Slideshow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Slideshow is a modern concatenation of "Slide Show". A slideshow is a display of a series of chosen images, which is done for artistic or instructional purposes. Slideshows are conducted by a presenter using an apparatus, such as a carousel slide projector, an overhead projector or in more recent years, a computer running presentation software. The term originates from the use of slides which have been around for many years. Slides originally were projected on movie theater screens by magic lanterns as part of early movie house shows.
The word slideshow does not appear in the Webster’s New Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary (1973 edition), though slideshow will pass a spell check in Microsoft Word in both Office 2000 and Office XP editions.
A well organized slideshow allows a presenter to lend visual images to an oral presentation. The old adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" holds true, in that a single image can save a presenter from speaking a paragraph of descriptive details. As with any public speaking or lecturing, a certain amount of talent, experience, and rehearsal is required to make a successful slideshow presentation.
For instructional purposes, presentation software is most commonly used, and is usually used with the intention of creating a dynamic, audiovisual presentation. The relevant points to the entire presentation are put on slides, and accompany a spoken monologue.
Slideshows have artistic uses as well, such as being used as a screensaver, or to provide dynamic imagery for a museum presentation, for example, or in installation art. David Byrne, among others, has created PowerPoint art.
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[edit] Slideshow Criticism
Improperly staged or scripted slideshows can be seen by some as being a crutch for the presenter, and that the use of content put on the slideshow is not relevant or constructive to the presentation. Other critics have taken aim at the way that presentation software relies upon small summaries that simultaneously starve the audience of information and appear to limit consideration and analysis.
See also Criticism of Microsoft PowerPoint
[edit] Slideshow in Art
Since the late 1960’s visual artists in museums and galleries have used slide shows as a device, either for presenting specific information about an action or research or as a phenomenological form in itself. According to the introduction of [Slideshow] -an exhibition organized at the Baltimore Museum of Art- “Through the simple technology of the slide projector and 35 mm color transparency, artists discovered a tool that enabled the transformation of space through the magnification of projected pictures, texts, and images”. Although some have not necessarily used 35mm or color slides, and some have even exchanged images for texts (Robert Barry) the color slides are the most commonly used and they could be sometimes accompanied with written text, either on the slides or as an intertitle. Some artists have also used a voice-over on the slide presentation (James Coleman, Robert Smithson). Slideshows have since also used by artist that use other mediums as painting and sculpture to present their work publicly. During the last few years there is a growing usage of the concept by a younger generation of artists.
Some of the known artists that have used slideshows in their work are: Bas Jan Ader, Francis Alys, Robert Barry, James Coleman, Jan Dibbets, Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Nan Goldin, Louise Lawler, Ana Mendieta, Jonathan Monk, Dennis Oppenheim, Allan Sekula, Robert Smithson, Carey Young, Krzysztof Wodiczko.
[edit] Key works of art that are slideshows:
Homes For America (1966), Dan Graham; Hotel Palenque (1969), Robert Smithson; Slide Piece, (1972-1973), James Coleman; and The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1986),Nan Goldin.
