Slideshow

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The audio show, also known as a slideshow, is a demonstration of slides or digital photos that are set to music and projected onto an image field by at least one video projector . By using several projectors, special effects such as dissolves or images displayed side by side are possible. The duration of the cross-fade can be set variably and other effects such as fade-in and fade-out, double projection, flickering and, above all, the so-called “third image” can be used, which gives the show a nuanced rhythm. The multimedia show contains the appropriate music, language and noises on a sound carrier .

Today the genre continues online under the name audio slideshow . From the turn of the millennium, the digital image and its projection by means of a projector became so qualitatively good in addition to the slide that it placed itself on an equal footing with the analog technology of the slide projectors and completely replaced them.

Definition of the term Tonbildschau

There is no precise terminology for the medium of “slideshow”. The Duden does not list the term any more than older lexica by Meyer, Brockhaus (1928–1937) and Lueger. Online reference works define Tonbildschau as follows: "Ton | bild | schau, die: Demonstration of audio images". The sound image is defined there again with: "Sound | image, that: light image, slide with synchronized → sound running at the same time". The Brockhaus Encyclopedia explains the term “diaporama”, as it is seldom used synonymously in German but also in English and French, as follows: “Diaporama [on diapositive and panorama] das, -s /… men, picture show with music - and background noise, in which several slide projectors and often several screens put the sequence of slides in a moving context ”. The term "Diaporama" is explained in the French and English Wikipedia as follows: "A Diaporama is a photographic slideshow, sometimes with accompanying audio" and "Un diaporama est un spectacle de projection de diapositives; par extension on entend par ce terme toute suite d'images ou de documents reliés par des effets et, sur lesquels il est possible de mettre du son ”. What these definitions have in common is that the shows are projected images. With these definitions, it is not entirely clear whether the acoustic element is a component or can be included. If it does not have to be included, however, the separation of the designation “slide show” or “slideshow” is unclear, because these do not include the acoustic element. These definitions do not further define the form of the acoustics. The difference between a slide show and a "slide show" resp. a “concert” with a light show probably only consists in the interchangeability of the speaker or the instrumentalist. Since the sound is played synchronously with the image, the acoustics cannot be arbitrary. In other words, the tone is defined, and probably on a medium. Audio shows therefore include all shows whose defined acoustics can be presented by any person. When the term “sound image show” is used here, the audiovisual medium is meant, which consists of projected images and the associated sound carriers. For example, spoken slide shows, slide shows without sounds and projected shows with moving images, as used by films, and also shows that contain accompanying acoustic media but whose images are not projected are excluded.

Nowadays, the video show is only used for private or artistic purposes, while in the 1970s to the 1990s it was an important advertising and presentation medium that was mainly used at trade fairs.

History of the development of the Tonbildschau - a reconstruction

There are several books on the "Dos and Don'ts" for audio-visual shows. For example, "The slide show", "Professional DIA-AV", "Cross-fading - the fascinating slide show" and "Image projection - modern ways of providing visible information" write about it, but do not go into the history of its origins. In media history works such as “Optical Media”, “Handbook of Media History” and in the “Little Media Chronicle”, the history of the development of audio slide shows is also excluded. The earliest use of slideshow is inconclusive. There is often talk of projection events, but mostly they contain no information about possible acoustic media used in parallel. Some media also do not meet the definition of slideshow. For example, the Bänkelsang, which has been known since the 17th century . Image panels and no projections were used.

Since the knowledge of the function of the magic lantern and the techniques for playing synchronous music, however, it has been possible to produce a slideshow. No specific references to this medium can be found in the period from the end of the 17th to the end of the 19th century. As already mentioned, the technology would have made this possible. However, there is much to indicate that the application was intended or fell into possible areas of application. The medium of a slide show may also have been used at Jesuit theaters. Around 1800 ghost and horror projections, such as the Phantasmagorias by Etienne Gaspard Robertson, are carried out. It is rather unlikely that the acoustics were not included in these scary or ghost projections and that they were performed in silence. However, this is not described in detail in the literature. In the 19th century the projection events are mentioned several times. There are figures that show with a high degree of probability that the combination of both media was used. The history of the panoramas is described in some publications. In these, there is often talk of a multimedia mass spectacle. For example, the Maréorama exhibit at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 very likely contained acoustic and optical elements. Because the technique of showing still images, i.e. single-image projection, is much simpler than that of moving images, this medium is older than film. The film technique was developed around 1890 and the sound film was available from around 1927. What is interesting, however, is the bundle of ethnographer Rudolf Pöch , from whose trip to New Guinea images and sound material have been preserved. Not only from explorers, but also from scientists such as the art historian Heinrich Wölfflin, it has been handed down that image projections were used to a large extent for teaching. However, it should not have been a video show. But the training and promotional shows from the 1940s by the automobile manufacturers Chrysler and Cadillac are clearly audio-visual shows with slides and sound carriers. Among other things, Helmut Laux first used the slide show for training purposes in Germany in 1950. The Laux Society for Sales Promotion and Advertising GmbH , which he founded, is said to have influenced the methodology of training courses and sales training. Laux-DuKane projectors were developed for the Laux Tonbildschau, some of which are on loan from the film and photo department of the Hessenpark Museum in Neu-Anpach. The film production costs were a lot higher than those for a slideshow. That could often have been a decision criterion for the production of a slideshow. The Cotta Verlag of Stuttgart has 1961 slide shows with the fairy titles Sleeping Beauty , Puss in Boots etc,. Some artists have also worked with this medium. For example, Nan Goldin with The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1979–96) or Robert Smithson with Hotel Palenque (1969–72). Audio-visual shows are very common in small museums, where they mainly serve to impart cultural knowledge. Organized associations continue to cultivate this special audiovisual medium. But now they also mainly use computer-aided projections. Video shows are subject to technological change but still exist. The Microsoft PowerPoint presentation program also allows the integration of audio data and can run automatically. Around 35 million PowerPoint productions are to be produced worldwide every year. It is very likely that these will also include those that meet the criteria of the Tonbildschau definition. PowerPoint and projector technology have probably replaced this medium, which is more than 100 years old, with new materials not so long ago. The industry no longer supports this projection technique. Kodak stopped producing slide projectors in 2004.

Multivision

A variant of the audio slide show is the multivision, in which the images are projected onto several fields. These fields can either be at completely different locations in the room or they can meet in a grid (grid multivision). This creates a puzzle-like overall image with several slide projectors. A refinement is the softedge projection, in which the image fields overlap (usually by 50%). Graduated masks in the slides blend the individual fields spatially into one another, so that a large, coherent image can be created with several projectors. The technology places high demands on the accuracy of the slides and the alignment of the projectors.

Slide show

Gertrud Frohnweiler, the author of the title "The slide show - photography, design, dramaturgy", explains the slide as follows:

“In 1959 the first international festival with competition took place in Vichy, followed in 1960 by Epinal, which became the Mecca of the slide show. In the mid-1960s, the term “diaporama” (for a show that was set to music and conveyed a message) was created. After all, there were around a dozen festivals annually in France, followed by a few in Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary and Switzerland. In Great Britain, the Royal Photography Society later also promoted this art, also through appropriate competitions. In 1971 Germany had its first festival every two years. At the various festivals, the submissions were each subjected to a preliminary jury, which included around 50 works in the program, which was then evaluated by an international jury. The duration of a show was limited to 10 minutes, which enormously increased the entertainment value of such an event. The topics were mainly: telling a story, philosophical essays, documentaries, poems, songs, visualization of music, social problems, anti-war issues, art, the environment. Table-top installations, fairy tales and legends, dreams, science fiction, experiments of all kinds, humor and just a few shows about extraordinary travel destinations and the corresponding culture. The wealth of ideas was inexhaustible. […] Today the slide show u. a. a bloom in the UK and Italy. There are individual groups in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, while in Germany only a handful of authors are still concerned with the artistic design of shows. Travel shows have displaced other ideas. Even the first work had complex sound montages of professional quality, often higher than today's work, although today computer programs make the work easier. "

The simple connection of picture and sound is not enough to create a slide show. Diaporama not only describes the projection of slides with soundtrack , but an inseparable amalgamation of these elements, which become a whole with the help of a meaningful red thread and the dramaturgical processing by the author. The slide show therefore requires intense observation and listening. The performance can convey more to the viewer than can actually be seen on the screen.

technology

Control unit for slide projectors

The images are shown by at least one projector. The acoustics come from a playback device. For technological reasons, the earliest shows were presented with devices without acoustic room amplifiers. At old shows, an operator had to operate image and acoustic devices at the same time. The picture can be changed manually or automatically. In the first case, the presenter changes the picture when a signal recorded on the sound carrier is played. This can be a gong or something similar, for example. Or the image change takes place fully automatically through a separate, inaudible impulse. These systems recorded the control signal inaudibly on the sound carrier on a separate track. There are also systems that are computer-controlled and that use the control track of tape devices only for time synchronization. Multi-projector shows allow parallel projection not only side by side, but also on top of each other. This makes it possible to project a mixed image that consists of several individual projections. For example, something bright can be projected into a dark area of ​​the image. Interest groups and producers of slide AV productions have to a large extent already made the step away from analog and towards digital projection. The festival shows in Épinal , Garda , Hayange , La Chaux-de-Fonds , Mar del Plata and Valparaíso , organized by the organizer Supercircuit Diaporama Numérique, show all shows digitally. Currently, however, the travel shows in Switzerland are still projected differently. Although the image resolution of digital projections is not yet as good as that of conventionally projected slides, the technological change has in most cases taken place.

migration

Film cutting programs offer the possibility of combining still images and sounds as desired and producing film files from them. This provides a way of transferring a slideshow to a common format. The unequal aspect ratios of a 3: 2 slide and a screen display with an aspect ratio of 4: 3 or 16: 9 require an adaptation. The letterboxing system is used to advantage. It has been shown that the slides and the sound can be digitized almost authentically. There are still no digital projection options to project the images in the same resolution as a slide projector can. Interestingly, a lot is being done to preserve image and sound, but the combination of these, the audio show, is still a shadowy existence alongside the film.

literature

  • Dirk Förstner: The reconstruction of sound images in modern playback systems . In: Andreas Bienert, Gerd Stanke, James Hemsley, Vito Cappellini (eds.): Conference volume EVA 2010 Berlin: Electronic Media & Art, Culture, History. The 17th Berlin event of the international EVA series "Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts", 10. – 12. November 2010 . 2010, ISBN 978-3-9812158-8-5 , pp. 151–157 (the CD-ROM with ISBN 978-3-9812158-9-2 ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Duden" - dictionary of the German language . Vol. 1-10. 19th edition, Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 1991.
  2. ^ Meyer - Encyclopedic Lexicon . Vol. 1-25. 9th edition, Bibliographical Institute, Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1971–1979.
  3. ^ Otto Lueger (Ed.): Lexicon of the entire technology . Vol. 1-8. 2nd edition, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart / Leipzig 1904–1920.
  4. ↑ Brockhaus - The Encyclopedia . Vol. 1-30. 21st edition, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig / Mannheim 2005–2007.
  5. ^ Diaporama in the French language Wikipedia (accessed April 8, 2010).
  6. ^ Slideshow in the English language Wikipedia (accessed April 8, 2010).
  7. ↑ Gertrud Frohnweiler: The slide show - photography, design, dramaturgy . Fotoforum-Verlag EK, Münster 1999
  8. ↑ Julien Biere: Professional DIA-AV . Publishing house Photography, Schaffhausen 1988.
  9. ↑ Dietmar Lueke: Transition - the fascinating slide show . Kindermann, Ochsenfurt 1988.
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Milian: Image projection - slide, epi, film projection, slide show and multivision in practical use . Self-published, Vienna 1973.
  11. ^ Friedrich Kittler: Optical Media - Berlin Lecture 1999 . Merve, Berlin 2002.
  12. ↑ Helmut Schanze (Ed.): Handbuch der Mediengeschichte (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 360). Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-36001-2 .
  13. ↑ Hans Hiebel (Ed.): Small media chronicle - From the first characters to the microchip . CH Beck, Munich 1997.
  14. ^ Friedrich Kittler: Optical Media - Berlin Lecture 1999 . Merve, Berlin 2002, p. 130.
  15. ↑ Helmut Schanze (Ed.): Handbuch der Mediengeschichte (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 360). Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-36001-2 , p. 81f.
  16. ^ Laux Society for Sales Promotion and Advertising GmbH . Retrieved June 22, 2010.
  17. ^ Edward R. Tufte: The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint. Pitching Out Corrupts Within . Graphics Press, Cheshire CT 2006.
  18. ↑ Gertrud Frohnweiler . Website of the av creative forum. Retrieved April 8, 2010.