The Uncertainty Principle consists of videos and an interactive application about information and uncertainty in the domain of image analysis.
The various elements of the work are produced by applying certain filters, known as 2D Gabor filters, to images. Gabor filters identify various kinds of edges -- horizontal, vertical, and diagonal – by responding to specific visual frequencies in an image.
Videos
The following three videos were made using Gabor filters. (It is recommended that the videos should be viewed in Vimeo using full-screen and in a relatively dark environment). The first video illustrates one possible function of the Gabor filters, whereas the second and third videos are more self-reflexive, and calls attention to the filters themselves as artistic media. The first video has sound but the second and third are silent.
The first video was made by identifying rain streaks in the opening sequence of Wong Kar-Wai's film The Grandmaster. The Gabor filters helped to detect visual frequencies corresponding to vertical edges on the image. Most other details in the sequence were removed.
The second video was made by repeatedly processing a short segment from Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona (1966) using different Gabor image filters individually or in combination. The results are visualized by highlighting those parts of the image with a high response to the filter being applied, while darkening low-response pixels.
The repetitive structure of the video is meant to encourage viewers to pay close attention, both to the texture of the image and to the distinctive effects of the different edge-detectors. Whereas mainstream narrative cinema encourages the viewer to focus on what happens next, this project draws attention to the details of the individual frame.
The third video applies a set of Gabor filters to every frame in a sequence from the Japanese film The 47 Ronin, made in 1941 by Mizoguchi Kenji. The filters are designed to respond to different kinds of edges (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) in an image. The application of these filters to Mizoguchi's work foregrounds this director's assertively geometric compositions.
Interactive Application
The interactive application allows people to explore and experiment with the application of different filters to images in a database. The interactor can choose which filter to apply, and observe the resulting visual description of the image.
The installation consists of two screens.
A selection of filters with different orientations is visible on the right screen. The interactor can select or deselect individual filters by clicking on them. The currently chosen filters become brighter.
The left screen has several parts. On the left is an image from the database. On the right is the activation pattern of the image based on the filters currently selected. The interactor can browse the database and choose other images.
The system is meant to encourage exploratory interaction.
The images selected all contain a high degree of visual clutter. The Gabor filters make manifest different aspects of the graphical composition. For instance, this image shows a Picasso picture where the foreground figure is almost concealed in the background configuration of lines. Choosing different filters affords exploration of different configurations detectable in the image.
The following examples show results of applying different filters to a frame from the film Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son (Billy Bitzer, 1905).
This film is particularly important because of the history of its subsequent reception by artists and scholars. Avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs made a found-footage work in 1969 by repeatedly re-photographing frames, and upscaling small details of frames, from the original film. The composition of the shot is so rich in detail that it affords close visual exploration. Historians like Noel Burch regard the mise-en-scene of the 1905 film as an alternative to the mainstream Hollywood system of representation. The cluttered composition makes it difficult to identify the central action.
Like the Picasso picture, the frame is rich in visual information.
The application also enables the user to select various parts of the frame and apply different filters to each of them.