Koyaanisqatsi Slitscanned

Slitscanning is a photographic technique that was originally achieved using a mechanical attachment to a film camera. As images are now pixels which can be manipulated using maths, the potential of slit-scanning has grown.

I use slit-scanning to attempt to represent sequences of moments all at once by taking a core sample of pixels from each one and stacking them together. Doing this across a movie file, such as the iconic Koyaanisqatsi, starting at the far left and moving to the right, alows us to experience the film in a new way.

A movie exists in three dimensions. Vertical, horizontal and through time. In slitscanning I swap the vertical for the temporal. Or to put it another way, imagine putting all the frames of a film in a rolodex and then slicing the rolodex in a bacon slicer. That’s sort of what’s going on here.

• Source material
• Slitscanning