Between the Bullet and the Hole
- Submitting institution
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Royal College of Art(The)
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- Satz1
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Sydney/Tokyo/New York
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of production
- -
- Year of production
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- An artist’s film on the complexities of women's roles in ballistic research and early computing during WW2. It featured new and archival high-speed bullet photography, schlieren and electric spark imagery, bullet soundwave imagery, forensic ballistic photography, punch cards, computer diagrams, and a soundtrack by Scanner. The research involved exchanges with specialists such as the Cranfield University Forensics department, the Imperial War Museum, the ENIAC Programmers Project, and forensic scientists.
The project disseminated the little-known history of women’s involvement in early computer programming, specifically the ENIAC project. Aligning with artists such as Lis Rhodes, Harun Farocki and Lawrence Abu Hamdan, the film examined invisible labour, the abstraction of warfare and forensics. However, rather than visually portray the women, this film internalized their research process, using the trope of interpolation as an editing technique as well as subject matter. Interpolation - the main task of the women studying ballistics in WW2 - is the estimation of missing data using only two known data points. The film questions how we read, interpolate or construct the gaps between bullet and hole, ones and zeros, perpetrator and victim, presence and absence. This was echoed formally through the flickering perceptual mechanics of cinematic interpolation in the edit.
The work furthers the debate around gender and warfare, and problems of underrepresentation of women’s STEM achievements. The film has been shown internationally to large audiences from the film / art world and the general public, stimulating debate about women’s role in early computing. Significant outcomes include an outreach event honouring women in STEM, as well as a workshop on the subject with local school children. The reviews of the show led to the film being acquired by Arts Council Collection, and a companion piece on human computers and astronomy being acquired by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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