Integral
My good friend and former neighbour, S. Cousin, the Polaroid photographer and experimenter, was visiting recently when he told me two interesting facts:
1. Our project, Love Come Take Me, was recently featured in an exhibition.
This is always good news, it gives me ‘artist credentials’ – apparently some galleries are unwilling to display work unless you have appeared in another gallery. It sounds like some sort of racket to me, but apparently you can cash your credentials in for future exhibits.
The only problem with the exhibition is that I didn’t get to see it. I’m not that bothered about seeing my ink in a gallery, rather it would have been nice to walk in, unknown, and make my opinion on the genius of the artists well known.
2. The Polaroid photographer and experimenter, S. Cousin, may be retiring.
At first I thought he was joking, the idea of Mr Cousin without a Polaroid camera seems absurd, and it’s not like you just stop taking pictures one day… but then he explained – Polaroid, the company, are ceasing to make the film. They estimate stocks to last up until the end of 2009.
It may be that another company will by the rights to reproduce and sell the film, but given the onslaught of digital technology, it’s unlikely in the short term – You should expect people to start hording film like gold, and possibly, some nations will base their currency on available stocks.
If eras were marked by their technology, this would be the end of one.
And so it is that I may be left pondering for ever – It doesn’t speed up the process, nor does it have any influence on the picture so why is it that people persist in flapping Polaroids around when waiting for them to develop?
In addition to Polaroid flapping, I notice that people like to shake milk-based drinks, if they are in a shakeable container. I do it myself if I order a chocolate milk, whether it’s in a carton or a plastic bottle. Something about the energy of impatience? No idea.
Just willing it to develop quicker… I can understand flapping arms for that.
Sometimes they tell you to shake chocolate milk because the chocolate settles. It always says it on the side of the containers when I buy them. Also I think with some people it’s a reflex from drinking YooHoo, where you have to shake it because the chocolate ALWAYS separates from the liquid.
is that where my soul went!?!?
Either that or you traded it in so that you could sing like Roy Orbison….
Every one knows I don’t have a soul.
I was born with out one.
There is a charity set up for ppl like me.
I like polaroids, like hemarroids, but not so smelly.
Seriously tho, they are interesting, an instantaneous snapshot that can be enjoyed instantly.
Like digital, except tangable.
I think that’s what interests Mr C. about them too – one of his exhibitions is purely about trying to destroy a polaroid with your hands – it’s virtually impossible:
http://pentimento.squarespace.com/durability-1/
We shake the ‘roids because we see other people shaking them. It’s like that social conditioning experiment with the monkeys, the banana and the water cannon. Pretty soon, everyone is doing it, but no one knows why.
On a similar note, my local brew is Coopers Pale Ale. When you drink it from a bottle, it has sediment in the bottom that causes pretty much everyone to invert the bottle (slowly … carefully …) so that the sediment disperses through the entire drink.
After years of inverting and then drinking bottles of Pale, I now automatically invert every bottle of beer I drink. No other beer has sediment, but there’s me, carefully inverting before drinking to the slightly puzzled stares of friends and relatives.
Not a bad brew.
Not a fan of unfiltered beer tho. Unless it is really good home brew.
What is this monkey + cannon + bananana experiment?
If it’s the same one I heard about, you keep a bunch of monkeys in an enclosure and have some slightly out of the way point (maybe up some steps or what have you) with a banana.
If any of the monkeys goes to take the banana, you blast all the rest of them with a water cannon. Pretty soon they figure out the cause and attacking any monkey who tries to get the banana to prevent the soaking.
Then you replace the monkeys one at a time, and each new arrival learns that going for the banana is grounds for attack, eventually the monkeys you have in there are all replacements, none of them have ever actually been blasted with the water cannon, but all of them will attack any monkey who tries to take the banana.
None of them know the reason behind what they’re doing, but they do it all the same because that’s what everyone else does, and has always done in the past.
Yeah I think it’s exactly like that monkey experiment. At some point somebody thought shaking the picture would speed up development, this false notion spread about until people did it by nature, now even though it’s common knowledge that it does nothing people still do it anyway.
the only thing I know to help is to stick the polaroid somewhere warm, like an armpit.
I did not know about that experiment… It makes sense and it answers my question in a way that I can test…
…I can find the bananas, the water cannon is installed… but where would one find a cagefull of monkeys?
A college campus.
NO MORE POLAROIDS!
a part of my childhood just died.
Also, today, three links from your site to this:
[EDIT This link is probably not safe for work viewing depending on how liberal your employers are...]
Just sayin’.
I’m not sure what you’re saying, Roo…
I think I’m saying something about the extreme interconnectedness of the internet. Sort of like the “six degrees” of separation thing, but with the interwebz: you can click away, and find yourself somewhere you wouldn’t have expected at all.
In hind sight, I probably should have mentioned the work-safe thing, huh? Sorry about that, me thinks I’m too used to liberal work environ.
But I should clarify… I’m not really sure that’s what I’m saying. But I think it might be.
No problem – the liberal environment is the aim… twitchy firewalls and conservative employers however hold sway.
I get what you’re on about know… I figured the link when I read the bloke’s biography, and now you’ve explained I get the ‘three links’ thing.
So technically that’s only four degrees from my S. Cousin’s site to Nate’s…