The PHSCologram Medium

(reprinted from the artn.com website)

The PHSCologram term, coined in 1983, by Ellen Sandor, is an acronym for photography, holography, sculpture and computer graphics (pronounced skol-o-gram). The PHSCologram medium inspired new ideas in multimedia circles, and influenced three decades of (art)n's collaborative portfolio, unsurpassed for its prolific range of content and innovation in digital photography.

Inspired by the process oriented works of Man Ray, Duchamp and Moholy Nagy, the early process for creating PHSColograms combined sculpture with photography, resulting in a three-dimensional photograph, viewed with rear lighting. The (art)n group Sandor formed with her peers from The School of the Art Institute in 1983 created large-scale sculptures and collaged backgrounds that were photographed 9 times at slightly different positions in a horizontal movement with a room sized camera.

These images took 30 minutes for each exposure, which were combined with a special darkroom technique to one piece of transparent, color film. A second piece of black-and-white film displaying clear vertical lines was mounted to a piece of plexiglas with the blurred, combined image mounted to the reverse. The line screen functioned as a viewing screen to interpret the transparent photograph as a three-dimensional sculpture.

By 1990, PHSColograms became a digital photographic process, by simulating the early darkroom technique with other features common to the computer graphics industry. PHSCologram imagery is constructed from sculpting objects with a computer graphics software application. These objects are painted, and placed in a scene with lighting and other special effects. Once the digital scene is complete, a series of as many as 65 images are photographed in (art)n's proprietary art program.

These snapshots are captured at slightly different positions across a horizontal plane, and combined on the computer for final output to transparent film. (art)n's program also generates a matching linescreen to interpret the final mounted photograph as a three-dimensional sculpture.

This process of photographing computer-combined images on the computer that are visible with special viewing apparatus is a patented process, invented and owned by Ellen Sandor and her colleagues.

(art)n has worked with archival materials produced by Ilford and Kodak, and has experimented with various darkroom techniques, pre-press, andhigh-resolution devices including the Crosfield, LVT, Iris, Epson, Lamda, Hewlett Packard, Lightjet, and others. (art)n has worked with the highest quality photo labs in Chicago, the Midwest and California, and continues to use the darkroom, in-house, for selected projects.

(art)n has used various professional computer graphics software packages including Alias and SoftImage, in addition to Photoshop, Fractal Design Painter and other programs. (art)n first used the CyberWare scanner in 1990. Prior to 1992, early digital content was programmed in C and other languages.

"No Fumare, por Favore" is a true collaboration of art and science, painting and sculpture, new media and virtual reality. The piece is a large-scale digital film transparency that is framed in a light box. The viewer gazes at Paschke's "Fumar" and his hand-painted digital painting, which are surrounded by (art)n's three-dimensional head and animated background.

PHSCologram® is a trademark of (art)n. U.S. Patent Numbers: 5,113,213, RE: 35, 029, and 5, 519, 794.

For more information please go to www.artn.com