Stephen Colbert Portrait With Subliminal IR Message Marquee

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2011/03/16 @ 6:07 am
Category Art & Design, Computers & Mobile, Craft

Fortunately, Austrian filmmaker Benjamin Hable has discovered that you can use your cell phone, digital camera, or other CCD-equipped gadget (rather like the special sunglasses discovered by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s character in John Carpenter’s 1988 conspiranoia flick They Live) to see the fnords. Benjamin made Augmented Paranoia for a January 17 exhibition called bits and ohm, and used the public-domain portrait of Stephen Colbert released for the Colbert Nation Portrait Challenge. Reminds me of a project I did a few years back (also inspired by They Live) involving deliberately burning subliminal messages into the phosphors of analog TV tubes. [Thanks, Benjamin!]

More:
IR Paintings Visible Only Through Your Digital Camera

BY Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I write for MAKE, serve as Technical Editor for MAKE magazine, and develop original DIY content for Make: Projects.

In the Maker Shed

Calculator Kit from Spikenzie Labs

Arduino Robot

Ultimaker 3D Printer

MAKE Rovera 4WD Arduino Robot Kit

7 Responses to Stephen Colbert Portrait With Subliminal IR Message Marquee

Anonymous on March 16th, 2011 at 1:11 pm said:

That’s not subliminal; it’s subluminal!

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Anonymous on March 16th, 2011 at 1:51 pm said:

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Anonymous on March 16th, 2011 at 1:54 pm said:

So many keen tools at hand, how did he get seperated from his dictionary?

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- Benjamin Hable on March 16th, 2011 at 1:59 pm said:
  
  Documenting and cutting this video was sort of a “middle of the night” operation. Tell me my mistakes and I’ll gladly apply the corrections.
  
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  Anonymous on March 16th, 2011 at 3:57 pm said:
  
  First, my apologies for being so snotty to you — in the final, funny captioning you want “These messages are separated…” as opposed to “seperated.”
  
  I know. I can’t help it.
  
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  Benjamin Hable on March 16th, 2011 at 9:14 pm said:
  
  No problem, it’s not my native language, so I’m not offended or something.
  
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Anonymous on March 18th, 2011 at 7:25 pm said:

What awesome software allows those object-tracking captions?

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