Past Recedes

a video installation in progress by Eda Acar & Deniz Akyıldırım

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Darkroom

Kodak Tri-X Reversal (from unknown date) Developing Test (filmed on May, 2021)

Kodak Tri-X Reversal Super8 Film Developing Prescription

Chemicals:

Developer (Kodak D76)

Bleach (15 gr. Potassium Dichromate, 70 ml Sulfuric Acid, 1500 ml Water)

Fixer

Foto Flu

Process:

1. Unload the film in complete darkness to the tank.

2. First Developer Bath

1:1, 300 cl D76 + 300 cl water

All chemicals should be 20°C

20 minutes

Agitate the film for 5 seconds in every 20 seconds

3. Rinse

Under 20°C water for 1 minute 40 seconds

4. Bleach

1500 ml Water + 70 ml Sulfuric Acid + 15 gr. Potassium Dichromate

All chemicals should be 20°C

07 minutes

Agitate the film all the time

5. Rinse

Under 20°C water until the water coming out is clear

6. Light Bath

Get the film out of the tank and expose it to electric fluorescent light for 2 and a half minutes

7. Second Developer Bath

Use the same developer/water mixture

D76 mixture should be 20°C

12 minutes

Agitate the film for 5 seconds in every 20 seconds

8. Rinse

Under 20°C water until for 1 minute

9. Fixer

20°C

5 minutes

Agitate the film every 30 seconds

10. Final Rinse

Under 20°C water until for 4 minutes

11. Dry

Dry for 30 minutes

*Please note that our film was expired and we didn’t knew the exact date that it was from. You can adjust the time of every bath for your own film.

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Learning Until the End

Below you can see the 3D render of our spatial design. Made using SketchUp and Enscape.

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In The Very End

Just before the COVID-19 lockdown, as we started to lose hope on that the conditions of the pandemic will get better, we started to work on our plan B for our exhibition. Opening an exhibition and expecting audience in this conditions would be s delusional.

Before starting that, I want to clarify that this plan is a short term alternstive for us to demonstrate our work. So, we do not intend to adapt the project. We come to a decision that one way or another we want to make our exhibition physically. Adapting it to an online exhibition will change too much in context of our thesis. And since this project is a one year long work of ours that we gave all of our care and exertions, we want it to be countable.

With all these things considered, we have come to our final plan for now. We want to build a website for the full documentation of our work. We will display our process video, teaser and the 3D models of our gallery space. And when we go through with the devoloping process we will set up our exhibition in the FADA gallery, we will record our project with 360° camera. And for the celluloids part, we will scan the film strips in the huge scanner that we have access to in the campus.

With all off these, we hope to satisfy our audience for now. These times are hard times and we all are trying to pass these times best way possible. So till then...

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Around the World

When we finished the shooting of our first roll of film, we went on Amazon to buy a new one to complete our visuals. Since there were no sellers of 8mm film in Turkey, we ordered our new roll of film to Deniz’s cousin, Melda in Italy. 

Our film started its journey from the original seller at Geisenhausen, Germany and arrived in Milan, Italy in a week. Our plan was that Melda would ship our package from Italy to Turkey with UPS. We had some worries about the customs in Turkey, however we were positive that the film would be in our hands in one week or two. 

Two days after Melda gave the package to UPS, we got a mail from Italian UPS customer service stating that our package was on hold in the warehouse and that we should sign some documents and find something called tariff code from the Italian Customs website. The problem was that the mail and all the documents we got were in Italian. We got to manage the translation of mail but the forms to sign was legalese so we couldn’t understand the text to sign from Google Translate translation. We asked for an English version of the form but the customer service replied that they didn’t know any English so that they couldn’t help. 

After coming across with the really funny fact that no one working in the Italian customer service knew any English, we started thinking on a way to communicate to UPS to save our package. We first called the Turkish customer service however they were closed due to April 23rd National Holiday. We tried reaching the US customer service but it was really early in the morning and they weren’t also working yet. 

We waited for a few hours, signed the form in Italian, consulting to the father of our friend Sıla who works in Turkish Customs about the content of the form and sent it back to the Italian customer service. 

And got this response back;

After looking for the tariff code online for a good amount of time, we tried reaching out to the American customer service again. And this time we achieved! We reached to someone called Darling M and we explained the situation and the hardness of the communication in detail. Here is the funny conversation between us where Darling explained to me how google translate works which was both tragic and thoughtful.

Me (4/23/2021, 5:24:21 PM): I have signed up now   Darling L M (4/23/2021, 5:25:40 PM): what is the item you need to ship Me (4/23/2021, 5:26:06 PM): a roll of Kodak Ektachrome Reversal Super8 film Darling L M (4/23/2021, 5:28:51 PM): I found this number in HS Code 90065900 you can use it or ask to the UPS Italy it is ok the number Darling L M (4/23/2021, 5:29:46 PM): if they already contact you via email what you can do is reply to their email with the google translation Darling L M (4/23/2021, 5:30:25 PM): you can write in english first in google translate and then copy and paste the Italian translation and send the email to them Darling L M (4/23/2021, 5:30:45 PM): could be an option for you if they do not have the skill in english

When we sent the tariff code that we got from Darling to Italian UPS, our shipment was back on its way to Ankara. 

The package went away for its new few stops before it being hold again in İstanbul. On 28th of April we got a mail from Turkish customs saying that we need to pay customs fee as soon as possible to got our package (the fee was anticipated but COVID lockdown was not :) 

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About the Narration

When we started this project, one of the most challenging parts of the process was setting up the right narrative for our story. In fact, besides our intention to explore the analog systems by using 8mm film, our initial idea was fueled by a story idea. So, at the very beginning, there was “a girl who is trapped in an undeveloped film strip” and the rest was Past Recedes. 

Actually, as we sat on and discussed what we should do about our Visual Communication Project, we realized that we had so much to say about the recent isolation that we had to experience because of the COVID-19 lockdown. Our whole life was transferred into this digital realm; our social life, our education, our jobs, and so on. We were so alone and isolated, yet at the same time, in communication with many people, mostly via zoom. And when we met to brainstorm on this project, we knew that we should be saying something about this bizarre period. By that, we started drawing our very first patterns towards the theme integration of the past, present, and the future. 

After we came up with this idea of an isolated and entrapped girl, we started to search for ways to pass through our story without using traditional storytelling elements that we usually use on daily basis. Eventually, analog and 8 mm became our primary keywords. With all these, we started our way through to reaching a method that can satisfy the connotations of our technique. 

In light of these conditions, our video installation project shaped as two projectors directed towards the opposite faces of the gallery. One is a digital projection of an experimental video shot on Super 8 film and on top of that an 8 mm film projector illuminating the films that were shot on.

As we approach the end, we both are very excited to share our end product with the audience in a better future that lacks COVID-19 related troubles.

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Covid Break :,)

With the new curfew rules announced in Turkey, we were in complete lockdown from April 29 to May 17. This lockdown had a huge effect on our project Past Recedes. We were about to get into dark room to develop our film on the first week of May, and because of the new curfew regulations, we couldn’t go to school to use the dark room. Our project stayed at hold for a few days until we tried to figure out what to present our final jury on 11th of May. 

We really want to proceed this project and create an exhibition out of it so we talked to our advisor about the situation. For the final jury, we will present how Past Recedes ought to be and after the semester ends, at summer, we will finish our project and hopefully open the exhibition depending on the situation of COVID in Turkey. 

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Deciding on Exhibition Scope

This blog post is about our decisions on the exhibition scope of Past Recedes and how they changed throughout the semester.

The exhibition will initially take place in Bilkent University FADA Exhibition Hall.

We started the semester with this curation of our exhibition, our five parts of the videos would play on four different walls in huge scales and we would exhibit our film strips in the middle on light tables. 

As the time went by, we started thinking about a different way exhibiting our film since in the first iteration we were thinking about filming our project on 35 mm film and when we decided on 8 mm, we thought that meters and meters of 8 mm film strips would look like a mess on tables :)

Middle Piece (First Sketch)

Then we decided that we could build a middle piece, exhibiting both an 8mm projector and our film together in the middle of the room, our film would still play on the walls individually divided to its parts. 

While we were dreaming, of course we weren’t thinking of logistics of using five projectors on four walls. After coming back to earth with some feedback from our professors, we decided on playing our video installation not as five separate parts but as a whole experimental movie divided to the parts in itself. Our following idea was to juxtapose a digital projector back to back to our middle piece which is an analog projector. In the meantime, we prototyped the middle piece.

Our middle piece would act as a vertical light table, the audience will have magnifiers to look at the 8 mm film strips in detail.

On our midterm jury, we were criticized of juxtaposing ‘old’ and ‘new’ technology back to back, which was definitely not related to our project. We started thinking on a new curation of the projectors which would exhibit them both but not create a comparison in between.

In the end, we decided on putting both projectors on top of each other on a pedestal which would hide the digital projector that will play our video installation and take the focus back on the analog projector which will act as a light source to our film strips. 

Our finalized exhibition scope is that we will exhibit our film strips on sheets of acetate hanging from the ceiling in front of the analog projector and the digital projector will show our experimental film on the opposite wall.

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So, What's the Deal About Super 8?

A little note from the writer

Through every innovation, the world goes more and more digital while burying the mighty power of analog underground. Each day, some new machine, a new feature, a genre, or a concept emerges to carry on the change of media. Nowadays, this our normal, where we constantly go forward in digital technologies with full speed. Yet it would be oversimplification if we claim that forward is the only way that is working.

As a media archeology enthusiast that has been working in the field for a time, I can say that it is not about going backward or forward. I believe that by only going one way, you will just experience the technological features of the period that you are moving into. I think what makes media archaeology very interesting is the point of view where it discovers multiple periods by integrating what is new and what is old to each other.

So, in Past Recedes, we tend to mimic this characteristic of media archaeology by creating a video installation work that uses both analog and digital to express a certain story.

In the times of film, 8 mm and Super 8 served a very specific goal, which was to give the capability to everyone to collect memories on video. Especially Super 8 was introduced to the market as a home movie format that is available to everyone. I still find it very intriguing, as someone who grew up around advanced media technologies. The fact that my grandpa, for instance, shot so many frames, to document his friends, family, or his home, the places he travels… So many frames, but so little time. Yet, so many silent stories filmed by a normal man who is an engineer.

On the day of our shooting, after I put down my smartphone with 128GB storage, and bring out the same camera my grandpa used in the ’70s, the time and space got jammed within an unbelievable measure. I lost my power over a Canon. Many people usually talk about that new technology is dominating our lives. Yes… But at that moment, I saw that in some context, it was a fairly different situation. Our phones, DSLR or video cameras, sd cards, gave us unlimited power for creating. And analog snatched off all the powers that I have over the time and space that I have. At that moment I had only one frame (that is actually 4.2 x 5.7 mm) and very much limited time to film. If you are a filmmaker, in a situation like that, you do not have the luxury to make any mistake. But of course, these cartridges were not made for the filmmakers, they were made for so much more.

by Eda

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DIY Super8 Processing Tank - Part I

As you all know by now, we are working on a Super8 project and we have recently finished shooting one roll of our film. At the time we were away from our blog, we were trying to figure out how to process our film in Turkey. We had several options to develop our film as; sending our film to a processing company in Istanbul, bathing the film with the “spaghetti method” -dumping all the film in a big light-proof box and processing that way- and finding a Lomo Tank which is a product for processing film, designed to keep 15 meters (50 feet) of film inside a small light proof space without any parts of the film touching. Sending the film to Istanbul would cost a lot of time and money so we abandoned that idea very fast. And according to the technical advise we got, we have found ourselves in searching for a Lomo Tank.

LOMO UPB-1A Universal Developing Tank For 8mm/16mm/35mm Film

The available Lomo Tanks both didn’t shipped to Turkey and would cost a lot of money even in second hand so we decided to make one ourselves. With the help of an online tutorial (DIY Spiral Processing Tank for Cine Film, by Chris Gavin, https://www.chrisgavin.com/2013/07/diy-spiral-proccessing-tank-for-cine.html) and Eda’s father, we started to make a fully functioning Super8 developing spiral and tank. 

Our progress video on making our developing tank, Part I. 

We will post an in-depth tutorial on how to make a Lomo Spiral tank next week, stay tuned!

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Shooting Day 1 (+Behind The Scenes)

Hello there, we have been away for almost a month now. In this month, we have completed one part of our shooting and also started solving some of our logistical problems before going into the dark room (stay tuned, an 8 mm developing tank tutorial is on its way :).

On March 7, we have completed our first shooting. This shooting was quite decisive in order to practise the camera (Canon AutoZoom 518) and experiment with the framing and the lighting.

Canon AutoZoom 518

In this shooting we used a Kodak Tri-X reversal film which is a black and white positive film. Since Part 2 was planned to be black and white we have started with the scenes from this part. 

Kodak Tri-x Reversal

Further on, we continued with some plans from Parts 3 and 4, since we can modify the color after we develop the film by both with digital post-production or rotoscoping.

Behind the Scene Pictures from Parts 2, 3 & 4

Shooting with 8 mm was definitely an experience. With us being used to digital equipments and having the luxury to shoot a scene over and over again, filming with Super8 have pushed us to have a more detailed pre-production and an experimental shooting since we had only one shot and couldn’t even see our footage at the end before the development. 

Next week on the blog: We have started making an 8 mm developing tank and spiral from scratch according to the technical advice we got before going into the dark room. Stay tuned for our developing tank tutorial!

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A Little About Past Recedes

Past Recedes is a COMD481 & COMD482 Visual Communication Project. As two aspiring senior years, we have started brainstorming on this project in Summer 2020. When we were just getting rid of the drowsiness of the pandemic, we thought that we could base our project on a phenomena that lockdowns of COVID projected on both of us, a pathway to self realisation. 

The background research that we lean Past Recedes against is based on the writings of Carl Jung. In Conscious, Unconscious and Individuation, Jung defines self realisation as a four-part process which he calls “individuation process.” The stages of the individuation process goes as; meeting the shadow self, encountering the Anima/Animus (the soul image), Mana Personalities (where man meets the Wise Old Man) and the self (where one becomes a coherent whole, a unified consciousness).

The story of our installation is about the fragmentation of time, distortion of reality and consecutiveness. The audience encounters a girl that finds herself around Super8 film reels and a projector, later to enter an obscure reality that is actually converging with the process of film development. The story does not lose its sequentiality but because of the distorted reality that it represents, it loses the persistence of time. So, we can say that we will do “an asynchronous series of sequential tellings.”

Below, you will find our Artist Statement providing brief explanation of Past Recedes.

Around times of self isolation that was caused by the pandemic, all of us had to retire into our shell’s. This retirement caused some sort of confrontation for a lot of people. For both of us, the confrontation was fueled with the unpredictability of the future. The stillness of the present moment was not helping either, so we had to take the shelter of our pasts. 

Past Recedes is a video installation of a combination of 5 to 8 seconds videos shot on 8mm film. The project is done on 8mm film because of 8mm’s default connotations of the ‘past’. The aim of this project is to tell the story of our own confrontations over the narrative of a girl who is trapped in an undeveloped film. The journey of our character will mimic the individuation process which was mentioned by Carl Jung. The project will experiment with the idea of the process of one being the greatest version of herself. 

At the point where our story ends, our installation begins. The exhibition of Past Recedes will be in a digital format from a digital projector but the film itself will also be exhibited with the final product. The celluloids we exhibit will refer to the process and the past, whereas the digitized projection of it will refer to all the 'past' combined and unified. As we develop and digitize our film, our character will break free and she will be individuated.

This week we are starting production, stay tuned for “Filming on Super8” and backstage pictures :)

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Greetings and Other Stuff...

Hello world!

We are Deniz and Eda, two senior students from the Communication and Design department at Bilkent University. This blog will act as a documentation of progress on our senior project, Past Recedes but we first wanted to explain the path that brought us to the making of this project. If you want to learn more on our personal backgrounds, you can always check our biographies on our About Us page! 

We have been working together in numerous analog and digital films and creative projects for almost two years now. Our first project together was an experimental film where we were expected to deliver the feeling of delight while experimenting on both form and content. 

Delighted was the first project that we laid our hands on 8mm film. We have projected found footage films onto objects that resembled the feeling of delight. The footage that we used belonged to Eda’s grandfather, in the meantime we had a 8mm camera and a projector too. Playing with these items for the first time made us both enthusiastic about learning old time filmmaking. 

Delighted, 2019

This project and experimenting with analog film led us to the Media Archaeology Lab internship for the summer of 2019. On our internship at the Media Archaeology Lab, we have learned and experienced more of the analog systems since we have worked on VHS, Betacam and other filming systems. 

In the end, working and experimenting on analog media led us to do this project on 8mm film since our story also had the implications of ‘daily’ feelings contemplating 8mm’s default connotations of “family videos and making memories” in our digitized, contemporary world.

Stay tuned for our next post explaining our project briefly (also includes our artist statement).

Bye! for now...