5.27.2025

Video Distortion FX - now with Sound FX

 In my previous post from a few days ago, I mentioned that I wanted to add sound effects to the Touch Designer analog video distortion network that I developed. Well, I did that -- and here are a few examples with manually-triggered tape speed distortion and white noise interference.

(I notice that the Blogger video encoder has really filtered / reduced the visual static noise in the uploads, so please take my word for it that the white noise is much more apparent on the processed source footage.)

Golden Butoh Dancers

Golden Butoh Dancers

Cham Dance




5.19.2025

Video Distortion FX - retro video

 I recently came across a FB Reel post by the artist VJ Kuru who does a lot of live performance work processing with his custom Touch Designer networks. In this post he mentions that he was able to create a video glitch network with only 5 TD nodes. (Actually, if you exclude the required video input node and the optional Null output node, he got his glitch effect with only 3 TD nodes...) 

I was intrigued and so decided I would try to figure this puzzle out -- his Reel showed only the most basic info, but I could see the set of nodes he used, as well as his manipulation of the NOISE TOP's amplitude parameter. So that was my starting point. And after several hours of messing around, I finally found some (rather extreme) settings that essentially duplicated his shifting wavy bands of raster & chroma distortion effect.

This got me playing around with simulating other sorts of analog tape-like distortions. Over the course of the afternoon, I added vertical roll distortion, tape dropout noise, and static like from dirty VCR playback heads (or a badly tuned TV set). Here is a snapshot of the TD network I ended up with (obviously much larger than a 5 node solution...):

Then I tried adding audio white noise sync'd to the visual white noise but I found it too annoying recurring at the frequency of the visual effect. So I dropped that one. But, I still have one other idea for audio distortion to add in -- a tape transport speed irregularity that affects the soundtrack (but not the image). I'll probably get back to this in the next few weeks. We'll see...

Meanwhile, I'm sharing some examples (below) of my current retro analog video processing network  based upon found footage of the Golden Butoh (Daidogei) Dance Troupe from Japan:






Video Noise Distortion - retro video - a few more samples

Here are a few more examples of processed footage using my retro analog video processing network described in my previous post:

UTE Fire Dance
Prayer Wheel
Prayer Wheel
Ancestors

5.18.2025

Prayer Wheel Processing Using PhotoMosh Pro

Another very interesting and powerful tool available on the Mac is PhotoMosh Pro (now called Mosh Pro). While this is not a real time processing app -- i.e.: the work screen shows an approximation of real time effects, but any final patch needs to be 'recorded' (exported) explicitly to create an output file for further use...

What is nice about this app is that it has a huge range of effects (most of which have parameter adjustments that can be controlled manually or by LFOs and such), but presents itself as a stackable array of such processing steps (with processing order able to be swapped as desired). It's really quite powerful as you can see below in a few samples - including a Rutt-Etra like effect.




5.16.2025

Using the Color Mixer from Philosophical Tools

Eric Souther (Philosophical Tools on Patreon) has released a new Touch Designer TOX processing network based upon the 8 channel Color Mixer hardware device developed by David Jones.  I initially encountered the color mixer while at my first Experimental TV Center artist residency in 1987 - and I immediately fell in love with the beautiful layering of multi channel video "slices", each of which could be keyed and colorized independently before being summed together on output. Eric's TOX network provides a nice emulation of the original hardware mixer.

The sample footage I'm sharing originates from my original video tape library documenting visits in the early 1990s to several Mayan sites including Chichén Itzá and Cobol in the Yucatan Peninsular of Mexico. Selections have been fed thru the Color Mixer processing network to achieve my desired look and texture. 

Note that edited / selected segments of these raw processing flows will be used in my upcoming River Styx video: the specific section of the program deals with the Journey thru the Mayan Underworld (descent into flames and darkness) and the Voyage to the Ancestors (climbing the sacred mountain into the Sky realms).









Flames Samples 2 - Re:Struktr Processing

 

from the Fire & Flames series

Flames Samples - Re:Struktr Processing

 



from the Fire & Flames series



Wind Chimes Samples - Re:Struktr Processing

 





from the Wind Chimes series


Swimming Sample - Re:Struktr Processing

 

from the Swimming series

Sinking Sample - Re:Struktr Processing

 


from the Sinking series

Floating Samples - Re:Struktr Processing

 

    
from the Floating series


Fire Dance Samples - Re:Struktr Processing

    
From the Fire Dance series

Return to posting after a long break...

 It's not that I haven't been making stuff, but I've been unfocused in terms of posting stuff. 

I've done a lot  more Prayer Wheel explorations using the Signal Culture Re:Struktr app. I've also gotten much deeper into Touch Designer processing networks as well over the last few months.  And I've done more work on my River Styx video script - including investigating / testing  various text-to-audio AI services. So far, I'm leaning towards ElevenLabs voices...

So, next I'll be posting sample stuff in a somewhat chronological order next.