Site as Lab will host the “35mm Cyanotype Film Workshop” to produce “Cameraless” moving images.
Moving away from chemically coated film stock, the workshop utilizes natural botanical agar as the light-sensitive base layer on 35mm transparent film. During the filmmaking process, participants will use plants, leaves, petals, or everyday readymades as development mediums. Through the cyanotype printing process, they will create botanical-matrix, Prussian blue films. Ultimately, the 35mm cyanotype films created by all participants will be digitized, chained, and spliced together, transforming into a random, serendipitous, and organically flowing collective collaborative film.
No prior experience with film or cyanotype is required for participants; the workshop material kit will provide all necessary production materials.
// 35mm藍曬底片工作坊
場景實驗室（Site as Lab）將辦理「35mm藍曬底片工作坊」，生產「無攝影機（Cameraless）」活動影像。工作坊捨棄化學塗層膠捲，改以天然的植物藻膠作為 35mm 透明底片的基底感光層。在底片成影的過程中，參與者將以植物、花葉或日常現成物作為顯影媒介，透過藍曬（Cyanotype）的顯影技術，製作植物基質的普魯士藍底片。所有參與者的35mm藍曬底片最終將透過數位化技術串聯、拼接，轉化為隨機、偶發且有機流動的集體協作影片。
參與者無需任何膠卷或藍曬經驗，工作坊材料包會提供所有製作材料。
// Lecturer: Lin Hsin-I, Associate Professor, Department of Arts and Design, National Tsing Hua University
// Technical Instructors: Deng Yu-Xiu, Tsai Pei-Chun
// Date: Friday, June 5, 2026, 14:00-15:30
// Venue: site as lab, 3F, Crafts Building, Department of Arts and Design, National Tsing Hua University
// Capacity: 8 participants // Material Kit Fee: NT$100
// Organizer: Site as Lab, National Tsing Hua University
// Co-organizer: Department of Arts and Design, National Tsing Hua University．IAA, NYCU
// 講授：林欣怡 國立清華大學藝術與設計系 副教授
// 技術講師：鄧宇琇、蔡佩君
// 日期：2026/6/5（五） 14:00-15:30
// 地點：國立清華大學藝術與設計學系工藝大樓3Ｆ．場景實驗室
// 名額：8人 // 材料包費用：100元
// 主辦：國立清華大學場景實驗室
// 協辦：國立清華大學藝術與設計學系．陽明交大應用藝術研究所
// 活動網頁：https://siteaslab.net/?p=1602
// 報名表單：https://forms.gle/KhKpq5eWsZKGMPd47
// Emulsion Layer:
Traditional film utilizes gelatin (an animal bone derivative) to suspend silver halide crystals. This workshop replaces gelatin with botanical agar as the emulsion matrix and substitutes precious metal silver salts with cyanotype iron salts (ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide).
// Gelatin Protective Overcoat / Topcoat:
The topmost layer of traditional film consists of a thin gelatin protective coating to prevent scratching. In the lab’s methodology, the thin membrane formed by the agar itself as it dries simultaneously serves as both the light-sensitive matrix and surface protection (encapsulating botanical textures).
// Elimination of the Anti-Halation Layer:
The anti-halation layer coated on the back of traditional film is designed to prevent light from passing through the base and reflecting back, which causes image blurring. Because cyanotype film relies on “contact printing” and functions within “cameraless” cinema, its sensitizer absorbs light directly. By eliminating the anti-halation layer, light penetrates and refracts between the transparent film base and the botanicals, thereby creating edge light leaks, halation, and random optical textures highly sought after in experimental film.
// 藻膠藍曬塗層替代
傳統 35mm 彩色/黑白底片是一個極其複雜的多層幾何結構（通常多達 10 幾層）。實驗室直接解構了這個工業標準，用「藻膠＋藍曬液」的單一/雙層複合結構，替代了傳統物理與化學圖層：
// 乳劑層：傳統底片使用明膠（Gelatin，動物骨膠）包裹鹵化銀（Silver Halide）晶體。工作坊以植物藻膠/洋菜（Agar）取代明膠作為載體，並以藍曬鐵鹽（檸檬酸鐵銨與鐵氰化鉀）取代貴金屬銀鹽。
// 頂層保護層：傳統底片最上層有薄薄的明膠保護層以防刮傷。實驗室使用的藻膠本身乾燥後形成的薄膜，就同時兼具了感光載體與表面保護（封存植物紋理）的功能。
// 抗光暈層的剔除： 傳統底片背面的抗光暈層是為了防止光線穿透片基後反射、造成影像模糊。藍曬底片因為是「接觸曝光（Contact Printing）」且屬於無攝影機電影（cameraless），其感光劑直接吸收光線。剔除抗光暈層後，光線在透明底片與植物間穿透、折射，進而創造出實驗電影追求的邊緣漏光、暈染與隨機的光學質地。
// In terms of the material lifecycle, traditional gelatin is derived from animal skins and bones from slaughterhouses, serving as a byproduct of the industrial livestock industry, whereas the agar used in this workshop is extracted from marine plants such as red algae; this shift from an ‘animal-based industry’ to a ‘plant-based ecology’ endows the film matrix itself with an organic life history, further bringing about a dynamic material transformation. Because agar inherently responds to ambient temperature and humidity during heating, cooling, drying, and coating processes, it manifests varying thicknesses and irregularities—a processual serendipity that transforms the film into a living canvas with a painterly ‘organic texture.’ Furthermore, the workshop adopts a non-toxic, low-energy development process, and since the botanical agar is biodegradable, it substantially minimizes the ecological burden of image production on water bodies and the soil.”
// 在物質的生命週期上，傳統明膠來自屠宰場的動物皮骨，是工業畜牧業的副產品，工作坊使用的藻膠（Agar）則萃取自紅藻等海洋植物，這種從「動物性工業」轉向「植物性生態」的實踐，讓底片本身基質便具備了有機生命史，也進一步帶來了動態的物質轉變。由於藻膠在加熱、冷卻、乾燥與塗佈過程中會順應環境的溫度與濕度，呈現出不同的厚度與不均勻感，這種過程的偶發讓底片成為具有「生物有機感」（Organic Texture）的繪畫質性。工作坊採取無毒低耗能沖洗顯影，且植物藻膠具備生物可降解性（Biodegradable），大幅降低了影像生產過程中對水體與土地的負擔。
// The practice of cyanotype film constitutes a return to the materiality of the image, resonating with the ‘cameraless’ tradition that extends from 1920s Dadaism—such as Man Ray’s Rayographs—to contemporary experimental cinema: here, the image is no longer an objective record of reality captured by a camera, but rather a physical trace left by the direct collision of matter and light on the film’s surface. Concurrently, it echoes the eco-sensitive practices rising within contemporary alternative photography, shifting creators away from viewing nature merely as a ‘landscape’ or an object to be photographed, and instead elevating nature (plants and agar) into an active ‘agent’ of image production. Ultimately, this practice points toward the politics of handmade cinema; in an era overloaded with digital AI imagery and dominated by the monopoly of traditional industrial Kodak film, mixing one’s own sensitizers and coating film by hand serves precisely as a form of soft resistance against the standardization of the image industry.
// 藍曬底片的實踐構成了影像的物性回歸，它回應了從1920年代達達主義——如Man Ray的Rayographs——延伸至當代實驗電影的「無攝影機」傳統：影像不再是相機對現實的客觀紀錄，而是物質與光線在膠卷表面直接碰撞所留下的物理痕跡。同時也呼應了當代另類攝影中興起的生態敏感實踐（eco-sensitive practice）——使創作者不再將自然視為被拍攝的「風景」（Object），而是讓自然（植物、藻膠）躍升為影像生產的「主體」（Agent）；最終，此實踐指向了手工藝政治——在數位 AI 影像超載、傳統柯達工業底片壟斷的當代，動手調配感光劑、手工塗佈底片，正是一種對「影像工業標準化」的軟性抵抗。
