Pin
Sweep an edge across once; keep what it caught at each instant; never go back over a strip.
A slit crosses the plate and a racing wheel comes out oval.
Seen in Jacques Henri Lartigue, Automobile Delage, Grand Prix de l'A.C.F., near Dieppe, 26 June 1912
Try it on your work
Put something on a flatbed scanner and move it slowly while the light bar crosses: a hand, a length of fabric, a spinning top. Keep the scan whatever comes out. Stop after one pass; do not rescan.
Walk the length of one street and write one line at each step, naming only what is directly beside you at that moment. Never look back to add anything. Stop at the end of the street.
A group stands in a row, moving freely. One person walks slowly along it; as the walker passes, each person freezes in the pose they hold at that moment and keeps it. Stop when the walker reaches the end of the row.
How it has been used
Let an edge cross the work and keep what it touches as it was when it touched it: the scanner's light bar crossing a hand that moves, the photocopier with the original slid along the glass, the drawing made by following a ruler across a busy street. Whatever moves while the edge crosses comes out bent. The move forbids going back: a strip the edge has passed is finished.
Where it leads
Grouped under Help me see it from another angle