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Software
HF CRITICAL MASS  
version 1.3
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Barbara Lattanzi
copyleft 2002

email: threads@wildernesspuppets.net
http://www.wildernesspuppets.net
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HF CRITICAL MASS is freely available software by Barbara Lattanzi, 2002.
It was developed within the authoring environment of Macromedia Director and includes the Director runtime engine.
(The source code written for the core action of HF CRITICAL MASS is available separately at the website -- see download page).

Visit wildernesspuppets.net website to download PC and Mac versions of HF CRITICAL MASS.
http://www.wildernesspuppets.net/hfcm/

HF CRITICAL MASS is based on the 1971 film, 'Critical Mass', by the late Hollis Frampton - to whose memory this work is dedicated.

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INSTRUCTIONS 
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The "HF Critical Mass" software program consists of a single file.  Double-click the file to launch the program. No other files will be installed on your computer.

Once launched, the program's interface includes a way for you to import your selected Quicktime videos into the program. (Quicktime is the name of one of the most common types of video files. Often the filename of a Quicktime movie ends with the extension '.mov'. )

When the video is imported into "HF Critical Mass",  a timeline bar then lets you select where to begin the video. 

When you select the "play video" gadget you will see the video along with special time modifier gadgets.  The gadgets that are shown with circles are the ones which manipulate the HF Critical Mass central algorithm.  Shifting the circles locations changes the duration of forward advance and amount of instant repositioning to a prior temporal point in the movie.

One of the gadgets that looks like an upside-down V, at the video playback screen, is a button to toggle the visibility of the rest of the gadgets on or off. 

New with version 1.3:

Several new gadgets that change playback speed are located at the lower-left.  The gadgets pause, speed up, and slow down the movie-rate. 

Two more gadgets (just to the right of the speed gadgets) fade-out picture and fade-out sound independently (click them again to resume picture and sound).

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MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:
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Your monitor resolution must be 800x600 minimum.

You must have Quicktime 3 or later installed on your computer.

Recommended: use a fast hard-drive for better running of this software and your Quicktime video. 

Tech note about another factor that may affect smooth running: Quicktime video files that do not need complex decompressing seem to run more smoothly within this software.  An uncompressed file runs very well, although such files can actually be huge (the file size does not seem to matter, as long as the file is an uncompressed format).  Otherwise, in producing Quicktime videos, compression codecs can be used testing various parameters (for example, increasing numbers of keyframes or lowering data-rate setting, etc.) for best playback within the software.

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ADDITIONAL NOTES:
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DIMENSIONS of the quicktime movie can be:  
any width, up to 720 pixels wide and any height, up to 486 pixels high. (Larger dimensions simply get cropped.)
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It is optionally possible to use the software with Quicktime movies that only have an audio track.

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The Director runtime engine is not built for Mac OS X yet. 

Until the Director runtime engine is upgraded to Mac OS X, the "HF Critical Mass" software only runs on the pre-X operating systems on the Mac.

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KNOWN ISSUE:

Placing the software on the hard-drive in a folder nested more than 4 or 5 folders from the root of the drive, causes an error at the point of starting the software.  If this happens, just put the software file at a higher level of the PC Windows Explorer or Macintosh Finder.  For example, on the PC, place the software in the "My Documents" folder, rather than in a folder nested inside folders inside the "My Documents" folder.  

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HF CRITICAL MASS was authored using "Lingo", the programming language of Macromedia Director.  Although, it was written to work with the Director runtime engine, the HF Critical Mass coding methods and structure are conceivably translatable to any other programming language that can control Quicktime video playback.

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ABOUT THE WORK OF HOLLIS FRAMPTON:
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The films of the late Hollis Frampton spanned the late 1960s through the early 1980s.  His film, 'Critical Mass', made in 1971, is one of a series of films collectively titled 'Hapax Legomena'.  

"'Hapax Legomena' is a seven-part investigation of the specific conditions of cinematic representation and the limitations and paradoxes of visual description and narrative."  (description by Steve Polta - San Francisco Cinemateque, 2002)

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HOW DOES THIS SOFTWARE RELATE TO THE WORK OF HOLLIS FRAMPTON?
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While the HF CRITICAL MASS software riffs methods and structures of just one film - adapting these to the interactive digital video environment, it also pointedly restricts itself to the methods and structures of just one film and applies these to your choice of quicktime videos...  

In other words, there is no intention to expand this software open-endedly to become yet another all-purpose tool among many others in the great gushing development of video mix software currently taking place... simulators of all FX processing devices.  But it would be interesting if this software could be experienced on its own terms in a performative montage/projection context.

Approximately 30 years ago, Hollis Frampton constructed a situation in which a film recording of a couple's brief argument could reach 'critical mass' and liquify into the audience's present as something utterly strange. 

With its particular video improvisation interface, HF Critical Mass software mediates the narrative reading of moving images, an approach modelled by Hollis Frampton's film.  It demos how this inter-active reading can shape, twist, morph and stress the particular temporal passage belonging to the viewer - that variously named "here-and-now" or "real time" during which the software is deployed.  

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-- Barbara Lattanzi
-- December .02

More about HF CRITICAL MASS and other material at:     
http://www.wildernesspuppets.net

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