How it works

the technical aspects of the imachinations


(click on the image to enlarge)

The core of the work is a little program, that loads down each day the current Imachination from a server on the internet.
This simple solution makes the project independent from non-existing global communication and media standards.

Solutions for Linux
Andreas Matthias from the Computing Centre of the University of Kassel developed a shell based solution for Linux and Unix systems. This command line based shell script runs even on Pentium I computer. As a display program it uses zgv. Eventually imagemagick is needed to convert the images.

Jens Kube developed a program that runs with X11 on Linux at the Koldewey Station in 2003. Above all he adapted the software to the small bandwidth of the arctic knot of the Internet. In 2004 Bastian Hemminger modified the software for the presentation at the ZKM Karlsruhe and Thomas Schillo adapted it for the presentation at Schloß Dagstuhl. Urs Jenzer from the Physikalisches Institut Bern implemented a further Linux (Fedora) based solution for the installation at the High Altitude Research Station Jungfraujoch in 2005.

Solutions for Windows & Mac
Chris Waddell (Extrahyp/ Frankfurt) developed in 2003 a program for .net-Frameworks that runs with Windows. For the presentation in 2005 in Alexandria Tim Otto Roth developed with the help of Joel Baumann a platform with Macromedia Director, that even runs on Apple Macintosh.

Mobile Imachinations
In 2003 a GPRS-card allowed a pervasive appearance of the Imachinations in nearly every place (more...).

<- easy to implement and cost-effective: a GPRS card like Nokia D211

Display
There exist various possibilities to present the Imachinations. In Kassel was used high performance video beam: the 5 dv from digital projection with 5000 Ansi Lumen. A 3,0-7,0 zoom allowed to project on a distance of 40 meters. The same computer was used for the circular projection in 2005 at the New Library of Alexandria.


projection house with ligthning conductors for the high performance projector 5 DV and the computer 35 m up on the roof, Kassel 2002

In the Walter Storms Gallery in 2002 the Imachinations were presented on a 15" tft-display from Hercules.
For the presentation on the arctic research station at Spitzbergen a 17"-screen was used.
For the projection at the ZKM Karlsruhe in 2004/05 three single projectors add three split images to a large one of of 3 by 12 m.

minimal requirements for a pc-system

Pentium 133,
32 MB Ram,
minimal resolution 1024*768 (16 Bit),
permanent internet access is desiderable, but not absolutely necessary