San Francisco artist finds popularity with old-time illusions

Inside his 600-square-foot San Francisco apartment, Joshua Ellingson was outnumbered about 20 to one by vintage television sets, a collection he began amassing during the pandemic. 

And yet as strange as that sounds, the stacks of old TVs — as well as the collection of vintage bowling trophies — were not the most stunning visuals in the room. That honor was achieved by the large ghostly goldfish, which appeared to swim on a current of air beneath a plastic dome.  

“It’s just a reflection on a piece of clear glass or plastic,” explained Ellingson, though the revelation did nothing to diminish the illusion’s startling impact.  

During the downtime of the pandemic, the soft-spoken art teacher inadvertently morphed into something of a social media sensation, by transforming his humble domicile into a chamber of electronic wonders such as the goldfish.  

His electronic tinkering has dazzled many an eyeball from YouTube to Instagram - with hologram-like projections using an old-time stage craft technique called Pepper’s Ghost - to rejiggering the potential of old black and white television sets by pairing them with modern computer technology. It’s a journey that wasn’t designed as much as it unraveled.  

“I wouldn’t have guessed that I would have started to be like an avant-garde video artist,” laughed Ellingson. “That wouldn’t have been on my list at all.”  

Ellingson’s unexpected ascent indeed began in the dark days of the pandemic. To while away his time he bought an old black and white TV from a thrift store and hauled it home. He got the inclination to hook up his Roku box to it and streamed the Twilight Zone. He made a video of the experiment, dropped it on then-Twitter and went to lunch.  

“And then I came back and I looked at my phone and I had a million likes,” he said.

The virtual standing ovation propelled him onto the threshold of some sort of new electronic frontier. He collected more TVs, figured out how to connect his Mac laptop to them — and started manipulating old black and white commercials so they skipped and stuttered to music cues. 

But the real breakthrough came after Ellingson watched a documentary showing how designers concocted the ghost illusions for Disneyland’s haunted mansion. The artists used a technique called Pepper’s Ghost, where a piece of plastic or glass set at an angle inside of a dome shape would create a projection of an object or person - making it appear like a life-sized phantom. 

Ellison ran out and bought a plastic dome and a sheet of plastic, took his laptop and a cartoon video of a swimming goldfish — and watched the magic appear before his eyes. The building of it took 10 minutes. 

“I did not expect it to look that good,” he mused. “It really did look like a little goldfish floating in the aquarium.” 

The goldfish video immediately baffled, stunned, electrified his social media audience who bombarded him with requests to show them how to make it or for Ellingson to work his illusions for music videos and photo shoots. 

Unlike many artists, he was happy to lift the curtain on his work. He started filming videos showing how to build a Pepper’s Ghost, or the gadgets needed to run a laptop through an old TV. The art teacher within resurfaced in the universal classroom of the internet.  

“I like showing how it's done,” Ellingson said. “It’s kind of part of the art for me.” 

In another dome, a phantom hand spun around as if it was greeting visitors who’d wandered down the apartment’s small hallway, past the bed, but not quite all the way into the kitchen. Next to it, a phantom duck floated in a circle, levitating from its dome into a television set and back. 

Ellingson powered on a row of synthesizer modules which spit out an electronic beat that manipulated the movements of the ghost creatures — and an old coffee commercial. 

The high-tech wizardry didn’t seem to thrill Ellingson as much as using a Pepper’s Ghost technique which was developed in the late 1800s, or bringing back to life an old TV set from the sixties. His artistic bent seemed to emanate from an old soul — and an appreciation for old stuff.  

“I don’t know how many things you buy now that would last 50 years,” he lamented, gesturing to a stack of televisions. 

The only crack in Ellingson’s burgeoning electronic empire seemed to revolve around the size of his apartment, which was growing smaller as his collection of old gizmos grew larger. He mused about maybe renting a studio somewhere or even the unthinkable; parting with a few of his old television sets. 

“I don’t want someone to find me underneath a pile of TVs,” he laughed. “Know what I mean?”