Notes on the Diagrams

Jno Cook
April 2000

Some are diagrams for constructions, installations, exhibitions, film scripts, mechanical devices, the triangulation of the sun, the geometry of projections, the modulations of whatever. Some of these explain the workings of the universe to children, some do the same to myself.

(0) [show]
A resistor? with furry edges.

(1) [show]
Ok I give up, something 6 by about 2 inches. Doesn't look quite right.

(2) [show]
Diagram for multiple phone handsets (probably) run from a battery and a transformer. That would be enough to actually modulate the sound heard in each receiver, but talking would probably block the incoming signal. Don't know why there is a secondary to the transformer and a speaker. Wonder if it would work.

(3) [show]
Looks like the dial from a telephone.

(4) [show]
"I don't either" may have been added. Otherwise it is a camera and a subject seated in a chair, looking somewhat like a ghost.

(5) [show]
I recognize the circuit as the firing circuit of a flash unit. This may require additional study. Looks like an attempt to wire a relay into the discharge circuit.

(6) [show]
Rear projection. Attempting to add two images. The reflection at the bottom has to be through glass, since the second image goes through. Does that explain anything?

(7) [show]
The look like hanging file folders, but could be film holders instead.

(8) [show]
Story board for a film scripted and shot with Sam in figure animation. The exciting plot involves storming a castle. Sam was young.

(9) [show]
"For moon," escapes me. Otherwise another attempt to wire a projector in response to a tape player. I have also tried the opposite.

(10) [show]
A film script from rotating a Super-8 camera on a tripod -- I think in the back yard -- with the shutter set to do time lapse photography. The problem was to figure out where the camera would be pointing at various times as the next frame was exposed. The result was a film composed of a series of interleafed slow pans. If you picked one topic you could follow that visually, but not all of them. But you could view the film later to pick up some other thread. Or switch while watching. Weird. The diagram at the bottom right seems to be the arrangement for when on a tripod dolly -- which ended up being used with a slit-shutter camera.

(11) [show]
That's three folks from the Film Department at the Tute. I think doodled at a conference I covered for Afterimage. The little wild-eyed figure at the bottom right I do not recognize.

(12) [show]
I suspect it was a design for shelving at the end of the attic. Never implemented.

(13) [show]
Seems like more doodles concerning sidereal conjunctions. Probably Venus. The use of 225 is a giveaway. Maybe I was trying to derive the formula for the synodic period. The rosette diagram is part of this doodle.

(14) [show]
It's a map. No it isn't, it's a diagram of aerial and ground connections for radios and televisions, as understood earlier this century. Maybe. Maybe it is a map. Maybe it is a lighting arrester diagram. It must explain something.

(15) [show]
The path of a comet, or Venus if properly out of whack. The 3, 3, 6, 12, 24 are units of planetary spacing in million of miles. The cloud of minus signs are Jupiter's Trojans.

(16) [show]
Mostly doodles, and Nancy Fanning. On the right are astrological signs for the planets, with K as Krypton for the asteroid belt.

(17) [show]
The setup for a series of event detectors which would signal the end of creation. All tied in to a central CPU which would keep track of events. Only built the "Gravity Detector" of that batch.

(18) [show]
Maybe an early sketch for "Casey's Nurren" a small book. The final version not dissimilar. The blanket is waking up here.

(19) [show]
A circuit with an SCR. A espresso cup stain. A page of exposure letterhead. A diagram of film moving past who knows what sprockets. And in the center the top view of a regulated power takeoff for running a 35mm Mitchel camera from the 80 or so volts supplied by a locomotive. This last was built and in use for ten years.

(20) [show]
Right: a plan not used. Left: a plan view of a patio and path built on Washington Street in Evanston. Built from stone slabs found in the garage. The previous owner was associated with the Evanston Department of Public Works, and had a collection of sandstone blocks in the garage, which were in former times used as curbs, by setting them edgewise into the ground. I built a rectangular patio, but this from bricks, of which there was also an abundance, and a semicircular grilling location. The blocks constituted a walkway to the rear. There were -- of course -- 26 of them, one for each letter of the alphabeth.

(21) [show]
The first diagram for "A Slackening of Creation" where a globe revolves on the end of a rotating arm, with the sun, a thousand watt lamp, located at the center. Shown here simultaneously in all locations. The boxy mechanism at the bottom is the main gear box, and was actually built like that. Seems that once I know what I am doing, the diagrams become more sketchy.

(22) [show]
May have been a sketch of rotating pyramid, which I was trying to accomplish in Basic for some school project in computer graphics, as hinted at by the adjacent note about "palette," and "rgb."

(23) [show]
A means of having an arm rotating from a central location on a tripod -- probably for "A Slackening of Creation. I ended up using a chain drive instead.

(24) [show]
Looks like the diagram for "Evidence against the Future" -- two reels, etc, on-off switches.

(25) [show]
Screen graphics on a computer? These things don't follow Cartesian Coordinate Systems much.

(26) [show]
Rotation of a coordinate system as viewed from some translated location. For the revolving pyramids. Too much work.

(27) [show]
Sketch of a proposed Mural by other, I think the woman who runs the Artists Book Collection At the SAIC library. Started to write a review of an Artemesia exhibition once. This was the only piece of the set of public and political pieces which struck a note.

(28) [show]
A cam actuated microswitch and motor, but I don't know what for.

(29) [show]
More objects in rotating space.

(30) [show]
Platen and glass, perhaps a lamp. Maybe a UV printer.

(31) [show]
Parts and materials in the rebuilding of a number of slit-shutter cameras from Navy Surplus Oscilloscope Cameras. The "7 - 8 thousands of an inch of a turn" probably refers to adjusting the focus, for that round object on a plate with two holes seems to be a lens mount. Who knows..

(32) [show]
Some models of a RottWeiler, the paper mache on chicken wire frame was made to model the Dog Mounted Video Recorder.

(33) [show]
Rotating main part of the arm for "A Slackening of Creation."

(34) [show]
Along with the following, an electric lock for Kees' room, which would open automatically when the power failed. See next.

(35) [show]
Some means of mounting the lock. This was never done, although the electric keyboard, and the 10 relay decoder (or encoder) were built, and are still in place at the door to his room.

(36) [show]
Various means of hinging and attaching a glass panel, or the home-made film holder for the 16x20 camera, and then, suddenly, a switch to drain piping.

(37) [show]
Perhaps a cross section of the film holder and dark slide. Don't know what the bulbous thing above it is.

(38) [show]
Final details of the base of a rotating slit-shutter camera which carried its own battery on its back.

(39) [show]
Some various forms for the "Gravity Detector" Most of which didn't work out.

(40) [show]
On the left looks like the gallery space at UIC in Chicago. At right some power calculation. Wow, 20 amps.

(41) [show]
Lock washers, whitney threads, barbed wire (how it is made), facets on a bolt head, and what looks like the starship Enterprise. Who was I talking to? Guess.

(42) [show]
Looks like a desk, but more likely the frame for a UV printer

(43) [show]
A strange looking box camera (box cameras are made from boxes), with a pointy nosed lens. I think I recognize the box, but the camera was never built like that. On the right the three lens color-separation camera, and than what looks like an unfinished rotating slit shutter camera for 7 inch wide film. The note about "16mm alarm clock camera" does not belong.

(44) [show]
The wiring diagram looks like a flash or flash tripping circuit. The remainder looks like masks for color separation, showing which colors of a patch cause what density in th negatives and positives.

(45) [show]
Ok, A sun dial. Easy enough. The rest: Finding the North compass point from a watch and the sun; measuring the distance to the sun from two simultaneous observations, as done in antiquity.

(46) [show]
I'm totally confused on this one, unless it involves the alignment of corners of adjacent photographs. The pin-like objects go in rotation. but I don't know why.

(47) [show]
Doodles. Or explosions along the zodiac.

(48) [show]
Design of a 6 - 12 - 24 volt power supply (capable of 10 - 20 amps, to be wired via dropping resisters from the batteries of a locomotive. A 10 amp full wave bridge was substituted for the DPDT reversing switch, though, so it wouldn't matter how the unit was plugged in, it would always end up at the correct polarity.

(49) [show]
The layout for a mural size piece at UIC gallery. The topic here was to tie images together, denoting violence at various levels. Worked on this collage "Metonymies of Violence" for the longest time, exhibited it, eventually destroyed it. Collage can be very difficult. Kept two side panels.

(50) [show]
Obviously a Jacob's ladder. But that is not how it goes.

(51) [show]
The 3x4 lantern slide projector rebuilt for 1000 watt lamps, and to keep the same slide projected for 8 hours without melting the emulsion. Two blowers show. The back blower aims up at the lamp. The hood at the back is actually a Bustello coffee can with holes punched in the top. The front one is aimed at the condensers. After use at the Coyote Drum Factory, I added a third blower at the gate for the Backyard exhibition.

Two SCRs, with a lamp across one of them. At the Drum Factory I had the projector lamps operate in response to taped music. Some of the projectors responded instead to what an adjacent projector was doing. Mostly controlled by having local SCR dimmers at each projector, and feeding a shorting circuit via lamps wired across the projection lamp of another unit. These may have been neons, which don't light until they see about 80 volts. The shorting resistor at the gate of the SCR was a light sensitive variable resistor, which could go from a few ohm to mega-ohms. But these things are slow to respond. Thus there was a second delay between the responses of various projectors. The sensing units and sensing lamps were contained in 35mm black plastic film cans.

(52) [show]
That's the formula for combined lenses (or resistors). I don't know what the diagram is. The thing at the bottom looks like a lens holder. Maybe for an envisioned optical bench.

(53) [show]
Another page on how to build a paper mache Rottweiler.

(54) [show]
Looks like blue-screen projection explained. And retro reflection.

(55) [show]
The calculations of shutter width for what looks like the 2 1/4 cookie tin camera.

(56) [show]
The layout of planets for the piece called "Ptolemy's Universe." I didn't end up using 4/15/89, however. I used Kees' birth day. The strange devise at the bottom seems to do similar things on a small scale.

(57) [show]
Some calculations for determining if Venus and Mercury are on this side of the sun or on the opposite side.

(58) [show]
Horses being converted to running Rottweilers for the top frame of "Still Running"

(59) [show]
Looks like a design for a 16mm slit-shutter camera. I never built any. Ran out of money for these projects.

(60) [show]
Looks like a scale for Peter Thomson's Extremely slow zoom motor.

(61) [show]
Looks like a clutch on a small motor and gear drive. May have been for a devise to move paper along during film projection under an enlarger. I built both The film movement and the paper movement at one time, but they are difficult to coordinate.

(62) [show]
Definitely the gearing for a piece which moves film through an enlarger, very slowly, so that it could be printed to moving paper.

(63) [show]
A screw thread advance of some sorts. there is a motor running it at the right. The arrows, seem to attempt determining where images lay out on projection. But maybe they are just doodles.

(64) [show]
Three cameras, as an inventory. The slow zoom of Peter Thompson, the tilting tripod, and the tilted party camera. The "territories" is a xerox drop-out of my face eons ago (1970?) which I wanted to map out to look like a group of island, with longitude and latitude, and elevation colors.

(65) [show]
Looks like the base for a 35mm film projector rebuilt for IITRI to take 2000 foot reels.

(66) [show]
A hub or end bearing. Looks like a 16mm camera wind-up key, too.

(67) [show]
"One will do it" was the name of the "metonymies" piece at UIC. Looks like the list of prints. Next time I will not mount them in a block, but present them as individual pieces. There will be no next time.

(68) [show]
The take-up and off spools and slack adjusters for "Evidence Against the Future."

(69) [show]
Transport via deep tunnels, and linear induction motors explained to Kees. And at this time he thinks all motors run on DC only.

(70) [show]
I bet John ... at a film showing at Randolph St gallery.

(71) [show]
Something counts. Two diagrams actually. For up and down counting, that is, bidirectional. If run off my editor for 35mm, it would count feet of film. The only advantage, since I have a mechanical counter, is not having to subtract the counter number from 9999.

(72) [show]
The diagram for a stereo two-color color separation camera.

(73) [show]
An intercom which uses the spare wires in the phone harness in this house. Never taken any further.

(74) [show]
The first demonstrates lenses. The remainder looks like all the instruction for making a cardboard box camera. Lecture demo workshop given at UIC at one time.

(75) [show]
Basic plans for the 8mm film scratcher. Kees used it to add blazing gun fire to his figure animation films.

(76) [show]
Hand holding 4 bomblets.

(77) [show]
The photo is taken somewhere in the South, something like "5 states view". It is scratched old 35mm. Taken in highschool days. The plan for a blowup, replete with scratches, and some images at left and right. Never did.

(78) [show]
Looks like alterations to Globe lenses (Metrogon). Cardboard shutter and f-stops. Not built.

(79) [show]
All the details of the Kodak Ektagraphic Slide Projector plug.

(80) [show]
A rotating particle, planet, object.

(81) [show]
Cat lapping milk, while being poured. Second version of a very cautious cat. Plan for mural. Not executed.

(82) [show]
Plan for mural of bag of garbage, rats.

(83) [show]
Mural plan for a little red wagon. Did double print this one. On a parking garage.

(84) [show]
Mural plan for frozen lake trout. Not done

(85) [show]
Mural plan for giant shadows crossing the sidewalk and projecting stand-up images on a wall. Shadows of trees.

(86) [show]
I presume a plan for a Mural: a person in a wheelchair. LD missiles?

(87) [show]
Based on "face rocks" a story or image by Kees, these would be giant rocks sticking out of the ground, with eyes staring out.

(88) [show]
Red and green stereo images. Looks like of Rolling Stones. Can't read the others.

(89) [show]
Demarcation of the vaporization zone boundary if a A-bomb fell in the CBD in Chicago.

(90) [show]
I'm not sure, looks like the start of some idea only.

(91) [show]
Two gears and an idler.

(92) [show]
Chromatic diagram. No clue on what the superimposed diagram is.

(93) [show]
Variations on a "Gravity Detector." Looks like an earth quake detector.

(94) [show]
Either the Gaulic War or the invasion of Italy by Hannabal.

(95) [show]
Variations on integrating "magazine people" (Peter's phrase) into images.

(96) [show]
Well that didn't work out, staring with the speed of light at the top, then a diagram for a time delay (dropping) relay.

(97) [show]
Some sort of plunger device, or piston, and a list of tools

(98) [show]
A motor reversing circuit, and SCR control.

(99) [show]
Besides notes on a film editing job, the diagrams for a 2 1/4 3-color separation camera built on a cigar box, showing the film winding mechanism. This was built.


[next]