Here are a few samples of processing a Celestial Dancer clip for my River Styx project.
The processing includes use of a custom edge-ringing glitch circuit (developed during Sean Hallowell's Intro to Video Circuits class on Polyphase Portal - discussed previously) with additional layering / luma keying / color correction on OBS.
Here are a few samples of processing Ancestors footage (originally shots of various museum displays of Greek and Roman statues) for my River Styx project.
The processing includes use of a custom edge-ringing glitch circuit (developed during Sean Hallowell's Intro to Video Circuits class on Polyphase Portal - discussed previously) with additional layering / color correction on OBS.
Here are a few samples of processing the Cambridge punting footage for my River Styx project.
The processing includes use of a custom edge-ringing glitch circuit (developed during Sean Hallowell's Intro to Video Circuits class on Polyphase Portal - discussed previously).
Continuation of previous post: using OBS, overlayed (source) footage with Wobbulated version of same, including feedback camera processing and additional layers of pre-recorded material. Also, layered in processed footage from a custom video circuit developed during Sean Hollowell's Intro to Video Circuits class (at Polyphase Portal).
Here are some more samples of resulting processed footage:
I finally got the kinks worked out of my system configuration and now can overlay recorded (source) footage with Wobbulated version of same (sometimes luma keyed), layer in other pre-recorded material (flames, fog), and also include feedback camera processing.
Here are some samples of resulting processed footage:
As part of my ongoing process of OBS discovery and use, I recently was able to configure my system flow to support both my Wobbulator rescan feed AND the original feed being sourced to the Wobbulator. There is a slight delay of a frame or two perhaps, but most importantly this allows synchronized key overly effects to be recorded.
As a note, I've found the Camo Studio app (for Mac) to be extremely useful in processing the video feed from my rescan camera (a Hi8 camcorder). It allows full control over frame resolution and frame rate, signal parameters such as luma, gamma, saturation, sharpness, as well as adjustment of zoom and relative placement/offset of the raster image. This latter function makes it easy to align the camera rescan manually - to center it and zoom to eliminate the CRT borders as desired.
So for your enjoyment below are a few samples of my "go to" rowing video clip showing various FXs and overlays.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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| Image of an experimental color CRT Wobbulator being built at Signal Culture labs. |
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| Wobbulated still image of Nixon |
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| Animation of a sequence of still Wobbulated images |
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