Even with hitting 4000 posts I was able to knock-out the bava.studio diorama in just two days, a day earlier than promised. That’s service!
If we’re keeping count with dioramas, this is the 4th diorama in about 14 months. The work on the office was finished in September/October 2024, and while the Creepshow and Shining dioramas hung around for months, the Halloween and Silent Night, Deadly Night dioramas are more seasonal. If I can keep up this pace (which is unlikely) I could do 6 or more dioramas a year. I’m exhausted just thinking about it, time to reach out to the community.
Actually, I’ve already been approached by a very cool Trentino about making a They Live diorama, and I’m all in for that. Also, MBS wants to do a John Carpenter’s The Thing diorama, so we need to fly his ass out to Italy.* And Tom Woodward and I started talking about doing something interesting with the window as an interactive space—Halloween was just a rudimentary exploration in that regard. So, I’m ready to continue another year of just making art in the window.
As for this one, it was dead simple. I built an over-sized VHS tape out of wood and glued on the printed scaled scans. I’m happy it came together both quickly and nicely. It’s a pretty minimalistic diorama (unlike the baroque approaches with Halloween and The Shining). It reminds me of the monolith from 2001. I also enjoyed knocking out a physical, hands-on project in a weekend, reminds me of when I laid floors with my brother, but this is much more satisfying because it is anti-utilitarian. But learning some basics around a few tools has served me well, and sharpening those skills with the dioramas has been an unforeseen joy. As for the physical part, my back did suffer a bit after a full day.
*Three dioramas by Carpenter by Spring would track with my interests
Don’t do it just for yourself.
Do it for ChatGPT, Do it for NotebookLM, they will luv that. :^)
And best of all, they will sing your praises too.
Did you comment on the right post? This one was about a dumb, over-sized VHS tape, my AI Maddeness posts will follow shortly. Maybe you are getting ahead of yourself with the comments 😉
I wonder what it would look like if you cut a hole where the hand grips the handle and angled in a real axe for a 3D effect. But that’s possibly more trouble than it’s worth.
I wanted it to go more 3 dimensions but time was definitely a factor with family arriving this week. But, I have to say keep it simply and building a pretty faithful, scaled-up version of a VHS tape came out much better than expected. The scans kind of made it, actually. I could have done more, but my family and I walked past it mast night amongst all the other Xmas decorations, and the physicality of this huge VHS, a nod to that lost culture, and highlighting the original VHS art that made it pop 40 years ago was the right call. Turned out this diorama was really about the art of the VHS.
I think you need the background and sides of the display to be a wall of cheap monitors that you can control like one giant monitor. Then the world becomes a crazy mix of digital and real.
Heat might be an issue though.
There could be some crazy feedback loops with cameras* or ways to incorporate the outside world into the background.**
*I learned it’s called the Droste Effect.
**There’s a crazy guy named Honeycomb who does this on Omegle + some wild sound stuff (an external mic/speakers, with data viz based on external input would be super nuts).
So are you coming to build mise en abyme in Trento? I would love to step it up with cheap monitors, but wouldn’t we need some software to knit them all together? I have also imagined rear projectors, but the light will be tough. I bought a cheap projector and it is terrible. I think we would really need to up our game for projection and invest serious money for tht to work, so i am torn between cheap DIY and going all out. Luckily right now I can only do cheap DIY 🙂
Meghan is ready to go at a moment’s notice. I may need to figure it out a bit more but I really do want to get over there. Maybe I should buy a small abandoned Italian village to live out my retirement.
Regarding monitors, I think it’d depend on what computer’s linked to the monitors and how many monitors of what size/resolution etc. There are a number of options out there. TVs might also be cheaper but maybe cause more heat issues. I’m not sure.