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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. Today, I want to start

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Speaker 1: by doing something that we often try to do on

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Speaker 1: Stuff Flow Your Mind and on this show too, which

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Speaker 1: is trying to make something that's familiar weird again. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the thing that I want to take from your familiar

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Speaker 1: world and make you face the weirdness of it again

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Speaker 1: is that we live in a techno culture that has

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Speaker 1: the ability to create relatively objective, fixed media records of

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Speaker 1: reality itself. And an example of this, of course, is

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Speaker 1: the photograph. Think about the difference between a photograph and

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Speaker 1: the real world. Uh so, you know, we're so used

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Speaker 1: to photos at this point that we take them for granted,

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Speaker 1: but try again to feel the weirdness and appreciate how

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Speaker 1: strange it is and how mystical it is that that

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Speaker 1: we have these objects around us. Like the physical world,

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Speaker 1: you know, is this ongoing transient, always moving, always lightning

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Speaker 1: and darkening, always transforming three dimensional space full of objects.

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Speaker 1: But then you've got the photograph, which is a fixed

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Speaker 1: two dimensional image on on a flat surface. And yet

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Speaker 1: we think of the photograph as an objective or sort

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Speaker 1: of semi objective. We can explore that distinction and a

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Speaker 1: bit record of physical reality. It's definitely a record of something,

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Speaker 1: but it's not exactly physical reality, is it. It's physical

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Speaker 1: reality interpreted through this transformation process that partially resembles and

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Speaker 1: partially does not resemble animal vision. Yeah, I mean and

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Speaker 1: and and this is even without getting into modern or

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Speaker 1: even twentieth century. Uh, you know, photo editing techniques, just

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Speaker 1: like the raw photographic image that results. Yeah, is this

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Speaker 1: thing that is it's really you can't think of it

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Speaker 1: as as an approximation of of animal site of biological site. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's more like it's almost like a form of

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Speaker 1: language in the same way that we've discussed them this

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Speaker 1: and stuff to bully your mind before. How written language

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Speaker 1: is like a thought that has taken and frozen so

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Speaker 1: that it can retain the same form for the most

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Speaker 1: part with some interpretations. And and that's sort of what

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Speaker 1: we're doing with with photography. We're kind of freezing, uh,

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Speaker 1: the mental image or some version of the mental image.

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Speaker 1: Except it can also be misleading because I think photography

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Speaker 1: has contributed to us having a skewed idea of what

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Speaker 1: mental imagery is. It's actually led to us I think,

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Speaker 1: having an idea that our mental imagery is like a

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Speaker 1: fixed record that has full resolution at every you know,

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Speaker 1: from corner to corner of the image, which, as we'll

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Speaker 1: discuss also a little bit more in this episode, is

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Speaker 1: not the case at all. Our vision is something more

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Speaker 1: like a an interpretive illusion based on key bits of

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Speaker 1: light data entering through the eyes. Yeah. And and yet,

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Speaker 1: especially for you know, for us modern humans, we we

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Speaker 1: often reinterpret our memories in the forum of photos, uh

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Speaker 1: and and motion pictures. I know, I catch myself doing

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Speaker 1: this all the time. I'll think back to, say, a

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Speaker 1: moment from my childhood, and what I'm kind of doing

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Speaker 1: is I'm kind of picturing a photograph, a photograph that

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Speaker 1: might exist, because sometimes I am referring back to actual

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Speaker 1: photographs that serve as kind of like a uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: a bookmark for that memory, perhaps even the source of

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Speaker 1: a memory, where I'm really remembering a picture of something

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Speaker 1: rather than the experience. But other times I'm kind of

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Speaker 1: forming some sort of how you know, half realized, half

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Speaker 1: imaginary photo of what happened. But think about how different

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Speaker 1: our memories of our childhood would be if there were

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Speaker 1: no photographs whatso ever, like no even semi objective visual

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Speaker 1: record of the world that we lived in. Back then,

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Speaker 1: all we had was mental imagery and memory. Yeah, what

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Speaker 1: if you were like most people and when a when

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Speaker 1: I loved, when grew older or certainly passed away, you

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Speaker 1: had no longer any real physical reminder of what they

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Speaker 1: looked like. You could forget the face of your your

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Speaker 1: father in a in a very real way. So I

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Speaker 1: think it's absolutely clear that photography is one of the

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Speaker 1: most revolutionary technologies that's ever been created. It has probably

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Speaker 1: not just changed what humans are able to do, but

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Speaker 1: has fundamentally in some ways altered the way we think,

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Speaker 1: in the way we envision our own lives. But there

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Speaker 1: was a long time before there was photography, and it's

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Speaker 1: probably pretty tempting to think, well, you know, before photography,

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Speaker 1: we just had imagination. We had drawing, we had painting.

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Speaker 1: People could like look at the world around them and

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Speaker 1: try to interpret it in paintings, but would be the

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Speaker 1: closest thing we had to a visual, uh sort of

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Speaker 1: sy my objective record of what the world looked like.

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Speaker 1: But that's not exactly right, because there was a sort

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Speaker 1: of stepping stone before we had photography, we had the

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Speaker 1: camera obscura. That's right, and that is going to be

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Speaker 1: what we're going to focus this episode on. Basically, the

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Speaker 1: the approach here is we want to devote like three episodes. Uh,

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Speaker 1: first the camera obscura, and then do an episode on

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Speaker 1: on the origins of photography, and then do an episode

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Speaker 1: on the motion picture, so you know, basically climbing ascending

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Speaker 1: the ladder to still photography, then the moving picture and

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Speaker 1: talk about you know, how these changes came about, how

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Speaker 1: these inventions came about, and how they changed our world. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so the camera obscura is not a camera in the

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Speaker 1: sense you're thinking of. It doesn't actually constitute photography, meaning

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Speaker 1: making a fixed record of a visual scene. A camera obscura.

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Speaker 1: That's literally it's Latin and it means what dark room,

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Speaker 1: dark chamber, dark chamber. Yeah, which is a wonderful name.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons that that at times doing

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Speaker 1: research on camera obscura can be so difficult because it

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Speaker 1: seems like camera obscura has been the name of so

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Speaker 1: many different like literary journals, horror movies, movies, bands. It's

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Speaker 1: just such a cool title. But yeah, it means dark chamber,

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Speaker 1: because one of the key elements here is that that's

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Speaker 1: necessary and would have been necessary in ancient times as well,

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Speaker 1: is that you have to have a dark chamber to

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Speaker 1: create a camera obscura. And the weird thing about camera

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Speaker 1: obscure is this that they do services kind of bridge

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Speaker 1: between like natural optics and photographic technology, and yet it

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Speaker 1: feels magic in a way like even today as a

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Speaker 1: modern user using it, like it feels magic in a

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Speaker 1: way that photography no longer feels magic. It feels magical

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Speaker 1: in a way that site no longer feels magical, even

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Speaker 1: though when you break down what's exactly is happening biologically

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Speaker 1: and and and and neurologically during side, I mean that's

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Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty fantastic process as well. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: the camera obscura still has this um this this this

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Speaker 1: kind of eerie feel to it. Yes, the camera obscure.

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Speaker 1: So the principle is extremely simple, but the implications are fascinating,

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Speaker 1: and the way it's been processed throughout human history and

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Speaker 1: in the history of optics leading up to photography is

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Speaker 1: also fascinating. So the basic principle, as we say, is

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Speaker 1: mechanically extremely simple. You have a darkened chamber. And this

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Speaker 1: can be a room in a building or a tent,

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Speaker 1: or this could even be a small box. It could

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Speaker 1: even just be like a shoe box or a can

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Speaker 1: something that is a chamber that doesn't allow light in

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Speaker 1: except through a single small aperture on one side, right,

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Speaker 1: and and we have to stress with this aperture. More

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Speaker 1: recent camera obscuras, like for instance, my my wife um Bonnie,

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Speaker 1: who is a photographer in the Atlanta area, she recently

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Speaker 1: made a camera obscura as part of an open house

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Speaker 1: for for the studio that she has, and they used

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Speaker 1: a lens to service the aperture. But you don't need

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Speaker 1: to use a lens. All you need is a hole. Yeah, now,

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Speaker 1: the lens. The lens is an important development that comes

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Speaker 1: to later in the history of the camera obscura. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: all you need is a whole. And what you get

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Speaker 1: when you have a darkened room with a small hole

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Speaker 1: that's the right size and the right position away from

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Speaker 1: the wall opposite it is that an inverted image from

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Speaker 1: the world outside this this box or this room will

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Speaker 1: be projected onto the wall of the darkened chamber. So,

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Speaker 1: just as an example, if your camera obscura is a

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Speaker 1: room with the right kind of small hole in the

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Speaker 1: wall facing a view of the Pyramids of Giza, you

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Speaker 1: will see an image of the pyramids upside down and

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Speaker 1: inverted projected against the wall opposite the whole, as if

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Speaker 1: there were an upside down film slide projector shining against

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Speaker 1: a screen. Right. It's just it's it's maddening to kind

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Speaker 1: of see one in action because it feels like there

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Speaker 1: should be a projector there, there should be some man

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Speaker 1: made mechanism that is make ing this possible, and and

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Speaker 1: it's not. It's it's basically just a hole. Yeah. Now

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Speaker 1: you might wonder, okay, wait a second, why does this happen? Like,

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Speaker 1: why don't the windows in my house do that? Right?

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Speaker 1: That my house is a closed chamber, I've got holes

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Speaker 1: in the walls that light can pass through the windows.

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Speaker 1: And so there are a few reasons the windows in

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Speaker 1: your house probably don't work this way. Number one, your

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Speaker 1: house is not dark enough. Number two, you've got too

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Speaker 1: many sources of light probably that are you know, coming

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Speaker 1: from different directions. And number three, normal windows are generally

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Speaker 1: too wide, letting in light from too many different angles

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Speaker 1: to actually cast an image with any resolution. So let's

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Speaker 1: think about the reasons why a pinhole or a small

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Speaker 1: lens projects an image of the outside world inverted on

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Speaker 1: an inner wall, while a larger hole or lens does not.

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Speaker 1: A few main principles here and number one, pretty much

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Speaker 1: all the light in an outdoor scene is reflected sunlight,

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Speaker 1: so it's the sunshines down. Light bounces off everything out there.

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Speaker 1: Number two, when reflects off of an object, the wavelength

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Speaker 1: is changed unless its color has changed, so you've got

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Speaker 1: different colored rays of light beaming all over the place.

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Speaker 1: Number three, light is reflected off surfaces at all angles,

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Speaker 1: so it's going to go in all kinds of directions.

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Speaker 1: But once it's reflected, and this is number four, it

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Speaker 1: travels in a straight line. And because light travels in

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Speaker 1: a straight line, and because the aperture in the in

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Speaker 1: the camera obscurit is small rays. Striking the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the projected image will come from the top of the

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Speaker 1: original image, and raise striking the top of the projected

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Speaker 1: image will come from the bottom of the original same

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Speaker 1: thing goes left to right. You've got uh light rays

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Speaker 1: entering in all directions through a sort of you can

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Speaker 1: imagine a filtering cone that focuses the image and makes

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Speaker 1: it sharp that then forms a cone of projection on

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Speaker 1: the other side of the wall. I think the first

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Speaker 1: place I saw a camera scirit was the Royal Museum, Greenwich. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I haven't been there. Yeah, it's it's a great place

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Speaker 1: to check one out because it also has like his

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Speaker 1: storical context because there's there's been a camera obscura at

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Speaker 1: Greenwich from like the late seventeenth century on through the

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Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century, and the current one was a believe

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Speaker 1: installed in n and it shows a close up moving

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Speaker 1: panorama of Greenwich and the and the Thames, the National

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Speaker 1: Maritime Museum and the Royal Naval College. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, anybody, any of our British listeners out there,

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Speaker 1: or anyone who finds themselves visiting that area, it's a

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Speaker 1: great place to check out the camera obscura in action.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what does it look like. It's so it's

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Speaker 1: projected on a wall, like a stone wall or a screen. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean this was over a decade ago when I

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Speaker 1: when I saw it, but I remember it had kind

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Speaker 1: of it has kind of a ghostly quality to it.

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Speaker 1: That's one of the striking things about my experiences with

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Speaker 1: camera obscuras is that in both cases there is this

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Speaker 1: this ethereal nature to it, Like you wouldn't, at least

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Speaker 1: the ones I've experienced, you wouldn't like walk into it

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Speaker 1: and like smack into the wall thinking it's it's reality,

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Speaker 1: but like there's a feeling of the allusion to it,

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Speaker 1: and yet it yet has this magical property. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: know what you're talking about, and you can vary, you

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Speaker 1: can sort of like tweak those magic feeling properties or

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Speaker 1: the qualities of the projected image by changing things about

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Speaker 1: the aperture that lets the light in. For example, a

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Speaker 1: smaller aperture you shrink the whole, that will generally produce

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Speaker 1: a sharper image on the projection with less blurring, but

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Speaker 1: it will also be dimmer, of course, because less light

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Speaker 1: is getting through the hole. A wider aperture, on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, will produce a brighter but blurrier picture generally.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, you can imagine just taking this principle

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Speaker 1: uh to the extreme, because this is how if you

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Speaker 1: just keep widening the aperture more and more, eventually the

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Speaker 1: picture would get brighter and brighter and blurrier and blurrier.

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Speaker 1: Until eventually what you have is simply a window. Again,

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Speaker 1: you're just admitting white light with no definition in the image. Now,

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Speaker 1: one other technological way to mess with this that you know,

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Speaker 1: you mentioned that when Bonnie made one had a lens

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Speaker 1: in it. The lens is a really wharton upgrade on

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Speaker 1: the simple hole in the wall camera obscura. A lens

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Speaker 1: is of course transparent and has a convex outer surface,

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Speaker 1: and this allows you to get more of the best

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Speaker 1: qualities of a smaller aperture combined with a larger aperture.

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Speaker 1: The convex lens gathers more light from more angles because

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Speaker 1: of the way it bends, so it literally admits more

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Speaker 1: light and creates a brighter picture, while at the same

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Speaker 1: time it focuses that light toward a point by the

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Speaker 1: refraction that the lens does, allowing you to get a sharper,

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Speaker 1: more focused, and brighter image. It's a pretty impressive trick,

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Speaker 1: and there are a number of really cool illustrations from

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Speaker 1: old texts illustrating this. So where you you'll see like

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Speaker 1: a figure figure A, and then there's a you know,

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Speaker 1: a second figure inside of the box, and that that

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Speaker 1: figures upside down, and then you have the lines drawing.

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Speaker 1: How the the the optical image is inverted. It's it's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. I mean focusing light like this through a

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Speaker 1: lens that goes through an aperture and then projects inverted

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Speaker 1: on a screen is actually similar to how our eyes work.

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Speaker 1: You think about this like so the human eye, of course,

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Speaker 1: light is gathered and refracted through a lens. You've got

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Speaker 1: a lens in your eye, and then its focus projected

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Speaker 1: onto a light sensitive membrane at the back of the eye,

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Speaker 1: and this is called the retina. These are our retinas,

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Speaker 1: and the light sensing cells in the retina then transmit

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Speaker 1: the image, or maybe not the image, you could say

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Speaker 1: the data from the image to the brain to be

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Speaker 1: interpreted into the experience we call vision. And just like

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Speaker 1: with the camera obscura, just like the projection on the

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Speaker 1: wall at the back of the camera obscura, the images

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Speaker 1: of the world that we see every day are projected

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Speaker 1: onto our retinas in an inverted form, upside down and reverse.

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Speaker 1: That's how they hit those light sensitive cells, and it's

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Speaker 1: up to the brain to create the perception of the

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Speaker 1: visual field that we interpret as right side up. Now,

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Speaker 1: one thing I way I've often seen this I think

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Speaker 1: perhaps mis explained is that this fact is sometimes communicated

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Speaker 1: by saying that our brains quote flip or quote rotate

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Speaker 1: the retinal image back to the format it was in.

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Speaker 1: But that's not quite right because there's nothing for the

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Speaker 1: brain to flip it onto. You know. You think about

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Speaker 1: like the perception of the visual field. Uh, the image

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Speaker 1: that you actually think you see in your brain is

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Speaker 1: not a physical space mapping one for one from reality,

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Speaker 1: but a sort of perceptual illusion created by the brain.

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Speaker 1: A great example of this, if you've never tried it,

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Speaker 1: you probably think you can see color in your peripheral vision,

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Speaker 1: right you just assume you can see color everywhere, but

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Speaker 1: you can. You can play a really fun game to

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Speaker 1: break this illusion. Have somebody whole different colored flags right

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Speaker 1: at the edge of your peripheral vision where you can

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Speaker 1: just see motion and you think you can see color,

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Speaker 1: and then try to say what color the flags are,

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Speaker 1: you will probably fail. Another good thing to use our

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Speaker 1: identical markers with different colored tops, like you have a

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Speaker 1: bunch of sharpie's like we have in the office, where

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Speaker 1: some of green tops, some of red tops all virtually

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Speaker 1: the same looking. So get somebody to sneak up behind

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Speaker 1: you with much of them and experiment with optics that way.

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Speaker 1: I think I just noticed you sort of trying. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I have a green one in my hand, and I

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Speaker 1: mean it's difficult to do to yourself because you, of

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Speaker 1: course have so much of our vision is about like

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Speaker 1: the memory and knowledge of the thing exactly. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: that's because like you're seeing with your brain as much

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Speaker 1: as you're seeing with your eyes. Your eyes, actually you

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Speaker 1: know you're you're not seeing color over here, even though

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Speaker 1: you strongly have the perception that you're seeing color in

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Speaker 1: your periphery. So your brain creates a sensation of an

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Speaker 1: image simulating a kind of one to one relationship with

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Speaker 1: the outside physical world that you can prove in a

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Speaker 1: number of ways does not actually, uh you know, it

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Speaker 1: does not actually capture that world in a one to

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Speaker 1: one way. Another example is our complete unawareness moment to

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Speaker 1: moment of the blind spot created in each eye by

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Speaker 1: the optic nerve. Do you ever play that game, Oh,

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Speaker 1: this is where the basically there's that that spot where

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Speaker 1: you cannot see, but your vision kind of stitches everything together. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't notice that you have blind spots right in

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Speaker 1: front of your face. Right. That reminds me of our

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Speaker 1: chat with the author or Scott Baker on Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Bluw your Mind, where you talked about having an eye condition,

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Speaker 1: uh that he had corrected, but it it caused him

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Speaker 1: to have an extra blind spot and so if he

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Speaker 1: looked at, say his dog's face, he would see like

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Speaker 1: a faceless dog. Yes, but that that's the fascinating thing.

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Speaker 1: The way he described it was it wasn't like he

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Speaker 1: saw a like black hole there where there was nothing. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he just did not see in that area. And it's

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Speaker 1: just no vision. And yet the brain stitches together a

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Speaker 1: picture anyway, giving you the impression that you're seeing your

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Speaker 1: surroundings in a one to one way, which we are not. Right.

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Speaker 1: It's more it's less like like we are the observer

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Speaker 1: and more like we're given a we're given a version

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Speaker 1: of it. We're so kind of like the head of

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Speaker 1: a big company or state and somebody like gives us

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Speaker 1: a memo, uh like telling us what the situation is,

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Speaker 1: and we we agree with it because it seems like

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Speaker 1: it's all properly a symbol. Yeah, So I think the

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Speaker 1: way the brain puts together the idea of what's right

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Speaker 1: side up and upside down. Is cognitively that's going on

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Speaker 1: in processing somewhere in the brain based on all kinds

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Speaker 1: of sense data, visual data, but also I think, just

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Speaker 1: like balance data and stuff like that, the retina senses.

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Speaker 1: The brain perceives based on the senses, including this retinal data,

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Speaker 1: but the perception created is not a photograph inverted from

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Speaker 1: the retinas, but more like an interpretation based on it.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, it is true that the projector screen of

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Speaker 1: light sensitive cells that send information to your brain, that

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Speaker 1: those retinas, they receive an image inverted from its orientation

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Speaker 1: in physical space. So ironically, when we look at an

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Speaker 1: image projected onto the back wall of a camera obscura

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Speaker 1: upside down and reversed, it's then reflected and refracted through

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Speaker 1: the lenses of our eyes projected on our retina's right

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Speaker 1: side up again, and of course our brains, being doing

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Speaker 1: what they do, they seamlessly correct or interpret this input,

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Speaker 1: flipping it upside down again and option. Another interesting thing

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Speaker 1: about the camera obscure in the history of how people

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Speaker 1: have thought about what the eyes do is that a

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Speaker 1: very common view among scholars throughout the ages is that

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Speaker 1: light is not an external input on the eyes, but

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Speaker 1: rather the many scholars throughout history believed that the eyes

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Speaker 1: would beam out some kind of retrieving ray which grabs

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Speaker 1: images from the world and pulls them back in. This is,

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Speaker 1: of course extremely wrong. Eyes are input and that output.

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Speaker 1: But it's funny how captivating that kind of a way

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Speaker 1: of viewing the world can be. Yeah, it's easy just

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Speaker 1: to sort of subconsciously think of it that way. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, think if your your eyes sort of yet

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Speaker 1: reaching out and touching the world and reporting back like

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Speaker 1: they're like like they're they're they're they're touching the side

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Speaker 1: of an elephant or something and reporting back. And of course,

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Speaker 1: as we mentioned on the show before, our our various

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Speaker 1: romantic pop songs are always getting it wrong talking about

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Speaker 1: my eyes touch you physically, that sort of thing where

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Speaker 1: it's like, no, don't, don't touch eyeballs lovers of the Oh,

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Speaker 1: Peter Gabriel is the worst offenders. Oh yeah, what was

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Speaker 1: his line from he wants to touch the light the

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Speaker 1: heat in your eyes. He's literally advocating the touching of

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Speaker 1: eyeballs with you know, salty, greasy fingertips. Very bad. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's no there's no reason for that. Uh, but but anyway, Okay,

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Speaker 1: so the camera scare. We we know it was this

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Speaker 1: important development in the history of optics, but it does

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Speaker 1: not constitute photography because it does not fix the image

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Speaker 1: it captures to be observed later. So so what did

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Speaker 1: it do? I think we should take a break and

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Speaker 1: then come back and look at possible in this sort

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Speaker 1: of possible invention history of the camera obscure and what

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Speaker 1: it did. Alright, we're back. So this is another one

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Speaker 1: of those cases where when you look at the technology

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Speaker 1: that is required for the simplest version of the of

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Speaker 1: the invention the camera scare, in this case, you really

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Speaker 1: don't need much. You need the ability to have to

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Speaker 1: build or manipulate an enclose dark space, and you need

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Speaker 1: whole technology. I mean. The funny thing is a camera

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Speaker 1: obscura doesn't even have to be created by humans. They

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Speaker 1: can exist totally naturally. Imagine a tree that's hollow in

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Speaker 1: the middle and it's got a hole in the bark.

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Speaker 1: Or imagine a cave that's got a the correctly sized

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Speaker 1: hole in the wall that projects against an opposite wall. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we have to imagine our our Gary Larsen's far side.

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Speaker 1: Um prehistoric human encountering some some some form of camera

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Speaker 1: obscura and reacting to it in in ancient times. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's really interesting because we don't know who created the

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Speaker 1: first camera obscure on purpose. We don't know who encountered

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Speaker 1: the first camera obscura. Uh. We do have some early

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Speaker 1: descriptions of how it works or how people thought it worked.

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Speaker 1: But once uncertain and very intriguing possibility is what you're

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Speaker 1: talking about. The prehistoric people's actually discuss heard the use

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Speaker 1: of the camera obscura, long before we knew anything about

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Speaker 1: optics or how this worked. One example is I was

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Speaker 1: reading an interesting article about this by the science writer

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Speaker 1: Jennifer Willett about a presentation by somebody named Kieran Simcox,

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Speaker 1: a student at Nottingham Trent University at the Royal Astronomical

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Speaker 1: Society in Britain in and the base idea here is

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Speaker 1: that prehistoric megalithic tomb structures, you know, these big stone

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Speaker 1: tombs that ancient people's built. Uh, you know, before before

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Speaker 1: we had any written records, with a long, narrow passage

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Speaker 1: ways in these tombs would sometimes open towards the sky

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Speaker 1: and would effectively function as a type of camera obscura

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Speaker 1: for observing stars and astronomical objects there were otherwise too

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Speaker 1: dim to see. For instance, citing a certain star rising

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Speaker 1: at dawn at the beginning of spring could have been

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Speaker 1: a sign for ancient hunter gatherers to migrate for the

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Speaker 1: warmer months. It's possible. We don't know, but that that's

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Speaker 1: an interesting thing to consider, like ancient ancient use of

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Speaker 1: camera obscura as a means of observing the cosmos, which

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Speaker 1: of course it is a very even today. It's it's

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Speaker 1: an effective way, one way to observe a solar eclipse.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and and ancient thinkers noticed this. It's

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Speaker 1: also been postulated by a number of scholars that other

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Speaker 1: prehistoric structures, caves and even hollow trees maybe have the

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Speaker 1: potential to become a camera obscura simply if there's a

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Speaker 1: correctly sized and positioned whole or aperture UH. And thus

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Speaker 1: the camera obscure could possibly even play a role in

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Speaker 1: the origin of cave paintings and art. Again, we don't

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Speaker 1: know this happened, but just imagine the possibility. Imagine the

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Speaker 1: transition from a three D always moving visual world to

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Speaker 1: UH to a fixed two D image when a camera

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Speaker 1: obscura projected an image from the outside of a cave

432
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 1: inverted onto a cave wall, and a prehistoric common in

433
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: trace to that image or was INSPI fired by the

434
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: projected image to make two D images of their own. Yeah.

435
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 1: You know, this makes me wonder, and this is just

436
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if this

437
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: could have influenced any early concepts of of other realms,

438
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of an upside down world it's

439
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: more faint than our own. Yeah, yeah, uh, the the

440
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 1: ethereal nature of the imagination coming through in that. Yeah.

441
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: So it's a really interesting speculation based on some slight evidence,

442
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: but at this point it remains speculation. We we don't

443
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:33,919
Speaker 1: know for sure or have any really strong evidence that

444
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 1: I'm aware of, that any prehistoric people's made use of

445
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: a camera obscure. It's fascinating to imagine, but we don't know. However,

446
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: there were important early descriptions of the principle of the

447
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: camera obscure, and I think, as as far as I'm aware,

448
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:50,920
Speaker 1: the earliest one was by a fifth century b c. E.

449
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 1: Chinese philosopher named Mosey or mo d Yeah, or just

450
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: master mode because that's what it means. Uh. And this

451
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: would have been the Warring States period. So master Moe

452
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: wrote on the subject of a pinhole aperture and how

453
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: it could be used to understand the power of light.

454
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: He wrote about how a small hole in the wall

455
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 1: of a darkened house could cause an image of the

456
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 1: outside world to be projected inverted or upside down on

457
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:22,880
Speaker 1: the opposite wall, and master Moe wrote, quote, the image

458
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,959
Speaker 1: is inverted because there is an intersection at the point.

459
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 1: It is because of the point that the image is formed.

460
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 1: And this is quoted in a in a book chapter

461
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: by Edwin K. Lae on the history of photographic technology

462
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: in China. Yeah, I had another quote from Mow that

463
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: I've found really interesting image. An illuminated person shines as

464
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: if he were emitting rays. The bottom part of the

465
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 1: person appears at the top part of the image, and

466
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: the top part appears at the bottom part, so that

467
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: image is formed at the top whilst light from the

468
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: head has been blocked in the upper parts, so the

469
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: image is formed at the bottom. From distances far away

470
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:03,439
Speaker 1: or nearby, light enters through the point. Therefore an image

471
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,679
Speaker 1: is formed inside the collecting house. So this show is

472
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 1: that Master Mo understood the optical principles about how this

473
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: image was being projected through the aperture. Yeah. Yeah, And

474
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: I think that's one that's like one thing that that

475
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: is perhaps lacking in in earlier accounts is you know,

476
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: if you see um, like say, an accidental camera obscura

477
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 1: in action, you might just might not have the language

478
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: to even interpret what's occurring, uh, except perhaps magical descriptions

479
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 1: that could sort of you know, become lost over time.

480
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, he clearly understands the principle at play here.

481
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: But one of the things that's interesting too is that

482
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,199
Speaker 1: the writings of Mo fell out of fashion, and it

483
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: seems um that no one else wrote about camera obscurities

484
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: in China, or at least nothing that I survived for

485
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: another thousand years. So it's it's always interesting when someone

486
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 1: kind of either happens upon an invention or sort of

487
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 1: highlights of technology and then it perhaps it's just before

488
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,360
Speaker 1: it's time, or there's nothing there's no real application for it,

489
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: or no one you know, grabs onto it, and so

490
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 1: it just kind of languishes for a millennium. Yeah, it's fascinating.

491
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: You have to wonder, I don't know, if it's possible

492
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 1: or if it's likely that this would happen. But you

493
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: have to wonder are similar things happening now? Is there

494
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: like somebody doing something now that a thousand years later

495
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: people will look back and be like, wow, so and

496
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: so did this thing that was revolutionary, but people didn't

497
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 1: recognize it at the time and they forgot about it

498
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 1: for a thousand years. It's kind of hard to imagine that.

499
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: But then again, I mean, we wouldn't know it. If

500
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:39,879
Speaker 1: we saw it right, that'd be the reason we weren't

501
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: picking up on it. Yeah, well, I feel my gut

502
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: instinct is that is that innovation takes place at such

503
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: a faster pace. You know, we wouldn't be looking at

504
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: a thousand years, would be looking at uh, you know,

505
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 1: a decade or maybe five years. And I think that

506
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: you do see some level of this, certainly with with

507
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: certain bits of technological innovation. You know, I think there

508
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: are probably some examples and say tablet technology where you

509
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: see precursors to uh, the iPhone or the iPad, etcetera.

510
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, the the early versions just didn't

511
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 1: take off. But then it's like somebody gets it right

512
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: and or markets that correct, markets that correctly, or manufactures

513
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: it correctly like like gets something else. Some of the

514
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,959
Speaker 1: other boxes checked off that allow the product to really

515
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: take hold in the in the collective mindset. Yeah. I

516
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: was reading a brief passage about master Most discovery in

517
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 1: another book called Capturing the Light by Roger Watson and

518
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: Helen Rapp Report, and that's also about the history of photography,

519
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: but they're talking about the optical discoveries of Master mo

520
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: and they write, quote, he spoke of a device for

521
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: passing sunlight through a pinhole onto a collecting plate. It's

522
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: mysterious function being that of a quote locked treasure room,

523
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: a kind of light proof box that would channel the

524
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: power of the on in such a way that man

525
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: could safely observe it and the images of the recognized

526
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,719
Speaker 1: world outside that it projected. And I love this mysterious

527
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: imagery here, the locked treasure room, because it is sort

528
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: of it's like a treasure room of insights about optics.

529
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: It would you know, Master Moe had this indispensable in

530
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: counterintuitive insight to understand the power of light. You had

531
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: to limit it. You can only begin to understand optics

532
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: and the power of the sun and the behavior of

533
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: light rays by blocking out almost all of its influence.

534
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: But anyway, I mean, from all this, it's interesting to

535
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: see that the camera obscura has this whole role going

536
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: way way back in Chinese history, probably before and certainly

537
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: separate from its role in the history of Western optics,

538
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 1: though certainly early Western minds did pick up on it

539
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, Aristotle sort of seemed to allude to

540
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: the focusing effects of an aperture on sunlight. For example,

541
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: during an eclipse. If you've ever witnessed a solar eclipse,

542
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: a total solar eclipse, when the eclipse gets near totality,

543
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: you will see all kinds of bizarre effects in the

544
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: world around you. Just look at the way that sunlight, say,

545
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: filtering through the you know, the spots in the of

546
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: light that get through a tree's canopy or something, all

547
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: become sickle shaped. It's just a world of little bright

548
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 1: sickles all around you. Yeah. Well, when the last solar

549
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: eclipse occurred in North America, we had an episode of

550
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind about it. I believe we

551
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: we we talked about observing it or no, maybe we

552
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: gave I think it was like two parts. We gave

553
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: sort of a preliminary episode in which we prepared people

554
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 1: to view the eclipse, and then afterwards we talked about

555
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: our own experiences a little bit. Yeah, I'm really glad

556
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: I went out to see that. I went up to

557
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: Tennessee to observe it, and it was. It was magnificent.

558
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: If you get a chance to see a total solar

559
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: eclipse in your life, don't miss that chance. It's worth seeing. Yeah,

560
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 1: it is. It is also magical feeling in the way

561
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: that it reveals uh uh, you know, reveals the wonder

562
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: of something we just take for granted. You know, we're

563
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: just so immersed in the normal solar cycles that when

564
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: you have this, you know, this, this, this, uh, this

565
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: solar eclipse occur, it really makes you realize the majesty

566
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: of what is occurring every day. Yeah. Now back to

567
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: the camera obscura. There were more developments around the eleventh century,

568
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: so while not fully describing a pinhole camera or camera obscura,

569
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 1: according to Edwin Lae, some of the basic principles involved

570
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: were articulated by a Chinese Song Dynasty scientist and political

571
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: leader named shin Quo who lived ten thirty one to

572
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: ten ninety five, who performed experiments showing that if you

573
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: used a curved mirror to use sunlight to start fires

574
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: like focusing, you know, doing the burning a burning an

575
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: ant thing which don't do that, um, the mirror would

576
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 1: invert the image that it reflected. And Shin quote said

577
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: this was because of quote friction. I'm not sure what

578
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: that means, but maybe there is a sense to that

579
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: that's that's getting lost into translation. But of course it's

580
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: in the Arab world that we see some of the

581
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: other really key preliminary mentions of the camera obscurra Yes, exactly. So.

582
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: The first full known description of the camera obscure, according

583
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: to Watson and Rapp report, is by the eleventh century

584
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: Arab physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and general polymath Ebben i'll hype Them,

585
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: also known sometimes as al Hasan and i'll hythe Them,

586
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 1: wrote a seven volume work on the science of optics

587
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: between around ten eleven and ten one, and in this

588
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: work he described the use of a pinhole aperture in

589
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: a darkened enclosure to observe sunlight, including using it to

590
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 1: observe a solar eclipse, and he established through experiments performed

591
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: in Cairo, that light traveled in straight lines, and he

592
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: used the camera obscura to make notes about the shape

593
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: of the Sun during a partial eclipse, like we were

594
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: talking about now. Of course, looking directly at the sun

595
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 1: even during a partial eclipse can severely damage your eyes.

596
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: Don't do it. You should never look directly the sun

597
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: even during a solar eclipse, except during the brief period

598
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: of totality. But a pinhole camera box can actually allow

599
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: you to observe what happens to the shape of the

600
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: Sun as it becomes a sickle of starlight before it's

601
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: totally eclipse during the process. So if you don't want

602
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: to damage your eyes and you want to observe the

603
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: partial stages of an eclipse, a camera obscure is a

604
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: great thing to build, and you can look up instructions

605
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: on the internet about how to do this. A lot

606
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: of you know, a lot of people did this in

607
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 1: elementary school. Oh yeah, this all you use a shoebox. Yeah. Now.

608
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: Edwin Ly also mentions other figures in the history of

609
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: Chinese optics who may have done some experiments with or

610
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: referred to the camera obscura. The Yuan dynasty scholars Tao

611
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: zong Ye about who lived about about fourteen o two,

612
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: and Xiao yu Chen, who lived the mid twelve hundreds

613
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: to the early thirteen hundreds. They both made references to

614
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: this knowledge, and Jiao did experiments to show quote how

615
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: changes in the light source and in distances from the

616
00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: pinhole would change the final image. So he's writing about

617
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: the principle. Now. Somebody who definitely had thoughts about the

618
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: camera obscura was the medieval English philosopher and empiricist Roger

619
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: Bacon on one of the heroes of William of Baskerville.

620
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. And so Roger Bacon, having read

621
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: event L. Hyatham's work in translation by the thirteenth century,

622
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 1: wrote that optics in the study of light was quote

623
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: the flower of the whole of philosophy, and that without

624
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: it none of the other sciences would ever be would

625
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: ever be understood. And so understanding the importance of the

626
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: camera obscura in studying optical phenomena, Bacon used the principle

627
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: to observe solar eclipses in the thirteenth century. You know,

628
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about the way that certainly, certainly

629
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: astronomy and uh in scientific understanding of previous centuries like

630
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: made its way into occult practices and alchemy. Um. I'm

631
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: reminded that in reading about various recipes for creating a

632
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 1: monk uh, there were calls for like using a totally

633
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: dark room. I don't remember any mention of of a

634
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: pinhole or an aperture, but it makes me think if

635
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,399
Speaker 1: if to some extent, experiments by the you know, these

636
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: these great thinkers in the past with cameras camera obscure

637
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: as might have served to sort of cement the darkened

638
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: room as some sort of you know, a magical space

639
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: for spell work. Oh yeah, you could think, especially if

640
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: you like saw but didn't understand what I'll hythe them

641
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 1: and Master Mow and Roger Bacon were doing that. They'd

642
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 1: like take people into a darkened room and there'd be

643
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,399
Speaker 1: all this ooing and owing, and you're like, what's going on? Yeah,

644
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,920
Speaker 1: Like like Bacon has this room and there there's no

645
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: light around allowed in it except for one little hole,

646
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: and something spectacular happens in there, and that that it

647
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: sounds suspicious totally. I can see that now over the

648
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:57,959
Speaker 1: following centuries, the camera obscure would appear in a more

649
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 1: portable format as a something more like what you're familiar with,

650
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:03,880
Speaker 1: probably if you've ever made one out of a shoebox.

651
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: The camera obscura became often the form of a wooden

652
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 1: box with like a ground glass lens, which could even

653
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: be said over a table or other surface to project

654
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:17,280
Speaker 1: an image onto whatever screen was desired, even on the paper.

655
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: And this idea of projecting direct images of the natural world,

656
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: while not a form of photography, was an interesting precursor

657
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: to it, since you could use the projected image as

658
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: a kind of tracing guide or to create a template

659
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: for a work of art to be painted and filled

660
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: in later and the Renaissance painter and inventor Leonardo da

661
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: Vinci used the camera obscura for exactly this purpose, recognizing

662
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: its power to help guide the artist in correctly replicating perspective.

663
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 1: Because Robert, I don't know if you is bad an

664
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 1: artist design, I'm terrible at drawing in visual visual art.

665
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: But I think even if you've got some natural talent

666
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: for it, just think about how hard it is to

667
00:36:56,560 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: recreate perspective effects of our of our point of view

668
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 1: on an image just by eyeballing it. Yeah. Absolutely, I

669
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: mean I'm I can only just draw gremlins and whatnot

670
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: in the margins of of notes. But one of the

671
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: things I have a friend named Kurt who is a

672
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: professional artist, and one of my favorite things to do

673
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: with him is get him to explain paintings to me,

674
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: because you know, I have I have a lot of

675
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: appreciation for art. I have a fair amount of you know,

676
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: I can keep up with a fair amount of art history.

677
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 1: But when he gets into the technical aspects of perspective

678
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 1: and all uh, Like, he he always points out something

679
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: that I'm just completely blind to. It just really makes

680
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:40,359
Speaker 1: me appreciate even more so the talent that is executed, uh,

681
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: the artistry that is executed in some of these great

682
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 1: works of art past and present. Oh yeah, I mean

683
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: that's one reason, like an actual curated museum tour with

684
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: somebody who knows what they're talking about with the works

685
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: of art and can show you things to look at

686
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: that can be far more interesting than you'd even imagine. Um.

687
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 1: I you know, I I enjoy art museums and all that,

688
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: but a really good guided tour is gold. Yeah. Like,

689
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 1: I tend to end up focusing a lot on, of course,

690
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: the history of the piece, who made it, win, the symbolism, uh,

691
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: that you know, if there's a mythological story or a

692
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,320
Speaker 1: biblical story that's being told, they're like, what's its purpose?

693
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 1: What's its message? Story? Minded? Yeah, so so that you know,

694
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: that's where I often enter in and I have to

695
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: be reminded of all that other stuff, um, you know,

696
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: beyond the material aspects of it as well. Though this

697
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: also reminds me of the worst museum tour I ever

698
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 1: had with There was one we went on where there

699
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: was a docent who every painting we'd go to, he'd

700
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: be like, what do you notice about this painting? And

701
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: the group people in the group would say stuff I

702
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: don't know, and they'd offer up answers, and he just

703
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: keeps saying, no, what do you notice until we got

704
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: the answer he wanted. We usually didn't. Then then he'd

705
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: just eventually have to tell us. You know, there's not

706
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: to get off and too much of a tangent, But

707
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 1: there is something about about seeing actually like the actual

708
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: piece of art that I mean. Obviously, it's great when

709
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: you realize something is even grander than you thought it was.

710
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: You know, it's a much bigger piece, and you're you

711
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 1: get to sort of interact with it and you change

712
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: your perspectives on it. But I also enjoy kind of

713
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: the reverse where you're like, oh wow, this this painting

714
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 1: is really small in real life and it feels less

715
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: grand in a way presented here instead of in a

716
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,799
Speaker 1: book or on a computer screen. Or another one that

717
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: comes to mind is Bookland's, uh the Isle of the Dead,

718
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: or or one of the versions with a few different

719
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,400
Speaker 1: versions of it. Bet there's one of them is hanging

720
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: in the met in New York City, and it's it's

721
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: kind of a disappointing experience, or I felt slightly disappointed.

722
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: It's amazing to see it in real life, knowing that

723
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: this is a famous painting, you know, one that you've

724
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: read about and heard about. But it's a very dark image,

725
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of black in it, and

726
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's really difficult to get a real

727
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: world like to get yourself and just right. They're just

728
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: the right perspective to really look at it and take

729
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 1: it in as a painting, or at least in my experience.

730
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that can definitely. I've

731
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: noticed sometimes I've seen I've gone to see a painting

732
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 1: in real life, you know that I've seen represented on

733
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: maybe TV or on a computer screen before. And the

734
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: weird thing I found is that seeing it in person

735
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: sometimes was a less intimate feeling of relationship to that

736
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,320
Speaker 1: work of art than seeing it on like a screen

737
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: had been. I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe

738
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 1: it's just that you're physically closer to a screen or

739
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: that screens or where so much of your life happens. Yeah. Yeah,

740
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 1: and it's weird. And I feel like it does vary

741
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: from artists to artists and style to style. Um. You know,

742
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: like one of my my favorite artists is Irving Norman,

743
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: and I really enjoy looking at his you know, magazine

744
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: prints of his work, looking at images on the computer screen,

745
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:48,280
Speaker 1: but getting to see his pieces in real life really

746
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,880
Speaker 1: blow me away. Like there's it's it's like, you know,

747
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: ten times the experience. Yeah. That, well, I'm not sure

748
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 1: that I know Irving Norman. I'll have to look him

749
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,919
Speaker 1: up after. It's definitely worth looking up very you know, dark,

750
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: dark surrealist star of the century. Oh I think maybe

751
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,320
Speaker 1: I have seen this actually now that I've probably thrust

752
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: it on you, upon you at some point, well, I

753
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: appreciate the thrust, um so, but no, we were talking

754
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: about like how hard it can be if you're just

755
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: trying to recreate an image by eyeballing something, or even worse,

756
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 1: trying to recreate it from memory of an image. Right,

757
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: what if you want to paint something but you can't

758
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: stay you know, you can't paint it while you're looking

759
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: at it. But if you had a portable camera obscura,

760
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 1: you could maybe do kind of like a perspective sketch

761
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 1: of it that could jog your memory later. And so

762
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 1: using the camera obscure as a guide for drawing was

763
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: an interesting stepping stone from a world where every recorded

764
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: image was just necessarily a totally human interpretation to a

765
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: world of the semi objective visual records like photographs. And

766
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: I say semi objective because while, of course the light

767
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 1: recording process of photography is mechanical and pretty much I

768
00:41:57,360 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: would say objective, you can always still argue that photography

769
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 1: is subjective in that it entails choices about framing and

770
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,840
Speaker 1: perspective left up to the photographer. Oh yeah, you know,

771
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 1: like you can take a picture and it looks like

772
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 1: somebody is is pushing or pushing over or holding up

773
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: the leaning Tower of Pisa. Uh, you know, obviously that's

774
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: not actually taking place. You can everybody's seen various pictures

775
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,280
Speaker 1: with some sort of a you know, a big animal

776
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,919
Speaker 1: like like a like a giant hog, that sort of thing,

777
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's there's room with perspective to play with

778
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: the way you frame your shot to make things look

779
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:37,319
Speaker 1: different than they actually are. Right, But certainly, I mean

780
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: there is still just like truly physical their rays of

781
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,399
Speaker 1: light coming into the lens, and that's in a way

782
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: that is an objective recording of the physical space. And

783
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 1: so I think it's so interesting that you've got this

784
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:51,839
Speaker 1: stepping stone in the middle here, the camera obscure as

785
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: a way of like flattening out physical reality onto a

786
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: two D surface, allowing you to to to see what

787
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: that looks like. What is it like when you put

788
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 1: the world on a flat space, And what happens if

789
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:05,919
Speaker 1: I trace that, what happens if I try to fill

790
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: that in with paint. It's almost like seeing through another's eyes.

791
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, externalizing some aspect of sight and

792
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:15,760
Speaker 1: getting to step outside of it. Well, maybe we should

793
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: take another break and then come back and explore a

794
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:20,760
Speaker 1: little bit more about the legacy of the camera obscura

795
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: and and some more ideas about how it could have

796
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: figured into Renaissance art. Alright, we're back, so we're gonna

797
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the legacy. Ultimately, the big

798
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: the biggest legacy of the camera obscura is of course

799
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: that it does lead to true photograph technology, to the

800
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 1: true camera, and a lot of that we're going to

801
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:47,399
Speaker 1: say for the next episode of Invention. But there's still

802
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: some other key key bits of legacy to discuss here.

803
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 1: So I was not aware of this beforehand. But this

804
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: is one thing our our friend Scott Benjamin turned up

805
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: and and let us know about. Is this idea of

806
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: an actual controversial hypothesis in art history that deals with

807
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 1: the technology of the camera obscura and optics. Yes, the

808
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: Hackney Falco thesis. Uh. And I have to say I

809
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: was mainly familiar with it because teller of Penn and

810
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: teller Um he put together a documentary called Tim's Ramier

811
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: came out into that deals with with the subject we're

812
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 1: discussing here. Okay, so what's the deal with this hypothesis? Alright?

813
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: So it's a theory of art history proposed by artist

814
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: David Hackney and physicists Charles M. Falco, and uh, the

815
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 1: idea you know this basically this comes back to their

816
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,800
Speaker 1: book two thousand one books Secret Knowledge, Rediscovering the Lost

817
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 1: Techniques of the Old Masters. And the basic idea is

818
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: that we see leaps in realism during the Renaissance and

819
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: Renaissance painting that they argue was due at least in

820
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: in large part to the use of optical technology by

821
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: the Old Masters, optical technology that would have included mirrors,

822
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:04,359
Speaker 1: but all so the camera obscura itself. And uh, the

823
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 1: idea here is it's really interesting to discuss because of

824
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 1: course artists use technology. You know, a brush is technology technolmistry. Yeah,

825
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: so you know they use any artists out there, it's

826
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 1: gonna probably they're probably using the best brushes, the best canvases,

827
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: the best paints. Uh, that you know that they can find,

828
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: that they can obtain or that you know, fit their purposes.

829
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: And uh, on top of that, we also know that

830
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 1: nineteenth century artists made ready use of photographs, just as

831
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: many painters do today. Century painters have made use of film,

832
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 1: video computers. So it's not, in my mind crazy or

833
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 1: blasphemous to consider that. Yes, painters such as Ramier may

834
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:50,520
Speaker 1: have used camera obscura or mirrors and lenses in the

835
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: creation of their paintings. Maybe that's more of a taboo

836
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 1: if you're in the art world or something that just

837
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,280
Speaker 1: seems to me like, well, okay, that's just a technique

838
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: they were using. If if indeed I did use it,

839
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 1: I don't want to assume here, right, And and this

840
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,879
Speaker 1: this theory is uh, you know, contested, it's not it's

841
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: not proven by any any any means. But we're going

842
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: into some of the arguments for both sides. But yeah,

843
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: it's clear that many artists certainly knew about optics. We've

844
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: talked about We've already spoken about the the the the

845
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 1: ancient history of the camera obscura. Da Vinci clearly knew, Yeah,

846
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:26,320
Speaker 1: albrec Dura apparently I wrote about the camera obscuria as well,

847
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 1: And by fourteen thirty seven, Leon Batista Alberti is documented

848
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: to have used the camera obscura in the creation of

849
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,720
Speaker 1: his art. But the question is, well, what about the others,

850
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:43,879
Speaker 1: How what about Vermier and and other old masters? Did

851
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: they use the camera obscura and like keep it secret

852
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: or not talk about as the thing? Was it like

853
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: a trade secret among artists or was it less of

854
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: a secret after all? I mean, there's evidence on both sides.

855
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: So so this is something we could easily do an

856
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: entire episode on like this this stock it, but just

857
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:03,359
Speaker 1: to sort of highlight some of the pros and cons here.

858
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 1: So one pro is that, uh, you know, some charge

859
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:10,399
Speaker 1: that the level of detail in many of these masterpieces

860
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: is beyond what one could simply eyeball, Like, there is

861
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 1: just a level of detail and perspective um and and

862
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: accuracy that requires more than just looking and remembering. Well,

863
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: not having a talent for visual art myself, I feel

864
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 1: like that's something I couldn't judge. I just know that

865
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: some people are much better at mentally representing three D

866
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:33,839
Speaker 1: imagery onto a two D surface, and I don't know

867
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 1: how much better than me. They could be right, And

868
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:38,280
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and say that. One of the cons

869
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: the big arguments against this is that is that some say, well,

870
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 1: you know, you're discounting what is truly possible uh with

871
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: the in the mind of the painter, Like what is

872
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:54,840
Speaker 1: truly possible without technological optical aids. Now, another bit of

873
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 1: evidence that is sometimes brought up and presented is a

874
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: fifteenth century painter beyond an Ike who included glass and

875
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: even mirrors in his work, and it was clearly intrigued

876
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 1: by optical properties. Like one of his most famous pieces

877
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: is this portrait. Right in there, there's this uh, there's

878
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: this mirror uh in the middle like behind them that

879
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 1: centered between them, and in it you can see the

880
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 1: painter uh and uh. And so it's it's been argued

881
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: that like, yeah, he's including this mirror because he you know,

882
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: he's he was, you know, somewhat obsessed by optics and

883
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 1: that perhaps it was part of his process to use them. Now,

884
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: one thing I can see is that it's just going

885
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: to be hard to decide whether or not we should

886
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,320
Speaker 1: listen to this hypothesis. If it's just people arguing about

887
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 1: what's possible for people to do without aids. I would

888
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,879
Speaker 1: be interested to see if there's evidence of like artifacts

889
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 1: appearing in the painting that would only be there if

890
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: people were using optical aids and technologies. Yeah, and and

891
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:56,839
Speaker 1: this is where you get into the idea that there

892
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: may be evidence of optical distortion in the finish pieces

893
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: that would match up with the sort of optical distortion

894
00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 1: that you would get through using camera obscura or various mirrors. However,

895
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:11,720
Speaker 1: this too is contested, so you'll see Hackney and Falco,

896
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 1: you know, presenting this as part of their evidence. But

897
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 1: people who disagree with them, they're gonna argue, will know that,

898
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: you know, we're not seeing this kind of optical distortion.

899
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, isn't is one part of this distortion

900
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: like the Rubens butts or is that just artistic style? Um,

901
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: I don't recall the Rubenesque uh bodies being part of

902
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:36,399
Speaker 1: the evidence that it might have been now and and

903
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: this also gets to another huge con and that is

904
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 1: that there's far less direct or textual evidence here. So

905
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,959
Speaker 1: we're talking like, are you know artists having written about

906
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:50,719
Speaker 1: using these techniques? Are there being in anything beyond just

907
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: merely looking at the pieces and and say and and

908
00:49:54,760 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 1: interpreting them, interpreting the finished piece of art itself. So

909
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: so yeah, ultimately, I feel like it's difficult to really

910
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: land on, you know, one answer or the other. There

911
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: is that Teller documentary, Tim's Vermier, and it follows Tim

912
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: Jennison in his effort to duplicate the painting techniques of

913
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: Vermier to test this theory and um, basically he ends

914
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 1: he ends up creating this piece through uh, with the

915
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: help of optical devices, and then Hackney and Falco themselves

916
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 1: appear at the end and judge the finished work, which

917
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:29,919
Speaker 1: they conclude supports the theory. You mean, their theory that

918
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: that he couldn't do it without the help of optical devices, right, well,

919
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:35,879
Speaker 1: But I mean I also don't want to I feel

920
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 1: like it's tricky to frame this correctly because like, for

921
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 1: my money, again not being a visual artist, uh and

922
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:48,359
Speaker 1: largely being just you know, uh, someone who appreciates art,

923
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 1: I'd say that, you know, it doesn't just take anything

924
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: away from me, uh to consider that Vermier or any

925
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: of these other masters use this technology to create their work,

926
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:00,399
Speaker 1: like they're still it's not like if you've ever tried

927
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: to trace anything and been disappointed in the work, and

928
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 1: lord knows I did when I was younger, Like you

929
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: can realize there's more than just merely projecting, you know,

930
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,280
Speaker 1: using the camera obscurity to project something on a wall

931
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,279
Speaker 1: and then tracing over it or painting over etcetera. Like

932
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 1: you still have to have a very high degree of

933
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 1: of artistic talent too to to bring that painting to lie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

934
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: I mean again, I don't know whether or not this

935
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 1: hypothesis is true, but I mean I don't see any

936
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 1: reason to object to it, apart from if it just

937
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: has lack of evidence something like it's I believe in

938
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: the superhuman power of art. But art isn't magic. I mean,

939
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 1: art is a physical thing people do that involves technology

940
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:45,359
Speaker 1: all the time. Technology is constantly changing art. Oh yeah, yeah,

941
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: the technology changes are I mean really the main exceptions

942
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:51,760
Speaker 1: to that, of course, are going to be cases where

943
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 1: there's some sort of cultural need to preserve the technique

944
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: through which the art is created. And we do see

945
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 1: plenty of examples of that, and it's aspect actually true

946
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: in places where you're protecting those cultural practices from technology

947
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 1: that is brought in through colonial influence. But but even then,

948
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 1: you guys, guess you guess you can argue, well, then

949
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:15,360
Speaker 1: you're still using technology to help preserve the culture of it.

950
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,400
Speaker 1: Perhaps you're using uh, you know, video to to capture

951
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 1: the process so that others may learn it, or you're

952
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,320
Speaker 1: using you know, modern printing techniques to create a book

953
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 1: that informs new members of these cultures, uh and instructs

954
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 1: them on how to continue the tradition. I mean, I

955
00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 1: guess that's just something that I feel like should always

956
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 1: be that's up to the artist and is constantly negotiated

957
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 1: between the artists and their audience, like what kind of

958
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:42,439
Speaker 1: techniques do they feel are acceptable? I'm I'm just saying

959
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: I don't personally look at an artist using technology and think, wow,

960
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: they're not really doing art right. And then and I

961
00:52:49,200 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 1: imagine you also get into a case where what technological

962
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 1: advances are permitted in which ones don't feel appropriate when

963
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: you're trying to preserve some sort of you know, culturally

964
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 1: in frenched practice, I imagine it's always an act of

965
00:53:03,280 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: negotiation where you have to you have to decide, all right,

966
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:09,400
Speaker 1: we're not going to do this, but yes we will improve.

967
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 1: They are brushes, are pigments, but we're still going to

968
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: do it this way because this is the way that

969
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:16,960
Speaker 1: we always have done it. Personally, I think it's only

970
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 1: art if it is painted on the side of a

971
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 1: living pig, has to be in a cave. If it's

972
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:25,400
Speaker 1: not in a cave, it's not art. I wonder if

973
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 1: you get people going the other way, like techno chauvinists

974
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 1: about art, like it's only art if you use you know,

975
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 1: this type of femtosecond laser to create it. Yeah, I

976
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: don't know, that would be interesting to consider. Hopefully we'll

977
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: do more episodes in the future where we talk about

978
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: the uh, the the influence of technology and invention on

979
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:47,920
Speaker 1: artistic endeavors. I mean, certainly we'll get into it in

980
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 1: photography and motion pictures in our next two episodes. I

981
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: do want to add one more thing. So obviously when

982
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 1: we get to photography, uh, there is an erotic element

983
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 1: that becomes evident. Oh yeah, and certainly with motion pictures

984
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: as well. But I could find no evidence that, um,

985
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: the camera obscure was ever used for erotic or pornographic purposes,

986
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: which I guess makes sense. But but part of me

987
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: is like a little disappointed slash suspicious because I feel

988
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:21,800
Speaker 1: like somebody had to have tried it at some point,

989
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: and maybe, you know, to whatever extent. Artists were toying

990
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: with the technology or using the technology. I figured one

991
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 1: of them. But Leonardo, come on, he had to have

992
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:33,839
Speaker 1: have tried this out at some point. Well, I mean,

993
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 1: I I can see why it wouldn't have necessarily been

994
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:39,440
Speaker 1: all that useful in that context because the benefit of

995
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 1: using photography and and motion picture and stuff like that,

996
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: is that it can just be like fixed in time, duplicated,

997
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:50,960
Speaker 1: replayed or viewed later with the camera obscure. Your subject

998
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:54,319
Speaker 1: has to be physically present, right, so you'd have Yeah,

999
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:56,839
Speaker 1: it would have to be a very particular sort of

1000
00:54:56,840 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: technological fetish um. So, I don't know. But at any rate,

1001
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 1: as far as I could tell, doesn't factor into the

1002
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 1: history of erotic art in in any way other than

1003
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: just being mainly precursor to photography. But if I'm wrong

1004
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 1: on that, I would love to hear tales of erotic

1005
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: camera obscura. Just a hunk with a Ruben's but upside

1006
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:21,720
Speaker 1: down on your back wall of your barn or whatever.

1007
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 1: And I think that's the mental image we should close

1008
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:27,839
Speaker 1: on here, upside down Reuben's but hunk. Yes, yes, I should.

1009
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:29,719
Speaker 1: I should just actually throw in and explain a little bit.

1010
00:55:29,719 --> 00:55:32,240
Speaker 1: We're talking about the the art of Peter Paul reubens

1011
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 1: Um who Free you. We we discussed reuben Esque paintings.

1012
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 1: Used that term for a reason because he did have

1013
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:43,800
Speaker 1: a very signature um like sort of thick naked style,

1014
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 1: and so many of his arts magnificently paintings. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

1015
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 1: magnificent Stocky Butts his paintings. They're just full of them, right. Uh.

1016
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: And and it does make me think back to an

1017
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 1: older episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, um that

1018
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:00,920
Speaker 1: I did with with Julie Douglass about us Den Dall syndrome.

1019
00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:03,160
Speaker 1: The idea, know, you're you're in the presence of great

1020
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 1: art and it has a physical effect on you. Uh.

1021
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:09,440
Speaker 1: There is at least one variant of that that that

1022
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:11,920
Speaker 1: tied into Reuben's work and the idea that, like in

1023
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 1: viewing the pieces, you would just be overcome by the

1024
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:18,200
Speaker 1: erotic power of them, hypnotized by magnificent Stocky Butts, I

1025
00:56:18,239 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 1: guess yeah. And again it kind of gets into the

1026
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:25,399
Speaker 1: power of the of of the two D image, you know. Uh,

1027
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,960
Speaker 1: it's easy to take for granted just how how potent

1028
00:56:29,040 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 1: and over and overpowering these works can be. They almost

1029
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: have a quality that's kind of like a pirate, pirate

1030
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 1: video transmission from another dimension where Butts are king. All right, well,

1031
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,000
Speaker 1: we'll leave you all to to google the works of

1032
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: Reuben on your own, as well as these other artists

1033
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:49,359
Speaker 1: that we've mentioned here. We're gonna go and close out

1034
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 1: this episode of Invention, but certainly tune in next week

1035
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:55,760
Speaker 1: in the week after as we begin to explore the camera,

1036
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 1: the motion picture and then go on from there and

1037
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:03,520
Speaker 1: our continual, uh never ending exploration of human techno history.

1038
00:57:03,680 --> 00:57:05,520
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you want to check out old episodes

1039
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 1: of Invention, head on over to the website that is

1040
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:12,319
Speaker 1: Invention pod dot com. That is where you will find

1041
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 1: all the episodes. You find links out to social media accounts.

1042
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:17,920
Speaker 1: If you want to engage with other listeners, hit on

1043
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 1: over to Facebook and search for our our our group.

1044
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 1: There it's the Stuff to Blow Your Mind discussion module,

1045
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:26,440
Speaker 1: because that is where you can discuss the episodes of

1046
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind, our other podcast or episodes

1047
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: of Invention. UH discuss it with other listeners as well

1048
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: as UH as with us because we pop in fairly

1049
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 1: regularly there. Yeah, come on by, Yeah huge, Thanks as

1050
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 1: always to our wonderful audio producer Tory Harrison. If you

1051
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:44,960
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1052
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,520
Speaker 1: about this episode or any other UH to suggest a

1053
00:57:47,520 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: topic for the future, just to say hello, tell us

1054
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:52,120
Speaker 1: how you found out about the show, where you listen

1055
00:57:52,200 --> 00:57:54,200
Speaker 1: from all that kind of stuff, You can email us

1056
00:57:54,240 --> 00:58:05,200
Speaker 1: at contact at invention pod dot com. You will be

1057
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:07,000
Speaker 1: every day you can do with your