The Art and Technique of Photoengraving

The act of engraving text and image onto materials for commonfolk to read has dated back to 750CE. The first engraved printing units were wood engravings, such were seen in the Chinese Diamond Sutra that was created in the year 868.

After these wooden engravings gained popularity, people started to make printing units out of metal plates using different types of metal – specifically copper and pewter. These metal plates were made able to print by a process in which an image in wax or bitumen was drawn on, or transferred to, the surface of the plate and nonimage areas removed by action of appropriate acids.

Photoengraving was only invented in 1813 by researcher Joseph Nicephore Niepce. He coated a pewter or copper plate with a photosensitive asphaltum and exposed the surface to bright sunlight through an etching of a portrait, which served as a positive image. Sunlight passing through the background of the etching hardened the asphaltum, while the protected areas, under the inked portion of the etching, were developed in oil of lavender and white petroleum to create an image in exposed metal. This image was then etched into the plate, and from the intaglio image, prints were made on a copperplate press.

Image result for photoengraving

Example of photoengraving on wood

In 1851,  wet-collodion process for photography was introduced, and it provided a means for producing a photographic negative as the basic element in the preparation of engravings. This photographic process also provided a method of stripping the photographic image from the glass plate, permitting assembly of a number of images for plate making, and also making possible the geometric reversal of the image needed in letterpress plate making to produce a right-reading print on paper.

Soon after, the halftone process allowed people to produce shades of grey, in which the image is broken up into dots, and variations of gray tones are obtained by varying the size of the dots, thus controlling the amount of ink laid down in a given area.

The discovery of the halftone screen was primarily responsible for the development and growth of photoengraving; further growth was related to other developments in the printing and allied industries. The introduction in 1935 of the first practical colour film for amateur and professional use probably did more to accelerate printing developments than any single invention. By making bulky studio-type colour cameras obsolete and permitting the use of readily portable camera equipment for the production of colour images, on-the-spot colour photography became possible, greatly increasing the use of coloured illustrations.

At approximately the same time, the commercial production of coated paper and heat-drying printing inks for letterpress printing began. Many colour developments for films, printing processes, and materials followed.

Now in our current society, photoengraving is used for specialty printing, such as foil stamping, embossing on paper, wood and cork branding for the wine industry and chocolate coin engraving and molding plates. It is also used by designers to simulate various products for photography shoots and right reading plaques for casting in bronze.

 

R E F E R E N C E S

http://www.bauerengraving.com/

https://www.britannica.com/technology/photoengraving/Modern-photoengraving-techniques

History of Design Reflection: Expanding research on the Garamond Typeface

A B O U T

The Garamond typeface was created by engraver Claude Garamond in the 16th century.  Our current understanding of the Garamond font are interpretations of fonts that were inspired by drawings which were modelled after the punches of Claude Garamond.

C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S

Garamond was the first to craft letters to the medium. He was the first to deviate from a purely handwritten-style to make letters that would read better when printed. These letterforms were thinner and more delicate than those before it, which both allowed the ink to bleed on the page without overly distorting the words and used less ink. Other key characteristics include the way the top serifs of the lower-case letters curve back into the letter, the feeling of airiness from the generous openings in the letters, known as counters, and the tall ascenders. These letters were often used for printing of body text and books.Garamond Characteristics

R E V I V A L

Garamond fell into decline in the 18th and 19th century, and people tried to revive the font, thus expanding Garamond into many different styles which have evolved into the modern Garamond fonts we have today.

T H E  D I F F E R E N T  T Y P E S  O F  G A R A M O N D

Garamond has evolved in its own way and different types of Garamond font has been created depending on different inspirations.

Image result for adobe garamond 1989

 

R E F E R E N C E S

http://www.meaningfultype.com/garamond.html

https://medium.com/@thelittlereina/typeface-garamond-be1b8b01add8

 

THE BROKEN STETHOSCOPE

About Project

The Broken Stethoscope is a physical representation of the vulnerability of strained relationships between 2 people. These strained relationships are usually caused by emotional abandonment of one party, leaving the abandoned party in confusion. However, when trying to solve this abandonment, the abandoned party is often faced with silence, and a lack of interaction. In the perspective of the perpetrator, this silence can root from a lack of understanding of the other party’s situation, or not wanting to risk the negative consequences if he/she answers.

Me and Mun Cheng thus decided to use a stethoscope as our object. Similar to how a doctor checks on his patients, we have the perpetrator and the victim doing this interaction instead, where the victim asks the questions to the perpetrator.

Observational Documentation (user-tests)
Videos
  1. Play-test
  2. Peltier tests
  3. Peltier test on chest in class
  4. Peltier test with stethoscope attached
Design Process Documentation

Initial Ideas (please click the attachment below)

IDEAS FOR EXPERIMENTAL INTERACTION FINAL PROJECT

Process documentation

Initial circuit set-up
installing the circuit along with the stethoscope
Final set-up

 

Initially, we wanted to install the stethoscope head below the Peltier module (which we encased), but we realised that the sound of the cooling fan overpowered the sound of the heartbeat, thus we decided to remove the stethoscope head altogether and just replace it with the Peltier.

 

Final Presentation

Final Presentation Video

Final set-up

For our final presentation, we created a set of questions for the two participants, The participant who is wearing the pulse sensor is the one asking the questions, and the other participant who answers feels the coldness from the Peltier module. We also gave disclaimers and instructions, such as to take out any jackets and earrings so that the pulse sensor can be installed properly, and that the participants can feel the coldness.

Instructions and Questions (please click attachment below)

THE BROKEN STETHOSCOPE instructions and questions

 

Instructables

Materials required

  1. Peltier module
  2. Heat sink
  3. Cooling fan
  4. AC to DC power adaptor
  5. Female power connector
  6. Pulse sensor
  7. Breadboard
  8. Relay
  9. Arduino module
  10. Laptop / power bank
  11. Electrical tape
  12. Thermal paste
  13. Stethoscope
  14. Acrylic

Step-by-step

  1. Connect power and ground sources from arduino to breadboard
  2. Connect pulse sensor to breadboard and arduino
    • Purple wire: any analog pin
    • Black wire: ground rail (blue)
    • Red wire: power rail (red)
  3. Connect relay to breadboard and arduino
    • IN: any digital pin
    • GND: ground rail (blue)
    • VCC: power rail (red)
  4. In each slot within the female power adaptor, attach 2 positive and 2 negative wires.
  5. Connect relay to female power connector and Peltier (from top view – screws are at the top)
    • Left-hand outlet: insert positive Peltier wire
    • Middle outlet: insert positive female power connector wire
  6. Connect negative wire of Peltier and female power connector together using crocodile clips
  7. Connect female power connector to power adaptor
  8. Using the other set of positive and negative wires on the female power adaptor, attach the fan to the circuit.
  9. Paste Peltier module on top of heat sink and cooling fan at the bottom.
  10. Encase the Peltier, heat sink and cooling fan with an outer casing (in our case we used acrylic)
  11. Line the wires along the stethoscope and cover it up with tape/ tubing
Codes and circuit design

Circuit design

Codes

Peltier test with a button

Final code for the Peltier and the pulse sensor

 

Issues and troubleshooting

We had many issues regarding the sensitivity of the Peltier module and the pulse sensor. Initially, the Peltier became very hot in a short span of time, when it was supposed to stay cold throughout the duration when the circuit was closed. Also it was only able to work once, and last for about 1 minute. We then realised that the heat sink and the cooling fan was too small to dissipate the heat produced fast enough, thus, we changed both of these components to bigger and thicker ones. That solved our issue about the heat dissipation. The one issue we could not really solve was the pulse sensor. Because the pulse sensor is partly a photocell, it senses light to activate the Peltier and has a threshold. However, the sensitivity of the pulse sensor is extremely high, and it triggers the Peltier to turn on and off at very high frequencies, and the Peltier module cannot keep up with it. We managed to find a more controllable threshold at 800, but that limited its sensitivity to sense ones pulse all the time.

MICRO-PROJECT 2: CROWD SOURCED ART

In this micro project, Charmaine, Mun Cheng and I explored the various functions of Instagram’s story page to test out how people answer our questions. We went with the theme of asking about how people feel and if they were willing to share about their day. We used Instagram question, Instagram poll and Instagram live to gather our crowd, which was our followers from each of our accounts. The willingness to participate or answer our questions depends on how convenient it is to access these functions, and the level of privacy in which they are able to share their problems on a social platform. Instagram live provides the most viewers, as there would be a notification of the person going live to each of her followers, however, the comments and answers that participants give on the live would appear on the screen for other viewers to see as well, thus eliminating the privacy part. For question, there is more privacy as answers that participants give can only be viewed by the owner, and it is the owners choice to share that reply in public. For poll, the privacy is the same, but there is less flexibility of options to what the viewers can choose. However, there is a choice for the viewer to decide to privately message the owner to share his or her problems.

Instagram question

 

Some people replied by clicking the question button and their replies only appear on our story feedback page (which we can only see), while some people personally messaged us to tell us more.

Instagram Live

Full video here

We had control of the type of questions to ask and what our topic was for our Instagram audience. However, we could not control the degree of authenticity in the answers given to us by our audience and that we may not know who is sincere or not. There is a constraint towards the topic as it only centers around how they feel about their day and can only talk about events that happened to them. There are 2 ways at looking at how a limited interaction will strengthen or weaken our results. If we had limited our functions to a live session, we would have gathered many viewers to one platform, but it limits the authenticity and length of replies through the live comment session. However, limiting the interaction by using a questionaire could have gathered more lengthy replies, and hence a better understanding to why that person is feeling this particular emotion today.

In addition, as compared to a crowd-sourced work created by a single artist, using 3 accounts on the same social platform provides a larger reach towards our different followers and the flexibility to use the different functions at the same time.

 

4D Final Project: Poetics of Time

Proposal

LIFE TEMPO

Describe the art Project

What is it about?

LIFE TEMPO is about describing a day in my life using different rhythms, supported by a constant metronome tempo.

What has inspired you?

Rudy Mancuso’s Circle of Strangers and TehChing Hsieh’s One Year Performance

Are you trying out a new concept or a continuation of a previous project?

The concept and idea is completely new, but I am taking the transitions from my previous project (wake up at the start and fall alseep at the end)

What do you intend to communicate to your audience?

I want to give a fresh take on daily tasks and change how people see mundane chores.

What is innovative and new about it?

Combining something boring (chores) and something fresh (rhythms)

Objectives and activities of the Art Project

What are you going to make or produce?

A film.

How are you going to produce it?

By using a camera on tripod.

What is the type of work?

Media-based, film.

What is the dimension?

18:9 screen ratio

What is the length of time of this experience you are creating?

1 minute 30 seconds

Art Materials and Equipment for the Art Project

Describe the materials you are going to use.

Camera, tripod, household items, shoes, clothes

What tools will you be using?

Camera.

Mounting and Installing the Art Project

Describe how you will install the Art Project.

I will be projecting it on the main screen of the classroom.

 

Concept

I wanted to explore the notion of biological time, by creating rhythm in a day in my life. I wanted to show how a person’s mundane tasks can be seen in a different perspective. For example, washing clothes, eating, wearing clothes etc in a certain rhythm, playing with fast ones, such as semiquavers and slower ones such as crochets.

I used a constant tempo that does not change for the whole video, which can signify the consistency of time ticking, heart beating, etc that still continues despite how fast or slow we do our tasks. And the tasks that are done in their certain rhythm correspond to the feeling i feel when i do them and the time of day in which i do these tasks. This allows me to play with how fast or slow time passes without changing the original tempo.

Inspiration

Rudy Mancuso ‘Circle of Strangers”

 

TehChing Hsieh ‘One Year Performance 1980 – 1981’

Tehching Hsieh’s one year time piece, to me, is the best way to demonstrate biological time, through the hourly punching of the time clock, and leaving his hair to grow for that 1 year.

"Rhythmanalysis" by Henri Lefebvre

“Rhythmanalysis” talks about a method for analyzing the rhythms of urban spaces and the effects of those rhythms on the inhabitants of those spaces. Lefebvre’s concept of rhythm concerns the repetition of a measure at a frequency. He identifies two kinds of rhythms: cyclical rhythms, which involve simple intervals of repetition, and alternating (or linear) rhythms. Lefebvre posits that the human body is composed of several rhythms; in order to observe rhythms outside of the body, the rhythmanalyst must use her or his own rhythms as a reference to unify the rhythms under analysis. Properly put, the rhythm is the conjunction of the rhythmanalyst and the object of the analysis.

 

Final Video

Reaction to video and feedback

(Thank you everyone for the constructive feed back) :))

 

Overall improvements
  • More sounds should be incorporated in the smaller areas
  • Create an overall rhythm and have sounds that surround the whole video instead
  • More intricate rhythms?

 

 

 

Project 3: Impossibilities of Being

Concept

I wanted to portray a story in a world where humans have shrunk, while other elements of the world remain the same (buildings, animals, plants, etc.) and show the interaction between these tiny humans and their new environment. Being very small in size, with no home, they are forced to live in survival-mode, sourcing for food and shelter while avoiding predators. This film follows a girl who explores her new environment and escapes the jaw of a cat.

Through this film, I want to challenge myself to view my everyday environment in a whole different perspective, while creating a cute film with action.

Lo-Fi Storyboard

Hi-Fi Storyboard

Soundscape and test sounds

Final Video - FOREST CHILD