Marginalia

Margaret Honda

Reading time: 1 minutes

A
A

01.07.2015

MARGINALIA #5

Every month Marginalia invites an artist, curator or project to provide a series of images that will serve as the background of Terremoto, in relation to their practice and current interests. At the end of each month, the identity of our guest is revealed and the whole series of images is unveiled.   My 9.5 I was […]

Every month Marginalia invites an artist, curator or project to provide a series of images that will serve as the background of Terremoto, in relation to their practice and current interests. At the end of each month, the identity of our guest is revealed and the whole series of images is unveiled.

 

My 9.5

I was introduced to 9.5mm motion picture film at a restoration lab in Gorizia, Italy. The format was developed by Pathé in 1922 for the European amateur market and was in wide use until production of equipment and stocks waned in the 1960’s. Nothing was at hand to show me, so my friends explained that a single row of perforations runs down the middle of the film, not along the edge as with 8mm. I visualized a hole in the center of each frame, which sounded unconventional but oddly plausible. Heads nodded in appreciation of the Pathé Baby system, with its image size approaching that of 16mm. The popularity of this format made it even more intriguing to me: the focus of all those home movies was on the periphery of travels, parties, and babies because the sprocket holes eliminated everything in the center. I was about to confirm this fact when a piece of 9.5 materialized and I saw the rectangular sprocket holes on the frame lines, safely outside any images. A world where thousands of people happily filmed the margins of their lives was gone in an instant. I was only slightly embarrassed by my mistake, but extremely disappointed at Pathé’s more rational and marketable solution. I think of these images as stills from my imaginary version of 9.5mm films, presented in the Terremoto aspect ratio.

 

https://margarethonda.wordpress.com/

Comments

There are no coments available.

filter by

Category

Geographic Zone

date