A Digital Meowseum
See it now:
Logline: Assorted cats placed on flatbed scanners to create high art.
Concept: Four creatives, six flatbed scanners, 65 restless cats, and a mission to create one of the most purrfectly tantalizing art books of 2016. We’ll either need nerves of steel…or a lot of Friskies.
Welcome to ‘CAT SCANS,’ the first art book to capture the fine art effect of placing cats on flatbed scanners.
Why would anyone do this? Surprisingly, the answer is not to see if it can be done. We know it can be done. We’ve already conducted tests using household scanners. And we’ve discovered a lot in the early stages; among our discoveries: Cats have no appreciation for the creation of fine art. They move. Which naturally encouraged us to get Epson Imaging of San Jose on the phone. In conference with Epson’s resident scanner guru, Ray Hsu, we learned that if we want to preserve our prime directive: “Create awesome art but do it in a way that only a scanner can achieve it (i.e., no slick digital pix) while avoiding the blur caused by moving animals,” then, says Ray, we need to “Use the Epson GT15000 or the 10000XL. It can scan docs at 50 pp per minute.” Who knew? Of course, what Ray didn’t know was whether either device would work on cats. “We’re accustomed to scanning two dimensional objects like, um, documents.”
Hence why we're building the 'Cat House.' Not a traditional cathouse. The only lights are inside and they're fluorescent, not red. This cat house is a miracle in engineering. It allows our feline models to stroll uninhibited across the scanner beds without leaving paw prints or dust, but still keeps the pets within a limited area so we can scan cat tops, cat bellies, and cat paws, tails, and sides. It also provides instant visual access to keep the cats -- which are selected through SoCal ad NorCal animal rescue organizations, and a 'Cat Call' ad on Craigslist - and their owners in constant communication.
The entire jerry rigged technology notwithstanding, in the final assessment the byline is feline. The selected cats have curious histories all their own and each history will be included in approachable, palatable paragraphs (but not in mice type...eeks!) on every page.
