We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Patched Fragments of Queen Crystalette

by Alex January

supported by
yolo_biafra
yolo_biafra thumbnail
/
1.
Archegonia and the Antherozoids 15:00
buy track
2.
A Miracle 05:06
buy track
3.
Disintegration of the Obsidian Hypogeum 07:48
buy track

about

A composition by way of audio and video signal interaction, through real-time feedback manipulation and cv processing.

To Winsor McCay ( c. 1866–71 – July 26, 1934)
schulzlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/p3kiss.jpg

The audiovisual composition can be viewed here :
vimeo.com/496268908
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGnsb-b2mVk&feature=youtu.be

Similarly to the figures investigated by Ernst Chladni (youtube.com/watch?v=tFAcYruShow), Hans Jenny (www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Io6lop3mk) and Michael Faraday (www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeMbKpk-X4s), or to those discovered by Margaret Watts (publicdomainreview.org/essay/picturing-a-voice-margaret-watts-hughes-and-the-eidophone), my work with video feedback (vimeo.com/496268908) is based on resonance patterns produced electronically through self-oscillation, as described by Douglas R. Hofstadter in his book "I am a strange loop" (publicism.info/philosophy/strange/7.html) and as investigated, since, in many different research fields (neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-80s-video-10386/).
Additionally, in this work, image generation is influenced by sound, which is in turn influenced by these images.
My process is the following : a camera is pointed to a screen that the camera is connected to through a video mixer.
The video mixer (an Edirol V4) receives cc messages for variation of luminance, chrominance, keying and symmetric shaping from a modular synthesizer's oscillators, ring modulator and envelopes outputs, through a Kenton CV-to-MIDI adaptor.
The henceforth produced variations influence the patterns that are generated through the video loop.
The video is recorded from the video mixer to an Avermedia capture box that sports a component video output.
The recorded patterns are played back from the capture box and the Y cable of its component output is reinjected in the mixer's composite input for a new session of video feedback, where pattern production results from a mix of pure video feedback and the "reaction" to these previous patterns appearing on the screen, albeit "distorted" by the component-to-composite conversion
(I sometimes also employ a 2nd video mixer, a Videonics MX-1, before the final output, for additional image shaping through mirroring).
Meanwhile the Pb and Pr cables are sent to the modular synth to modulate, through a CV processor, the FM inputs of the oscillators, the amplitude of the ring modulator, the time response of the envelopes...
For each "take", video and sound are recorded simultaneously on the Avermedia boxes (I employ two boxes, one for signal relay and one at the final output, though both record all inputted signals).
Material gathered from these boxes is then edited on Avid First.
Although this is by no means a "live" process, image and sound are thus produced each time in "real time", without the use of a computer program.

credits

released January 1, 2021

license

tags

about

Alex January image

Alex January Paris, France

contact / help

Contact Alex January

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Alex January, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now