Upstream Gallery Annual Juried Photography Show 2024

I'm pleased to announce that one of my recent video time-lapse composite pieces, Spirit Howl, is going to be in the upcoming 2024 Photo Show: Ordinary & Extraordinary at The Upstream Gallery.

Thursday, February 1, 2024: Opening day of exhibition, 12:30pm-5:30pm.

Sunday, February 4, 2024: Opening reception, 2:00pm-5:00pm.

Sunday, February 25, 2024: Last day of exhibition, 12:30pm-5:30pm.  Curator's Talk 3:30pm.

Location: 

8 Main Street, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, 10706 

www.upstreamgallery.com 

Gallery Hours: 

Thursdays & Fridays: 12:30 - 5:30 pm

Saturdays: 10 am to 5:30 pm

Sundays: 12:30 - 5:30 pm

Still Frames Timelapse

Playing around with processed footage, thinking about how to make interesting "hard copy" output - decided to do a "time-lapse" sort of thing taking photos off the TV screen over the course of video playback of processed footage of my video camera panning over two figurative sculptures. (See previous several posts showing processed footage of sculptures by the artist team Sylvain and Ghyslaine Staëlens -  shot by me at the 2020 Outsider Art Fair, NYC.)

Used Photoshop to composite the sequence of still images shot off the monitor into a time-lapse. Because I had been hand-holding the camera while taking the photos, the monitor screen was often askew in each image. I decided to play off of that randomness as another source of "noise" as I lined up the various frames in each composite strip.

Below you can see the results of two sequences I pieced together. The tall totemic image is of a pan from top to bottom of a voodoo-like standing figure. The piece is named "Spirit Howl." The long landscape-format image is of a pan across a spirit riding in a boat. The piece is named "Spirit Bark." The output is printed on a metallic white luster coat archival paper which works beautifully to give a visual "zap" to the video-sourced images.

Spirit Howl © 2024

Spirit Bark © 2024

Detail of Spirit Bark © 2024

Analog Video Processing Using DIY Hardware

Here are a few examples of processed footage using various circuits developed during the "Intro to Video Circuits" class (described in previous post).

Note: The source video footage being processed is of sculptures by the artist team Sylvain and Ghyslaine Staëlens -  shot by me at the 2020 Outsider Art Fair, NYC.

DIY Analog Video Processing Hardware 101

 I'm excited to be taking a class (started last November) entitled "Introduction to Video Circuits" taught by media artist Sean Hallowell, a member of the Polyphase collective. (Refer to link for a listing of their most current classes being offered.)

Starting with basic RC filters and whatnot, we've moved on weekly thru various circuit component such as comparators (to isolate sync), oscillators (for chroma burst & other FX), buffers, switches and so forth. It's been interesting, at times frustrating (debugging breadboard circuits), and yet quite fun! 

When I got out of art school, I had wanted to learn more about video circuitry - as I thought one possible job might be working in a TV studio maintaining equipment. (Anything would beat doing construction, a skill which most of my male artist friends seemed to fall back upon...) While living in SF, I went back to technical school and received a degree in Electronic Engineering. However, when I emerged into the job market with my new knowledge, I found myself working at a small microcomputer startup, Micromation, located in the lovely North Beach neighborhood of SF.  I was doing hardware diagnostics and programming. Although I continued to make video art, somehow the video/TV engineering thread got dropped as I went deeper into life as a full-fledged software engineer. So imagine my joy at now returning to the world of video engineering 50 years later - after retirement. Learning the basics of signal processing and glitching...

 

 Note: The source video footage being processed is of a sculpture by the artist team Sylvain and Ghyslaine Staëlens -  shot by me at the 2020 Outsider Art Fair, NYC.

Spirits Floating - a Selection of Processing Outtakes for River Styx

While entitled as "Spirits Floating", perhaps these should be seen as experiences of the Astral Plane, Dreamtime, Bardo, awakening from deep sleep, or near-death / post-death transition? Selection of mainly digital processing outtakes for River Styx video program. 

Done with a number of different SW apps in my toolbox (and often with rescanning) applied to various segments of found video footage.

Glitch Processing found footage of Golden Butoh - Part 5

Here is the final set of sample examples of video FX processing the found footage of Golden Butoh (Daidogei) Dance Troupe from Japan. The examples are all from a glitch-modified hardware device (called OptiGlitch) produced by the artist & hardware hacker Logan - and sold thru his website Tachyons+. Using a device such as the OptiGlitch, processed footage must be rescanned off the monitor to be usable (have stable sync for record / playback).

Demons and/or Celestial Dancers for possible inclusion in River Styx video program. 

PhotoMoshing found footage of Golden Butoh - Part 4

Here are still more sample examples of video FX processing the found footage of Golden Butoh (Daidogei) Dance Troupe from Japan. The examples are all from a program called PhotoMosh Pro (as describe in previous post). 

Demons and/or Celestial Dancers for possible inclusion in River Styx video program.

PhotoMoshing found footage of Golden Butoh - Part 3

Here are more sample examples of video FX processing the found footage of Golden Butoh (Daidogei) Dance Troupe from Japan. The examples are all from a program called PhotoMosh Pro (as describe in previous post). 

Demons and/or Celestial Dancers for possible inclusion in River Styx video program.

PhotoMoshing found footage of Golden Butoh - Part 2

Here are more sample examples of video FX processing the found footage of Golden Butoh (Daidogei) Dance Troupe from Japan. The examples are all from a program called PhotoMosh Pro (as describe in previous post). 

Demons and/or Celestial Dancers for possible inclusion in River Styx video program.

PhotoMoshing found footage of Golden Butoh

Here are some other sample examples of video FX processing the found footage of Golden Butoh (Daidogei) Dance Troupe from Japan. This time, the examples are all from a program called PhotoMosh Pro running on my Mac. The SW has an endless variety of processing options as each "process filter" has specific adjustments, as well as allowing multiple "process filters" to be stacked on each other for more complex FX. (Filter configurations can be saved and reloaded, parameters edited.) This does require a rendering step for final output (GIF or video). 

Lots of great FX (some of which almost appear analog in nature), and great fun to experiment with! In these examples, I've focused on configuring a rescan / scanline visual FX combined with VCR noise glitch FX to form the basis of processing output.

Wobbulating the Spirit Realm

In this post, I will be sharing some (raw) wobulator-processed found footage of Golden Butoh (Daidogei) Dance Troupe from Japan. Selections will be included in my River Styx video program. Not sure yet if these figures are writhing Demons or Celestial Dancers - or both simultaneously?

A Wobbulator of My Own - Part 2

So once the Wobbulator unit itself has been constructed and successfully tested, that's only the first step in the larger journey... as discussed in the (previously posted) Wobbulator documentary by Blaire Neil, the device's coils need high power (at least 75 Watts per channel) audio to control the individual deflection coils (H,V, "S" coils). So that means the setup requires at least 3 separately controllable channels of audio power amplification (in my case, I made use of a pair of Sony home entertainment system receivers/amps found on EBay). And you need three sources of audio control. I decided to make use of a software emulation of a Eurorack setup, customized with three channels of oscillators and output gain controls. (The free PD software is "VCV Rack 2".)  These VCV synthesized signals are fed out of my computer via a set of USB audio interfaces (Behringer U-Control units), to the audio power amps, and thence to the Wobbulator coils inputs. Of course, you also need a camera to rescan the Wobbulator's screen. (I found an old Hi8 camcorder on Ebay that does the trick. But there are a lot of video recording possibilities - the only limitation being the ability to manually focus and zoom!)

Below are a couple of examples from my Wobbulator at work in my studio. I have tuned the "H" coil frequency to create accentuated scaliness, and the "S" coil frequency to create the raster wobble.

A Wobbulator of My Own!

 Last fall I participated in a hands-on DIY workshop to build a personal Wobbulator. (The workshop was organized and run by the artist Jen Kutler who patiently provided instructions, as well as the required raw materials such as special coil wire and "S" coil armature. All each participant had to do was bring in two functioning B&W analog TV sets - one for the final Wobbulator and one for cannibalized coil parts.)

Below is some workshop footage of me winding my "S" coil and an initial test of the finished Wobbulator. Also, a short documentary on the Paik-Abe Wobbulator.

Wobbulator setup in studio with power amps, rescan video camera, and MIDI controller for adjustment of oscillators' frequencies and strength.

Some Wobbulated Video Outtakes for River Styx Program

 In the 80's and 90's I had a number of artist residencies at The Experimental Television Center in Oswego, NY where I had the opportunity to utilize their custom built Paik-Abe Wobbulator unit. It's easier to watch a few video examples than to explain the analog processing FX in detail, but suffice to say that the Wobbulator allows distortion of a CRT's horizontal and vertical deflection raster, as well as adding a third special deflection coil (termed an "S" coil) which creates a sort of S rotational wobble to the raster. One thing to note is that with such signal distortion, the only means to record the Wobbulator's FX is via RESCAN of the CRT with another camera - a traditional analog video processing / recording technique.

Although many video artists have used the Wobbulator in more extreme raster distortion modes, my typical use of it has been to create slow waves, shifts, wobbles to the image. This is then keyed on top of the original footage to achieve the desired dream-like effect. Below you can view a "ghost walking up hill" segment originally processed at ETC (perhaps around 1986?) followed by a recent re-processing addition using the Phosphortron app (described in the previous post).

Some Video Outtakes for "River Styx" Video Program

 The following short video segments show processing of footage from my library of personal video tape (this one from a lake shot in 1982 using an early Betamax portable VCR). The source footage has been processed in various ways including use of a public domain App called Phosphortron (developed by Eric Souther) that layers on the green outlining FX.

Some Animation Outtakes for "River Styx" Video Program

I've been working on and off on the script of "River Styx" now for several years. It's just about ready to go into production.  The focus of this program is on transition (death, dreaming, wake/sleep, reincarnation, and more...) from a psychological perspective, mythopoetic perspective, meditational perspective.

As part of this process, I've been reviewing my library of video footage, both "documentary" travel & vacation stuff, as well as processed stuff (such as done in residency at The Experimental TV Center years ago). I've been employing of a number of software packages (Apps) to perform processing. I have been making use of dedicated hardware (glitch devices, wobulator). And I have made limited use of AI (Dali-E 2 & Crayon) to explore scene generation sourcing for later manipulation in Photoshop and misc. other apps. - Quite a range of tests and exploration!

I want to post a few examples of the AI-derived work for early last year to let you see short outtakes of scenes that may appear in the final full length edit. Enjoy!

Chairon the boatman rowing lost souls across the lake of fire

Lost soul wandering in the Wastelands

Souls waiting at river's edge to board the Ferryman's boat

Time Passes...

Well its been some time since the last post. Preoccupied? Yes. Too busy? Often. Simply just got out of the habit... But I will rectify this by adding a bunch of posts showing my new art activity over the last year and a half. Let me know what you think! Thanks.