Confessions by Phone

Now that I’m an interactive telephony class, I’m more compelled to take note of interesting examples of telephone systems. Heard this today on the radio – a “pay telephone line for French Roman Catholics to confess their sins [is drawing] criticism from bishops” in France.

EWTN News says, ‘the service, which was initiated at the beginning of Lent by a group of Catholics working working at a small Paris phone company, is called “The Line of the Lord” and charges callers 46 cents a minute.

A woman identified as “Camille,” who is an employee of the small Paris-based phone company AABAS, told reporters on Tuesday that although the service she helped create does not offer absolution, “The idea is to confess sins which are not capital sins, but minor sins, directly to God.”

“Callers do not talk to a person but can confess their sins and listen to prayers, music or other people’s confessions in an atmosphere of piety and reflection,” she explained.

When the number is called, a voice on the line says “For advice on confessing, press one. To confess, press two. To listen to some confessions, press three.” The voice continues to warn that “In case of serious or mortal sins – that is, sins that have cut you off from Christ our Lord, it is indispensable to confide in a priest.”

Camille, who would not give her last name as she has already received threats from angered Catholics, said the line has received around 300 calls in the first week and that part of the proceeds are going to charity.’

Turns out you’re even allowed to hear other people’s confessions.

Here’s a translated excerpt from the site:

As for young, busy in their virtual world where new gods officiate through video games, Internet and phones, they seem to gradually move away from social, moral and religious. Less than 2% of 18-29 year olds go to church every Sunday. So why not put technology at the service of spirituality. And thanks to our modern ways to enter the church in our lives and in our hearts … a simple phone call.

http://lefilduseigneur.com/ (translated: http://bit.ly/hZcfCe)

And, Vanity Fair has an article featuring a recording of someone at Conde Nast making a phone call. The recording is in French and English, so if you don’t speak French or regularly pray in French, it’s rather cryptic except for the English. Her “sin” is calling internationally from her work phone. (I don’t think it’s a sin – it was for work.)

Meanwhile, turns out phone confessions or apologies aren’t new. This Time article covers an apology hotline in LA. And, actually, a Catholic confession line once existed in 1955.

It’s a tempting curiosity, but I don’t plan to call in. I’m not (a French) Catholic.

“Notes on…”, new video for Giant Stories

What happens when you put 3 semi-crazy people in a room and tell them to make a movie? You get a blood muffin and paint. Thankfully we had Alex’s nice camera to document everything. Turn on HD and watch in full screen!

Assignment: create a video to go along with a predefined soundtrack. Do not edit the sound.

Assignment 1: Farming videos and my hand at a Lumiere

Part 1. Farm a minimum of 3 videos related to the course.

video 1: Precisely So (Part II), 1937
This video was produced by Chevrolet, way back in 1937. Listening to the guy speak is fairly boring, but turning off the sound and watching the footage makes it fascinating. It’s incredibly surreal and contemporary. Watching it, I’m impressed with the editing, which included unique camera angles, close ups, seamless transitions, and stop-motion animations. I actually think this video would have more use in another context – it has more impact with the sound off. It comes from the Prelinger Archives, which has Precisely So (Part I) available. I wasn’t quite as impressed with the second half of the video, where the narrator explains how various materials are measured to show that microscopically many materials are not quite as we seem. But, the first half was definitely interesting in setting up the rest of the story.

video 2: Amateur film: Medicus collection: New York World’s Fair, 1939-40 (Reel 2) (Part I)
I used some of the films from this World’s Fair collection in a previous project, but I’m going to link to it again for this assignment. This film was take at the 1939-40 World’s Fair in New York and it seems to feature some of the weirdest or unusual things I’ve ever seen edited (headless women, nude “science” experiments) next to young boys on a bench, roller coasters, a penguin exhibit, and people drinking from a water fountain. There’s no sound, but I found it very engaging nonetheless. The camera operator makes sure to record video of the fair attendees, which is more interesting than it sounds.

video 3: Perversion for Profit, Part 1 and Part 2
These two films should definitely be in the top 5 of All-Time Raunchiest Anti-Pornography Films, ever. (Well, at least for the middle of the 1960s.) I also used these films in a previous project, cutting out the censoring, and using the frontal shots for my perverse needs. Perverse or not, I appreciate the ’60’s aesthetic in these films, both in the video itself and in the print media portrayed.

Extra credits!
Found these few videos recently on YouTube. Hilarious versions of major motion pictures, edited to 12-30 seconds. My favorites are:
4. The Karate Kid
3. Lord of the Rings
2. Star Wars
1. The Sixth Sense

Part 2. Make a Lumiere
Rules: 60 seconds max. Fixed camera. No audio. No zoom. No edit. No effects.

My apartment building has a pretty echoey staircase that makes it easy to hear when people are coming and going, particularly when people are coming down the stairs. Every time I hear someone being particularly loud coming up or down the stairs, I run to the front door of my studio apt to see who it is.

Recently, I decided to take my camera with me, to see how well it would turn out as a Lumiere film. Here are a couple videos I took through my peephole.

By Allison Walker on Vimeo

By Allison Walker on Vimeo

Photos for Wooden “Skin” Dress

Images from Wooden Skin Dress:

Final

Front section of the dress

 

Front

Front

Back

Front

Front shoulder

Back

Back

 

Construction

This dress started with paper and foam prototypes.

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Inside the Backside

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Dye Testing

Testing dye and shading before applying to wood.

My desk exploded in dye

Shade matching

My desk

Samples

Samples

even more samples

Mixing yellow

My yellows and a blue

My desk after more testing

Shade Matching

We are all a lot closer in skin tone than society makes us out to be.

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Final Construction

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Final: Frame by Frame

For my final, I wanted to go back to some of the themes we’d discussed earlier in the class, related to advertising and basically using attractive people to make us think that we can be like them if we subscribe to the advertising message, too. But, in our teacher’s lottery to pick a pre-ordained theme, I’d chosen Romeo and Juliet.

At first, I’d decided to make ads featuring items from various scenes or speeches in the play. Maybe a new GPS for that lousy messenger you know. Or maybe an ad for poison, for you and your loved one. I looked on archive.org for good old videos about poisons, while I didn’t find any on poisons when I started using “drugs” as my keyword, I got a nice little video featured George W. Bush. Given my attitude towards this former president, I wondered if sexy advertisements would have positive effects for me….

I think not, but decide for yourself. It’s short but there’s a lot in there. (NSFW)

T & A…and Bush from Allison Walker on Vimeo.

Final: Wooden Dress…DONE!

Seems like sometimes things happen at the 11th hour! After submitting my dress to the Winter Show, I ran into a few logistical snags in the assembly and finish of my dress. Namely, misplacing my trimming and, after replacing what I thought I’d lost, running out of material and needing to make another trip. But, it was all finalized in time for the show, which was great.

dress

Where I last left off, I was remaking the form of the dress in order to make for a more attractive silhouette. The Photoshop image really did help a lot, not just for the structure, but also with helping me imagine the colors – looks miles better in person. I did end up adding more connections between each section, which came in very handy when I was dealing with the wood, but what I didn’t account for was the rather significant weight difference between the foam core pieces and the wood. Even though my pieces were only 1/16″ in depth, they were much heavier than the foam core which made. This wouldn’t have been an issue, but my new connection was a very pretty semi-elastic, black mesh material about 1″ wide – not as strong as my macrame, but less initial work I suppose.

Anyway, after I was finally satisfied as much as I could be with the structure of the dress, I took out a ruler and notated the dimensions of each piece, on each piece. These dimensions, I transferred to Illustrator so that I could use the laser cutter to cut out each piece. Meanwhile, I spent some time on the websites for Sephora, Chanel, L’Oreal, MAC (really just for color), Lancome, etc., to find the names of foundation colors. I also decided on a font after downloading several: a slightly modified Perpetual Titling MT. Using this font, I put the names of a foundation color, either real or imagined, onto each piece of wood with a raster etch setting using the laser cutter. This step took a 2-3 days; human error issues.

Finally, I had all my pieces…but still, I had to dye and attach them!! This is finally where my hard work in finding the right colors paid off. At first I felt really overwhelmed because it had been so difficult the first time. But, when I finally sat down, with a good chunk of time to work, it was fine. Writing down the formula on the back of each sample piece was super helpful, but so were my notes. My only regret for this step was getting flustered and rushing when trying to meet an earlier deadline, and not dying both sides of each piece. In the first case, I wasn’t very methodical about the colors and in the second, it meant that the wood pieces slightly curled a bit when they dried. Apparently, this is a feature of basswood….

On to attaching! For this, I used black felt in 2 layers. The first layer went directly onto the back of each wood piece. Then, my connections attached to the under layer of felt, which was then covered with the 2nd layer of felt, to give it a nice attractive finish. Let me just say that I love hot glue. It was at this point that I realized that my wood panels were so much heavier than the foam core, and so I spent a decent amount of extra time reinforcing what I’d already glued. Very time consuming.

Finally, with dyed, felted and attached and reattached pieces, I decided that enough was enough, and I just needed to put it on the dress form. Right before I did so, I draped some black felt over the form to make a little dress, which I actually quite liked and got a few compliments on my unknown draping skills. I thought the black just helped the pieces pop out nicely, but it was difficult to see the connections between each piece. I also made the dress because while I’d done what I could to help the dress fit properly, it wasn’t perfect, and an under-form seemed to help give it more body than it would if it had directly been on the dress form. Ultimately, the front and back pieces were not connected to each other, and I used straight pins to help the pieces sit flatter on the black felt. An aesthetic decision.
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During the show, I got a lot of “But, does it do anything?” questions. No, I told them. It’s more conceptual. Then I began explaining my process and how I’d done everything by hand. Sometimes they tried to find their colors, which was fun to help them with. I’d gotten much faster at it. It was a fun project. Definitely different from my video piece, but still the same in that the last piece required a physical action that affected your own experience, with a slight augmentation by technology to affect the experience, rather than using a physical action to use technology directly to augment the technical experience. I do have to say that I enjoyed many of the other students’ projects – very magical. Still, it was a fun project for me. I hope you enjoyed the photos!