I Make Things

Hilary and I met up to meet the Cult of Self Portraitists challenge to rasterbate an image and take a portrait with it. We started by taking self portraits and then added lots of contrast and then fed them into the rasterbator. After that we printed them out on her laserjet and then each taped 64 pages together to make huge images of ourselves. We took up her entire apartment! Make sure to check out Hilary’s blog to hear her side of the story!

Then we took it to Manhattan! Here is Hilary at the 7 station. Isn’t she cute as she’s waiting for a train with her self portrait?

We ran into Matt on the train and he helped get set up. In true NYC fashion, everyone was nonpulsed and catatonic and I turned the end of the train into photo shoot.

Hilary rocked it at Astor Place by rasterbating the Alamo cube.

Then we met up with Charles Hope and had some food and he suggested we put them up at 11 Spring Street.

We popped over there and tried taping our rasterbations to the wall, but tape just doesn’t cooperate in 24 degrees farenheit and a person walking by suggested wheatpaste. After a few minutes of surfing the web on my blackberry, I walked over to the corner store and bought two pounds of wheat flour and 2 giant teas and a plastic spoon for mixing. Getting back to 11 Spring Street, I mixed a bit of wheat flour into the water until it was smooth and a bit thick like a milkshake. This makes it all gluteny and sticky and glue. Then I smeared it all over the back of the rasterbated images and the wall. After slapping it on to the wall and smoothing it all out, I added another layer to the front of the images which made it all shiny! It took two large cups of wheat paste per image to get it stuck to the wall. Then we took pictures of ourselves in front of our photos.

Here’s a photo of both of our rasterbations at 11 Spring Street. I’m not sure how long they will last, but it was so much fun and so exhilerating, that I can’t wait to do another one! If you’re in the neighborhood, drop by 11 Spring Street and take photos and shoot me an email at bre@makezine.com so I can check them out!

Here’s a link to my rasterbation photoset - Link
And Hilary’s rasterbation photoset. - Link
Hilary’s writeup at her blog. - Link
Want to do it yourself? Here’s a link to the rasterbator! - Link
Charles documented a bit of the action on his cellphone. Watch the video - Link
The cult of self portraitists - Link