Edison
Mobile Remake
Thomas Edison, the incredibly modern inventor, was at the origin of this handy tool that we use every day, the mobile phone. As the inventor of the duplex telegraph, the kinetoscope and the phonograph, what would he have invented today?
It is only fitting that we should pay tribute to his work for video distribution on a mobile phone.
Surprisingly, when viewing Edison’s films on a cell phone, they seem to have been created for this format. Both universal and intimate, these mobile phone screenings make us feel much closer to images from another era.
We look on with tenderness and curiosity as an athlete waves a wand, an acrobat swings in the air, a couple kisses, etc.
This project follows the tradition of ready-mades and film remakes.
The first « ready-made » orientation presents original videos or excerpts on a mobile phone, while the artistic gesture consists of reappropriating these videos that are distributed and perfectly adapted to the mobile screen format.
The second « remake » orientation follows up these adapted videos with a film sequence shot on a phone camera.
In an effort to replicate similar shooting conditions to those of Edison’s films in the 1900s, the new films were shot with a Nokia N90.
All the remakes are available in mobile 3GP format in order to encourage distribution on mobile phones.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) never stopped inventing throughout his entire life. His first invention is the ancestor of the telephone, a duplex telegraph capable of transmitting two oncoming dispatches over a single cable.
Overtaken by Bell in the telephone race, Edison presented the incandescent lamp at the 1889 World Expo in Paris. The lamp quickly became a social phenomenon, a symbol of safety and modern comfort.
In the late 1880s, Edison participated in another great adventure of human technology.
Even before the invention of cinema by the Lumière brothers, he developed the kinetoscope, the first machine to make films by displaying a rapid succession of individual shots. By linking it to his phonograph in 1913, he produced the first sound film in the world.
Edison is no doubt one of the most prolific inventors, but he is above all the one whose inventions have had the most impact on the lives of millions of human beings.
