INTERVIEW Blink and You’ll Miss It
High-speed Photography Exhibit Links MIT and Austria
CORRECTION TO THIS ARTICLE: The URL given for the 2fast4U Web site was incorrect in the Tuesday, April 3 article “Blink and You’ll Miss It.” The Web site is at www.redwired.org
2fast4U
April 2–19, 2007
www.redwured.org/2fast4u
Starting this week, third year MIT graduate student Daniel G. Pressl G will be presenting some of his impressive high-speed photography work at an exhibition in Austria entitled “2fast4U.” Pressl has set up booths in the Infinite Corridor and Stata Center that will allow MIT students to interact with people at the Austrian exhibit. I was able to sit down with Pressl, and he told me about his project and how people in the MIT community can get involved.
The Tech: What is your project about?
Daniel Pressl: I am the organizer for a photography exhibition in Austria. This exhibition in Austria is a collaboration between MIT, the Edgerton Center at MIT, the Edgerton Explorit Center in Aurora, Neb., Bob Edgerton, the son of Harold “Doc” Edgerton, a photographer called Martin Waugh … and two schools in Austria. I am originally from Austria, and the exhibition was taking place in Austria. But MIT being a big part of the exhibition, what I’m doing right here in the Infinite hallway is an ability for MIT students to communicate and look at the exhibition and communicate with visitors at the exhibition through this booth here. So people at the exhibition will be seeing students in the Infinite hallway or at the Stata Center where another booth will be built, and they’ll be able to talk to them and they can tell MIT students how the exhibition is, the MIT students can talk to Austria, tell them things about MIT and what they know about high-speed photography and that it was invented here, basically pioneered here.
TT: What will be at the Austrian exhibition?
DP: At the Austrian exhibition you will see prints of around five to ten students from MIT — me included. I like shooting chocolate, I like shooting playing cards, I shoot balloons with bullets or paintballs. I’ve now started to take pictures of things being shot with paintballs because it’s safer and currently a paintball gun is at the Edgerton Center … There will be interactives at the exhibition, such as the “Piddler” or other things that you can see at the Strobe Alley or at the MIT Museum, such as the spinning wheels where you can suddenly freeze the motion of the wheel or you can see animation on the wheel — those are called Strobe discs — and those things students from the schools in Austria built over the past couple months. The exhibition will open [Friday, March 30, 2007].
TT: Where will the exhibition be opening in Austria?
DP: In my hometown of Wolfsberg, a town in Austria in the region Carinthia.
TT: Is the exhibition taking place in a school?
DP: It’s a large exhibition hall that was built a couple of years ago. It’s a very modern thing with large halls. We will also have prints from Harold Edgerton himself, originals, that are shipping right now from America to Austria. All together there will be between 70 and 100 prints at the exhibition; probably one of the largest exhibitions of high-speed photography.
TT: How long will the event be open in Austria and available to MIT students?
DP: It will be open in Austria for three weeks starting next week on Friday … The booth will start on the second of April and will be open until the 19th of April, that’s when the exhibition ends in Austria
TT: Explain more about what exactly the booth will be for MIT students.
DP: MIT students can walk by, stop here, look at art to be shown at the exhibition in Austria, but also be able to partially be at the exhibition. They’ll be able to take pictures of themselves, download them later. People at the exhibition can take pictures, MIT will be able to download those as well … You’ll also be able to talk to them.
TT: When did you begin this project?
DP: I started thinking about this in Fall of 2006. I had the name of the idea in my head and it just kept growing.
And grow it did. 2fast4u is a collaboration between the Edgerton Center at MIT (http://web.mit.edu/Edgerton), Daniel G. Pressl G, Alec M. Resnick ‘09, Omari S. Stephens ’08 (also a photographer for The Tech), Mohamed A. Haji ‘06, Nicolas LaCasse, students from two schools in Austria (Stiftsgymnasium St. Paul and the HTL Wolfsberg), the Edgerton Explorit Center in Aurora, Neb. (www.edgerton.org), Bob Edgerton, the son of Harold Edgerton, Martin Waugh (www.liquidsculpture.com), Loren Winters (www.hiviz.com), and many more.