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It's #WyrdWednesday, so let's have a look at Ted Serios and his apparent ability to project images onto undeveloped film, a talent called 'thoughtography'.
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'Thoughtography' was a term coined in 1910 by a Prof. Fukurai while studying a clairvoyant in Japan. This clairvoyant 'accidentally' transferred images over to some film sealed inside a camera, which was only revealed after the film was developed.
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Fukurai's work, however, was massively criticised and he ended up leaving his university position in disgrace. Thoughtographic experiments continued in the West for some time afterwards, but it was widely considered a duff science and eventually disappeared.
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That is until the early 1950s, when a very drunk, very belligerent San Franscican bellhop turns up, claiming to be able to produce images on the newly developed medium of Polaroid film, simply by holding the camera up to his head & 'willing' the picture to be.
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This man is Ted Serios, and his appearance sparked a renewed interest in Thoughtography. Before, film had to be processed in a darkroom, where it could be tampered with, but Polaroid film needed no such process. He could be observed closely while the picture was taken…
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…& then the observers could watch the film print and develop before their eyes, a far cry from the Thoughtographic experiments of old. Serios produced hundreds of images, some blurry, some distinct & some of apparently specific images requested by investigators.
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There was something bothering those who investigated Serios, however. He liked to work with what he called the 'gizmo', a small plastic tube that he held up to the lens while creating his images.
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Critics & sceptics claimed he concealed a transparency inside the gizmo, which mirrored the image which appeared on the film. Oddly enough, when they tried to replicate this when given access to the gizmo, they couldn't.
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So what was the deal with Serios? Like anyone with so-called extraordinary talents, he had his believers and his doubters. What is for sure, however, he was probably the drunkest man to ever hold up a camera to his forehead and 'will' an image on to the film.
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A collection of the images produced by Serios and his gizmo can be found here: http://contentdm.ad.umbc.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/Eisenbud
For further information on Thoughtography, please yell at the nearest Polaroid camera.
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For further information on Thoughtography, please yell at the nearest Polaroid camera.
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