Here is what I started with:

The end result is a “steam punk” looking projector and is my first try at hand painting anything since elementary school…much less attaching parts to things (first, I had an aborted “military camo” version, but it was accidental and sucked!).  Here are some shots:

Hopefully, I’ll add some more, smaller detail work to this but I’m just not sure what to add yet. I’d like to make the next ones a little more elaborate. I’ve ordered some neon/LED lighting…and I’d like to replace the inside projection lamp with something a little newer and a little less 500-watts-y. I’m going to be building a modern “sci-fi” one, a gore-covered “zombie” projector, and possibly also an Amanda Fucking Palmer Punk Rock Cabaret Special to give to Amanda. We’ll see.

I always thought they were dumb in school, but I did want to make my own at the time and they’ve been on my mind a lot lately for whatever reason. So, I was pretty thrilled when someone on artdc pointed out a craigslist ad the librarian at Queen Anne school in Upper Marlboro had put out: 4 projectors, 3 personal viewers, and 60 strip presentations for $100. Holy Cow!

Anyway, I got all this gear delivered to work (it takes up…an entire…cuber….) last week and have slowly been hauling it home and playing with it. I’ve found I want to explore three potential uses for it: 

1. Cutting up and reusing the material from the film strips in other art as light-driven collage material

2. Making an actual film strip in the old style they have with the simple lettering and exagerated imagery and doing a projection show of some sort

3. Using the projectors and gear as part of photo still lifes.

One of these three is obviously easier than the others, so I’ve started out taking pictures of the projectors and strips (Paivi also has been photoing some of the images projected).  I put up a few of the recent shots on flicker and one of them made the DCist’s photo of the day:

Some of the other shots are here: