backwards though, as after all, it is projected onto a printmaking plate. Till next time-- more on a big review and installation later this week...
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