DIY video VCO

Here are some shots of early XR2206 based video VCO experiments, the important thing with video is getting sync pulses from your SPG in to a format that your oscillator circuit wants to sync to, some are fine with narrow pulses some want a nice clean saw wave or for the pulse to hit a certain voltage threshold. This means if you don't have the skills to attempt at modifying whatever SPG or VCO you have chosen you will need sync conditioning circuits to sit in between getting the two to talk nicely.

Video Glitch Device

Here is a device I built for a fellow artist, there are a few shots of its slowly disrupting a shot of a grid to give you an idea off the effects it can produce.

Still from new work

Slowly getting there

Peter Chamberlain

Peter C has uploaded some amazing work from earlier in his career.

Video Workshop

Here are pics of the analogue video workshop packs each attendee will be getting tomorrow! http://encounters-festival.org.uk/news/events/analog-video-workshop/

Bristol Video Workshop

So Alex and I will be teaching a beginners workshop in analogue video techniques as part of Encounters Festival at the Arnolfini Gallery on Saturday the 20th of September. The whole reason and drive behind the workshop is as  part of Mclaren 2014 a celebration of Norman McLaren's work and  life. Joseph who is the force behind Seeing Sound festival asked if I would put together a workshop exploring some analogue video techniques. The Arnolfini is one of my favourite venues down south, I recently caught a screening of Jordan Belson's work on film which absolutely blew me away and they seem to have a regular program of interesting audio visual and electronic performance stuff. Alex and I have prepared a simple starter in to the world of electronic video with some basic experiments to try and a little background history.

ARNOLFINI
Chris J King and Alexander Peverett
10:00 – 13:00
£25 

Media Artists Chris J King and Alexander Peverett will present a workshop on hands on video techniques influenced by McLaren. The themes in McLaren’s work of drawn sound and visual music were expanded by later artists using electronic video and video synthesis. The workshop will include an introduction to both the historical and technical aspects of electronic video work as well as the construction of a simple circuit and experimentation with video feedback. Be prepared for vivid colours, frenetic sounds and dancing shapes! The cost includes all the parts to make your circuit to take away and play with as well as mirrors to manipulate video feedback and a small publication containing all the information covered in the workshop.

http://encounters-festival.org.uk/news/events/analog-video-workshop/
http://www.seeingsound.co.uk/

http://www.mclaren2014.com/

http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/

analog pong

https://vimeo.com/user3897349/videos

Machine Log

Machine Log is an excellent blog about restoring ancient video and audio equipment and sometimes building rad projects too. I love the attention to detail and appreciation for the forgotten age of beautifully tied off colour coded wires and hand drawn copper traces.

http://crochambeau.blogspot.com/search/label/video
http://binauralaboratories.blogspot.com/

A project that recently caught my eye is a 360 degree rotating cradle to allow point unrestricted tilting of a video camera for video feedback. This is an incredibly useful project as there are literally thousands of permutations and patterns available by changing the angle of the camera and screen.

Also this modular video processor is an interesting piece of broadcast kit

April Greiman

After looking at book on April Greiman an idea I have been thinking about for a while now was confirmed, that is that some aesthetics in design and art are dictated by the technology of the time (I know this is obvious) and that video technology arrived just before computers in terms of easily available image generation/manipulation tools. The book showed some images Greiman created just before she got access to a Mac using Calarts Grassvally switcher and some video/audio synthesisers. Greiman's work went on to become incredibly influential, she is one of the designers credited with brining 'New Wave' style to America and her unique experimental work influenced many other designers for the next decade and beyond, her utilisation of pixelation and other digitization errors was also ahead of her time.

http://aprilgreiman.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Greiman
http://nicolajaynesullivan.blogspot.co.uk

Jennifer Juniper Stratford

Jennifer Juniper Stratford and her awesome studio has been producing super cool work for a while now. Her Studio sounds very interesting."Telefantasy Studios creates cult movies, music videos, and experimental films using a mix of practical, analog, and computer generated effects. The studio houses a large selection of analog equipment as well as video synthesizers and vintage computers which are often mixed with current technologies to produce new and innovative forms of media."

I also regularly visit her blog which is a great miscellany of the strange, synthetic and scifi.

http://jjstratford.blogspot.com
http://www.telefantasystudios.com/
http://www.jjstratford.com

Richard at Lewes Psychedelic Festival

Richard and his DIY modular audio and video synths will be performing as part of Lewes Psychedelic Festival in the Crayola Lectern psychedelic big band go see some live video synth !

http://synth-punk.blogspot.co.uk/

DIY Micro Video Transmitter Workshop

on the 17th of this fine month I attended a DIY micro video transmitter workshop hosted by Ryan Jordan and run by Kyle Evans of Cracked Ray Tube, The design was based on one produced by Tetsuo Kogawa and continually developed as part of his practice. Kyle also uses this circuit in his work to great effect to derive perfectly imperfect images and abstract raw colour video signal in to new jagged forms. Everyone at the workshop got to make and try a transmitter and we even used two at once. The design is really simple and purposefully unstable to allow artistic exploitation of it's properties.

anyone with limited soldering skills could produce one of these devices easily and it was great fun tuning it in and watching the results. The construction is also beautifully simple using the copper coated PCB material a ground plane and attaching 'tags' to the surface using more PCB material make construction fast simple and relatively interference free. If you can't get to a workshop run by Kyle (which I would recommend due to the fun and social aspect and great documentation alone) then don't fret as the low parts count  make this easy to source and build on your own. 

I was sad not to be able to stay for the live performance by Kyle,  Ryan and a host of others but alas I was halfway though moving house :<

what follow are some bad phone pics 

Tasos Stamou

Experimental Musician Tasos Stamou has produced some interesting modifications to video circuits to allow him to generate visuals using triggers from his modular and other electronic audio devices, He recently presented his work at London Hackspace and a member has also posted a great interview 

www.tasosstamou.com
stamouinstruments.blogspot.com

   

   

 

Interview: Logan Owlbeemoth (OS OVNI/TACHYONS+)

I thought it was about time to start creating some more involved content on VC as at this time there are probably more people interested in video synthesis, video art and DIY electronics than ever before. One of the most prolific people online at the moment both in music and video is Logan Owlbeemoth, his band OS OVNI and his project TACHYONS+ are testament to an interesting and creative mind. I asked Logan if he would answer 5 questions for VC and he very kindly took the time to detail his past and present work and how it came about.

1) Hi Logan I see allot of your work online (OS OVNI, your electronics and other video work) can you tell me a little about the context for your work, where you come from and how that might have helped give rise to what you do?

Mostly everything I have done or been a part of is definitely based in the idea of what are the perceptions of reality. Changing reality, creating new realities through sound and art, colors and tones. Shaping new dimensional worlds based off the influence of science fiction and psychedelic art. OS OVNI (http://osovni.tumblr.com/) is a musical/visual art duo with my wife Omebi ( http://soundcloud.com/omebi ) The past two years of OS OVNI have been heavily involved in experimenting within music video creation and the use of live show visual projections. Our last music tour we went around the U.S. for two months with a LZX Bitvision (http://youtu.be/kcwzGyOoMYA) letting members of the audience use it. Was a great time of showing people what analog video synthesis is and how hands on it is compared to more complicated digital laptop live visual art which is what people are nowadays seemingly use to. It was inspiring to watch the reactions of people and fun doing visuals for the bands we played with like Yip-Yip: (http://youtu.be/zvBofY_UKhs)

2) What video work from the past has influenced your way of doing things?

I remember as a little kid watching Liguid Television on MTV and thats my deepest embedded weird psych artistic mindblowing video art memory by far. Those images are still burned in my mind. ( http://youtu.be/LXhe4jFzEwU )

Obscure yet infamous Damon Packard, a movie director based out of L.A. really changed my visual art perspective in the 2000's with his epic cinematic masterpiece Reflections Of Evil. It's truly one of the most brain-bending films ever and few can even sit through it. His continuous dedication to making films on a shoe-string budget and keeping his own vision at his grasp, have no parallel to other film-makers today and that is a huge influence. I highly recommend his other films Dawn Of A Evil Millinium, Space Disco One, and his Nausicaa live action Tales of the Valley of the Wind. ( http://youtu.be/W68yU3TlCBo )

Moving to Austin in 2009 I met a lot of great film experimentalists including my first introduction to video synthesis. Eventually became friends with Lars Larsen just as he was starting up his LZX video synth business and he made a music video for O.O. ( http://youtu.be/RiXBqihMYQI ). He encouraged me a lot on what video synthesis is. If it wasn't for Lars: my current work with modifying old video processors would possibly not be a reality. His 'Synthesized Landscape' video is by far my favorite work of his. (http://youtu.be/526IgKDcd8U )

Also in Austin, I also met a fascinating visual art duo known as the VIDKIDZ. ( http://www.vidkidz.info/ ) We can became good friends and they did a lot of our live visuals for years including a few music videos. O.O. was invited to open up for the Silver Apples for 2012 New Years and we said yes if only the VIDKIDZ can do visuals. I'm really looking forward to what they end up doing in the future. ( http://youtu.be/sxhFa59VZ7Q )

3) What effects are you trying to achieve with your video equipment modifications and how did that begin?

Well I have been circuit bending for many years on and off. Earlier this year I started modyifying old Casio's. (http://youtu.be/hlpwsWJcAwU) Eventually I wanted to dip my fingers in some video circuits but wasn't sure where to start. One day at a thrift store, Omebi found a old Archer video processor. I opened it up and Wow! It went nuts! Crazy instant psych visuals! Kept playing with it and eventually fried it after a few hours. The translation of experimenting with 80's Casio circuits to video circuits are very different. Theres no margin of error. You touch one wrong point, aka a power capacitor and zap! It's Dead. I didn't go to school for electronics nor have I read a book on the matter, which might be insulting to more serious electronic wizards. But I'm teaching myself slowly what I'm doing and appreciate the intuition factor I involve in my creations.

4) Do you see a link between audio and video and if so could you talk about that?

With today's instant internet connection of the visual-audio realm, I believe a visual accompaniment to music elevates it all wonderfully when done right. Why just use one crayon?

5) Do you think that DIY production (of whatever, equipment, music, video) have a place in the growing net/art music subcultures and where would you like to see these ways of working go?

Since I started making DIY visual art machines, which I call 'poor man video synths'. I can't keep up with the demand for them. There is a lot of people asking me: 'What's a video synth? What? Really? You can do that? Wow! Will you build me one?' Which is fascinating and I'm happy to make them when people request them. I don't ask for much with personal requests but sometimes people jack them up in Ebay wars which sucks because I wish more people could have these at affordable prices. The machines I create are amateur friendly user boxes that can produce great lo-fi video chaos art. I'm hoping over time with daily learning, studying and building that that I can create a low priced video synth box from scratch to offer in the creative visual electronics world.

http://osovni.tumblr.com/
http://tachyonsplus.tumblr.com/
https://vimeo.com/tachyonsplus/videos

Showtime Video Equipment

Various Pics from ebay auctions of rare Showtime/Magnavox video effects equipment