Slideshow
Encyclopedia
A slide show is a display of a series of chosen information or pictures, done for artistic or instructional purposes. Slide shows are conducted by a presenter using an apparatus, such as a carousel slide projector
, an overhead projector
or in more recent years, a computer
running presentation software
. The term "slide" originates from the use of slides which have been around for many years. Slides originally were projected on a screen, for example in a theater by magic lantern
s, a practice that later evolved into moving picture shows. Even after the advent of motion pictures, slides continued to be employed for a time between showings of the films, especially to advertise local businesses or maintain theater decorum—for example by requesting that gentlemen remove their hats and refrain from smoking, and urging mothers to remove crying infants from the auditorium.
The earliest slides were pieces of glass carrying photographic images, and later, pieces of photographic film sealed between two thin sheets of glass. Projectors had a frame mechanism which accommodated two of the sealed photos and was moved from left to right to left, bringing one slide between the lens and the light source, while a "next" photograph was inserted into the frame, alternately from the left or right side of the projector. The image medium itself came to be called a "slide." The black-and-white images were sometimes hand-tinted. With the widespread availability of color film in the 1940s the large, cumbersome and fragile glass slides were replaced by individual pieces of 35 mm color film bonded between two thin 2-by-2-inch cardboard frames. The Kodak Carousel projector accommodates some 80 of these frames in a doughnut-shaped slotted plastic container and has a motorized mechanism to drop and retrieve each slide sequentially on an electronic command of a "remote" button device held by the projectionist as the circular carrier advances above the lamp and lens of the machine.
A well organized slide show allows a presenter to fit visual images to an oral presentation. The old adage
"A picture is worth a thousand words" holds true, in that a single image can save a presenter from speaking a paragraph of descriptive details. As with any public speaking or lecturing, a certain amount of talent, experience, and rehearsal is required to make a successful slide show presentation.
Presentation software is most commonly used for instructional purposes, usually with the intention of creating a dynamic, audiovisual presentation. The relevant points to the entire presentation are put on slides, and accompany a spoken monologue.
Slide shows have artistic uses as well, such as being used as a screensaver
, or to provide dynamic imagery for a museum
presentation, for example, or in installation art
. David Byrne
, among others, has created PowerPoint
art.
- “Through the simple technology of the slide projector and 35 mm color transparency, artists discovered a tool that enabled the transformation of space through the magnification of projected pictures, texts, and images”. Although some have not necessarily used 35mm or color slides, and some have even exchanged images for texts (Robert Barry) the color slides are the most commonly used and they could be sometimes accompanied with written text, either on the slides or as an intertitle
. Some artists have also used a voice-over on the slide presentation (James Coleman, Robert Smithson). Slideshows have since also used by artist that use other mediums as painting and sculpture to present their work publicly. During the last few years there is a growing usage of the concept by a younger generation of artists. Non-profit organization Slideluck Potshow
holds slideshow events globally featuring works by amateur and professional artists, photographers, and gallerists. Participants in the event bring food, potluck-style, to have a social dinner before the slide show begins.
Some of the known artists that have used slide shows in their work are: Bas Jan Ader
, Francis Alys
, Robert Barry
, James Coleman
, Jan Dibbets
, Dan Graham
, Rodney Graham
, Nan Goldin
, Louise Lawler
, Ana Mendieta
, Jonathan Monk
, Dennis Oppenheim, Allan Sekula
, Robert Smithson
, Carey Young
, Krzysztof Wodiczko
, Muhammed Ali.
, PicturesToExe
, Photodex
ProShow, Photo MovieTheater and Windows Movie Maker
. Photo slideshow software has made it easier to create photo slideshows, eliminating the need for expensive color reversal film, instead requiring only a digital camera
and computer.
Photo slide show software often have more features than simply showing the pictures. It is possible to add transitions, pan and zoom effects, video clips, background music
, narrations, captions
, etc. By using computer software one therefore has the ability to enhance pictures in a way that isn't otherwise possible. The finished slide show can then be burned to a DVD
, for example as a gift or for preservation, and later viewed using a DVD player.
Carousel slide projector
A carousel slide projector is a common form of slide projector, used to project slide photographs and to create slideshows. The first carousel slide projector was invented by Louis Misuraca, who immigrated to the United States from Naples, Italy when he was a child. Louis was paid a one-time fee...
, an overhead projector
Overhead projector
An overhead projector is a variant of slide projector that is used to display images to an audience.-Mechanism:An overhead projector typically consists of a large box containing a very bright lamp and a fan to cool it. On top of the box is a large fresnel lens that collimates the light...
or in more recent years, a computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
running presentation software
Presentation program
A presentation program is a computer software package used to display information, normally in the form of a slide show...
. The term "slide" originates from the use of slides which have been around for many years. Slides originally were projected on a screen, for example in a theater by magic lantern
Magic lantern
The magic lantern or Laterna Magica is an early type of image projector developed in the 17th century.-Operation:The magic lantern has a concave mirror in front of a light source that gathers light and projects it through a slide with an image scanned onto it. The light rays cross an aperture , and...
s, a practice that later evolved into moving picture shows. Even after the advent of motion pictures, slides continued to be employed for a time between showings of the films, especially to advertise local businesses or maintain theater decorum—for example by requesting that gentlemen remove their hats and refrain from smoking, and urging mothers to remove crying infants from the auditorium.
The earliest slides were pieces of glass carrying photographic images, and later, pieces of photographic film sealed between two thin sheets of glass. Projectors had a frame mechanism which accommodated two of the sealed photos and was moved from left to right to left, bringing one slide between the lens and the light source, while a "next" photograph was inserted into the frame, alternately from the left or right side of the projector. The image medium itself came to be called a "slide." The black-and-white images were sometimes hand-tinted. With the widespread availability of color film in the 1940s the large, cumbersome and fragile glass slides were replaced by individual pieces of 35 mm color film bonded between two thin 2-by-2-inch cardboard frames. The Kodak Carousel projector accommodates some 80 of these frames in a doughnut-shaped slotted plastic container and has a motorized mechanism to drop and retrieve each slide sequentially on an electronic command of a "remote" button device held by the projectionist as the circular carrier advances above the lamp and lens of the machine.
A well organized slide show allows a presenter to fit visual images to an oral presentation. The old adage
Adage
An adage is a short but memorable saying which holds some important fact of experience that is considered true by many people, or that has gained some credibility through its long use....
"A picture is worth a thousand words" holds true, in that a single image can save a presenter from speaking a paragraph of descriptive details. As with any public speaking or lecturing, a certain amount of talent, experience, and rehearsal is required to make a successful slide show presentation.
Presentation software is most commonly used for instructional purposes, usually with the intention of creating a dynamic, audiovisual presentation. The relevant points to the entire presentation are put on slides, and accompany a spoken monologue.
Slide shows have artistic uses as well, such as being used as a screensaver
Screensaver
A screensaver is a type of computer program initially designed to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT and plasma computer monitors by blanking the screen or filling it with moving images or patterns when the computer is not in use...
, or to provide dynamic imagery for a museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
presentation, for example, or in installation art
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
. David Byrne
David Byrne (musician)
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...
, among others, has created PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
art.
Slide show in art
Since the late 1960s visual artists in museums and galleries have used slide shows as a device, either for presenting specific information about an action or research or as a phenomenological form in itself. According to the introduction of [Slide show] -an exhibition organized at the Baltimore Museum of ArtBaltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
- “Through the simple technology of the slide projector and 35 mm color transparency, artists discovered a tool that enabled the transformation of space through the magnification of projected pictures, texts, and images”. Although some have not necessarily used 35mm or color slides, and some have even exchanged images for texts (Robert Barry) the color slides are the most commonly used and they could be sometimes accompanied with written text, either on the slides or as an intertitle
Intertitle
In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to, but not necessarily covered by, the material photographed.Intertitles...
. Some artists have also used a voice-over on the slide presentation (James Coleman, Robert Smithson). Slideshows have since also used by artist that use other mediums as painting and sculpture to present their work publicly. During the last few years there is a growing usage of the concept by a younger generation of artists. Non-profit organization Slideluck Potshow
Slideluck Potshow
Slideluck Potshow is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to building and strengthening community through food and art. Founded by advertising and editorial photographer, , in 2000, the New York City-based organization’s events now take place in about forty cities around the world...
holds slideshow events globally featuring works by amateur and professional artists, photographers, and gallerists. Participants in the event bring food, potluck-style, to have a social dinner before the slide show begins.
Some of the known artists that have used slide shows in their work are: Bas Jan Ader
Bas Jan Ader
Bas Jan Ader was a Dutch conceptual artist, performance artist, photographer and filmmaker. He lived in Los Angeles for the last 10 years of his life. Ader's work was in many instances presented as photographs and film of his performances...
, Francis Alys
Francis Alÿs
Francis Alÿs is a Belgian artist. His work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art, architecture, and social practice. After leaving behind his formal training as an architect and relocated to Mexico City, he has created a diverse body of artwork that explores urbanity, spatial justice, and...
, Robert Barry
Robert Barry (artist)
Robert Barry is an American artist. Since 1967, Barry has produced non-material works of art, installations, and performance art using a variety of otherwise invisible media...
, James Coleman
James Coleman
James Coleman may refer to:*James P. Coleman , Governor of Mississippi*James Smoot Coleman , American political scientist*James Samuel Coleman , American sociologist*James Coleman , Irish artist...
, Jan Dibbets
Jan Dibbets
Jan Dibbets , is a Dutch conceptual artist.In 1994, he was commissioned by the Arago Association to create a memorial to the French astronomer François Arago, known as Hommage à Arago...
, Dan Graham
Dan Graham
Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....
, Rodney Graham
Rodney Graham
Rodney Graham is an artist and musician born in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He is most often associated with the Vancouver School...
, Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
, Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler is a U.S. artist and photographer. From the late 1970s onwards, Lawler's work has focused on the presentation and marketing of artwork. Much of this work consists of photographs of other peoples' artwork and the context in which it is viewed...
, Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta
Ana Mendieta was a Cuban American performance artist, sculptor, painter and video artist who is known for her "earth-body" art work....
, Jonathan Monk
Jonathan Monk
Jonathan Monk is an artist living and working in Berlin.-Art practice:Monk questions the meaning of art using conceptualism in a way that Ken Johnson in The New York Times called "sweet, wry and poetic"....
, Dennis Oppenheim, Allan Sekula
Allan Sekula
Allan Sekula is an American artist of Polish descent, writer, and critic based at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California.-Work:...
, Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....
, Carey Young
Carey Young
Carey Young is a visual artist who incorporates a variety of media such as video, photography, performative events and installation into her works, which investigate the increasing incorporation of the personal and public domains into the realm of the commercial...
, Krzysztof Wodiczko
Krzysztof Wodiczko
Krzysztof Wodiczko, born April 16th 1943, is an artist renowned for his large-scale slide and video projections on architectural facades and monuments...
, Muhammed Ali.
Digital slide shows
Digital photo slide shows can be custom made for customers, using their photos, music, wedding invitations, birth announcements, or virtually any other scannable documents. Some producers call the resulting DVDs the new photo montage. Slide shows can be created not only in DVD, but also in HD video format and executable file for PC as for example, in such professional slide show software as AnimotoAnimoto
Animoto is a web application that produces videos from photos, video clips and music.Animoto analyzes the provided photos, video clips and music to generate a video similar to a trailer. According to the website, the song is analyzed, producing a unique video every time...
, PicturesToExe
PicturesToExe
-PicturesToExe:PicturesToExe is a photo slideshow software application developed by WnSoft Ltd., and available for Microsoft Windows.-Overview:...
, Photodex
Photodex
Photodex is a software company specializing in the digital imaging market. They are primarily known for the ProShow product line, which is photo slideshow software....
ProShow, Photo MovieTheater and Windows Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker is a video creating/editing software application, included in Microsoft Windows Me, XP, and Vista. It contains features such as effects, transitions, titles/credits, audio track, timeline narration, and Auto Movie. New effects and transitions can be made and existing ones can be...
. Photo slideshow software has made it easier to create photo slideshows, eliminating the need for expensive color reversal film, instead requiring only a digital camera
Digital camera
A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...
and computer.
Photo slide show software often have more features than simply showing the pictures. It is possible to add transitions, pan and zoom effects, video clips, background music
Background music
Although background music was by the end of the 20th century generally identified with Muzak or elevator music, there are several stages in the development of this concept.-Antecedents:...
, narrations, captions
Closed captioning
Closed captioning is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information to individuals who wish to access it...
, etc. By using computer software one therefore has the ability to enhance pictures in a way that isn't otherwise possible. The finished slide show can then be burned to a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, for example as a gift or for preservation, and later viewed using a DVD player.
See also
- Web-based slideshow
- Death by PowerPoint
- Photo slideshow softwarePhoto slideshow softwareA photo slideshow software is a computer software application used to display a range of digital photos, images and videos in a predefined order...
- Presentation software
- DiaporamaDiaporamaA Diaporama is a photographic slideshow, sometimes with accompanying audio. The word shares etymological roots with the English words diorama and panorama, both of which come from the Greek root horama, meaning "a view." Salon columnist Camille Paglia used the term as early as March 2008 when she...