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).

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).

Chernobyl West

 I'm posting a few of my early video works from 'back in the days' of neophyte vidiots, EAI, The Kitchen (in Soho), Mudd Club video nights, and analog video processing via The Experimental Television Center.

Chernobyl West 1986 (7:48)

https://vimeo.com/583146067

Video art from 1986 - narrative about the after effects of a hypothetical nuclear power plant meltdown occurring in upstate NY. (Note: approx. 40 seconds of color bars at start of recording.)

Welcome to Vacationland

I'm posting a few of my early video works from 'back in the days' of neophyte vidiots, EAI, The Kitchen (in Soho), Mudd Club video nights, and analog video processing via The Experimental Television Center.

 

Greetings From Vacationland 1986 (28:02)

https://vimeo.com/585022696

It's not all billboard perfect in Vacationland - everywhere one looks, environmental concerns are rampant. Join us on a summer visit full of unexpected surprises. (Note: approx. 40 seconds of color bars at start of recording.)

What to Watch on Vimeo

I've set up several Vimeo showcases that allow viewing sets of related videos and animations by project. (Will open in new window)

 

Forest Gods Jungle Spirits (2018-2020)

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7966915 

Buddhaverse Variations (2020)

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7916179 

Excerpts from Experimental Television Center

(from various residencies 1987-1993)

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7941840

Please Stand By

 

More excepts from digitized library of my Experimental Television Center analog processed video footage [t.k.]

Would-be Wobbulator

The video below (from which IOS app, I sadly now forget - perhaps Kino Glitch?) is the closest I've been able to achieve to a simple H axis wobbulator raster FX performed in the digital realm.

Compare this to an actual Wobbulator raster FX (Nixon portrait) posted previously.

ETC Sample Footage: Ghost Walker

This is an example of footage I compiled and processed at ETC under the topic heading of 'Dreamtime'. It seems very hallucinatory or perhaps like a shamanic journey vision. The source footage was recorded at Storm King Art Park. Processing included the greytone 'wobbled' imagery rescanned from the Paik-Abe Wobbulator and keyed over the original. In this preset, the Wobulator control signals were set to create only a slight ripple in the horizontal scanlines, rather than creating a fully distorted 3D 'wrapped raster' effect. (This effect would be almost impossible to generate via today's digital apps.)

ETC Sample Footage: Tide Pools

 This is an example of footage I compiled and processed at ETC under the topic heading of 'tide pools' recorded originally at Point Reyes seashore in Marin County, CA. Colorization, frame buffering,  slowmo, and luma-key processing was applied to the anemones in the pools as waves came rushing in and flowed back out. There is one spot in this sample (00:55) where the chaotic water becomes totally abstract, finally resolving into bubbly foam. (This is an example of an analog image processing preset that could be replicated today with digital apps.)

ETC Sample Footage: Halloween Diaspora

This is an example of footage I compiled and processed at ETC under the topic heading of 'diaspora' to eventually make use in a video about dislocation due to environmental or political disruptions. The original footage was recorded during a Halloween parade in Oswego, NY (where the Experimental Television Center was located) during one of my residencies there. Of particular interest is the red/blue alternating colorization being triggered by a low frequency square wave controlling the signal processing. Also, note the great high-contrast scan line graininess possible thru use of rescan.

PS: note the great skeleton zombie carrying rifle costume on the young boy walking this his father (at around 00:45).

ETC Sample Footage: Rowing on a Lake of Flames

This is an example of footage I compiled and processed at ETC under the topic heading of 'rowing a boat' to eventually make use in a video about death, Bardo, and spiritual transition - the core symbolism of rowing being from the Greek myth of the Boatman Acheron rowing newly deceased souls across the River Styx into the Hell realms.

After A Long Pandemic Pause

After a long pandemic pause, I'm back to posting new stuff on my Image Maya blog. You might ask what have I been doing? Actually, I've spent the time quite resourcefully pulling together a complete system to digitize all of my library of video tapes that have languished in a cupboard for way too long... My tape library starts back in the early 1980's with my first 1/2" Beta portable unit (from CTL Electronics in lower Manhattan (my old Tribeca loft neighborhood). After a handful of well-used Beta portables, I jumped in the Hi8 bandwagon - smaller, lighter weight, better quality (?). Then off to digital DV land when that format became available. Meanwhile, as a vidiot producing video art work in the 80's and early 90's, I did all my Master productions on an industrial A/B roll 3/4" U-matic system. 

Needless to say, I faced hundreds of hours of video inventory from my travels around the world to digitize. On top of that, I had over 60 3/4" reels of image processed footage from my residencies at the Experimental Television Center (ETC). These are what I consider to be the 'crown jewels' from the days of analog video processing using tools such as the Jones Colorizer, the Paik-Abe Wobbulator, and other signal processing and keying devices. At the time, the only digital device available at ETC was an one-of-a-kind Jones Frame Buffer (which did just that - buffered a set of video frames for looping, freeze framing, and delaying). Of course, key to the whole production process was using video cameras to rescan off of monitors which allowed for multiple levels of processing effects (way beyond simple feedback). In the case of the Wobbulator, a raster distortion device manipulating H & V frequencies of a CRT display, the only way to actually make use of its range of processing effects was by rescan. (In any case, in hindsight there was a whole lot of glitchy / processed stuff one could easily do in the analog  realm that have no direct analog in digital software-based processing. Exhibit A: the Wobbulator, which became my favorite tool.)

The process in the ETC studio for me involved selecting source footage from my video library and passing that thru the various hot-patched processing devices, and finally back to tape. Because of the analog nature of the controls, real time modifications and tweaking (playing around with settings and patches) was the norm. So typically once a record tape got rolling, a long 5-15 minute 'play' session would resulted. Fine. But of course, unlike many other video folks engaged in image processing triggered by music or electronic sounds (think of early Mudd Club visual music stuff), I was interested not in the durational / abstract / generational element of the process, but rather in generating 15-30 second, perhaps 2 minute long processed segments to incorporate into my video narratives.

With that as background, I decided the shutdown provided me a window of time to digitize my source videos before the inevitable wear of time made the tapes unplayable physically, either due to tape decay or unavailability of obsolescent decks to play such. I calculated that I'd need around 6TB of storage for all of my material, stored at DV's equivalent to pre-HD analog resolution: 720x480. And lots of time - as digitizing tapes is by its very nature 'real time'. Plus, I wanted to create a tape index of locations, subjects, and scenes to make finding interesting material possible in the virtual haystack. (I have started by using EXCEL spreadsheets, with a goal of creating a true relational database... sooner than later...)

And of course, every video deck I owned needed repair servicing after being idle in the closet for 20+ years. Or I had to buy something off EBAY...

So all of that has been taking time.

But that's not all - I've also been working on a series of digital glitch animations based upon my Tibetan Buddhist art. But more on that in a later posting.

For now, I want to post several short video excepts from some of the ETC processed footage. 

Paik-Abe Wobbulator

Image of an experimental color CRT Wobbulator being built at Signal Culture labs.

Wobbulated still image of Nixon

Animation of a sequence of still Wobbulated images

One More Batch of Forest Goddess Glitches

These particular glitch effects harken back to the 1980's when I was using analog video synthesis and processing equipment at the Experimental Television Center in Oswego, NY. The short "takes" remind me that I have stacks of 3/4", Beta, Hi8 and DV video tapes (many from those days as an artist in residence at the ETC studio) on the shelf that need to be digitized. Fragments. Fluxus. Zen.