Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1403311142370.29332@panix2.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: The Ghost, Blizzard
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 11:49:11 -0400 (EDT)
The Ghost, Blizzard http://www.alansondheim.org/NSCAD.mp4 (full NSCAD video at lowered data rate) I'm tired now, last night I woke up and looked over towards the window; the curtains were drawn. In front of them, I saw a ghost, a large white and somewhat unformed semi-transparent mass that moved, almost floated, but conveyed a sense of mass. I was frightened, I never had this happen to me before, and I screamed - now I think that my video is a premonition of the presence of ghosts; certainly it's not coincidental, and I've worked on similar images before without apparitions. But I was in an unusual state, I was panicky, and that may have contributed a certain sensibility or 'antenna apparatus' to my troubled night. When I screamed, and it was a loud scream, Azure immediately woke up, and then both of us went back to bed. I was worried (I always worry about something) that my scream might bring the police, and then what? I was at a loss. The ghost, by the way, had the texture of thick blizzard snow, white-grey and mottled, but it didn't slough off or fall from the form; it was there before me. When I woke this morning, I was determined to put the full video up, as compensation or redemption for the uncanny vision, which continues to haunt me. The video is 5 minutes 3 seconds in length. Resolution is slightly lower and the video is set for streaming; it should run ok. The size of the file is 112 Mb. The .mov version is 883 Mb but I haven't put that up of course. You can download this version by right-click the file and saving; if you go to www.alansondheim.org/ and scroll down to NSCAD.mp4 - capitals come before small letters in the directory - this might be the easiest way; you don't have to open the file at all until it's downloaded. If you come to the Wednesday talk at NSCAD (it's in the early afternoon I think), you can see the full version which has better resolution and if you want I can give you a copy of it; you'd have to bring your own external hard drive or card; I wouldn't have time to burn a DVD. On the full version, most of the small print is readable, should you care to do that, but it's not necessary; the moving vertical line in the last few sections represents frame rates and through-put, and looks quite beautiful, almost understandable, in the full version; in the compressed version, you certainly 'get the idea.' Since some of the video is fairly dark, or at least the background landscape is, it's probably best to watch in a dark room, and earphones will help, although the sounds - the blizzard winds - really don't need that sort of fidelity; still, the stereo effect is quite nice. Somewhere in the video, I'm certain, the ghost lurks, but where? Between the frames? In the virtual worlds I conjured up, in order to make the piece, and which remain inactive until I enter them again? In the soul of the machine itself? I prefer to think, in the soul of the blizzard, the cold blank slate of the end of life on earth, many eons hence. The evidence is in the ghost and its premonition in the video, something is lurking in our midst.