In the run up to Publishing Rooms, Iain and Andrew of Foxall Studios introduce us to the project, giving you a glimpse into the scanner camera tests and some of the plans for the exhibition:
Currently we are surrounded by 103 flatbed scanners with cables and computers everywhere. Living with the flatbed scanners, and testing various configurations and optical adjustments, and involving good minds and hands has uncovered a lot. The collective, innate curiosity to see what will happen once we collide the variables seems to be the main driver for our daily work.
The main events so far that bring us to today have been; finding a palette of flatbed scanners in a recycling plant, rewriting the scanner drivers so that they can be called through a web browser remotely, having 4 scanners running concurrently from one computer, etc.
Please be in touch with anything that you think would be relevant. We are promoting resourcefulness with this show. We reconfigure simple, everyday, ubiquitous elements to enable inventive expression. So please keep an eye out for anything that we can utilise. That could be a box of old magazines for a library, or a roll of fabric that you’re not using.
For the show, our intern Marion (photographed on a scanner camera test, below) will be keeping the outside world up-to-date on progress.

Scanner camera mock-up

Lens Ebay Research

Measuring the focal lengths

Scanners arriving on a palette

One of the first scanner camera results

Taking a scanner camera out to dinner with friends

Sizing up for one of the scanner walls

Sketch-up of the scanner camera array
Over to Marion.
IMAGES: Courtesy of Foxall Studio