Produced by Christopher Konopka
A 2016 collaboration of Christopher Konopka (analog video synthesis, audio sampling, analog audio synthesis) and Tom Zicarelli (shortwave radio, audio synthesis, and saxophone). Here’s track one:
By Christopher Konopka
In the past year, Chris has published nearly 2500 improvised video pieces.
You may be familiar with analog modular audio synthesis. The hardware to produce video looks nearly identical – a maze of patch cords and dials.
Analog video is television. A CRT (cathode ray tube) resynthesizes video information by demodulating signals from a camera. Vintage televisions have dials to adjust color and vertical sync. When you turn the dials you are synthesizing analog video. Distortion, filtering, and feedback – either at the source (camera) or the destination (tv screen) – offer up an infinite variety of images.
Today all media is digital. Like the screen you are looking at. The difference with analog is in how it’s produced. Boundaries are less definite. Lines curve. Colors waver. Feedback looks like flames. Every frame is a painting.
https://vimeo.com/172035463
Images can be generated electronically using modules – without a camera.
Like with audio sampling, anything is a source. Movies, Youtube, live television, even Felix the Cat.
https://vimeopro.com/cskonopka/analogvideo-december-2015/video/153312961
When you aim a guitar at an amplifier it screams. Tilt it away slightly and the screaming subsides. In between there’s sweet spot. The same is true with cameras and screens. Feedback results when output is mixed with input.
https://vimeopro.com/cskonopka/analogvideo-december-2015/video/153306760
Analog shortwave radio signals are distorted by the atmosphere in a manner similar to video filtering.
A studio in Bethel, Maine.
An improvised collaboration between Chris and Tom Zicarelli using shortwave radio processed with audio effects.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BImQwOGBveV/?taken-by=cskonopka
A recent screen test at the Gem Theatre in Bethel, Maine. Source material is a time lapse film of a glacier installation – produced at the same theatre – by Wade Kavanaugh and Steven Nguyen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c36Y-Dcj30 The film was re-synthesized using analog video and feedback. Soundtrack by Tom Zicarelli.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BImRSzHBOLL/?taken-by=cskonopka
Big screen equals mind bending experience.
Note: previous clip excerpted from this 15 minute jam: https://vimeo.com/177843310
The patterns in this clip appear to be three dimensional. They are not.
From a show that happened somewhere in the known universe:
Improvised analog video with the band “Alto”. Patterns reminiscent of magical textiles.
Bidirectional analog/digital conversion of composite, s-video, and firewire/ilink.
By Grass Valley
http://www.grassvalley.com/products/advc110
Using this device on Mac OS X 10.9, analog video input shows up as a system device. It also works as a firewire video output device.
Using Jitter you can get real time input from analog video devices like cameras and VCR’s. Here’s an example using jit.grab (Max help file) to get input from an analog camcorder.
Sending output via firewire to a TV using jit.qt.videoout (Jitter tutorial 22):
This is what it looks like on a TV:
Audio/video synthesizer with hacked VGA cables.
By James H. Connolly
http://jameshconnolly.com/rgb-vga-volt
A better tutorial (with warnings) on building the cables, at CrackedRayTube, also by James Connolly with Kyle Evans: http://crackedraytube.com/pdfs/hacking_a_vga_monitor.pdf
Max patch for controlling the system: http://jameshconnolly.com/rgbvgavolt/RGB.VGA.VOLT.zip
By Christopher Konopka
Chromascope Analog Video Synthesizer
By Don Slepian, 1983
http://www.veoh.com/watch/e68305kXXwNmEs
More about Chromascope: http://www.eyetrap.net/Chromascope_Video_Synthesizer.html
Watch Beginnings in Music | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
By Franciszka and Stefan Themerson (1944/45)
https://youtu.be/Lk2M1jUNq1U
“Modified Vectrex console driven by LZX Industries modular video synthesizer.”
By LZX Industries
