Glitch Art Dot Com

This summer I took a hardware hacked 3.1mp digital camera on the road with me for a little art adventure.  I live to travel and felt like I was overdue for a little fresh air in the ol’ balloon, naw mean?  I am historically quite rubbish at remembering to snap pics as I go.  While I rarely remember to pick my camera up in the midst of an exciting moment I find myself more often turning to it in the mundane moments spent in airports, on quiet strolls or in between destinations.  The subsequent folder of photos is always a bleak and droopy hodgepodge of figures and shapes evoking memories so vague I’m not sure they were ever even mine to begin with.  Admittedly I don’t travel so well these days.  It’s like the jetlag sets in and never really lifts (not that I don’t still enjoy myself a bit).  With that in mind I feel like these photos more accurately capture the essence of traveling in my subjective meat prison than regular photos ever could.

I will leave the locations ambiguous and the context minimal.  No additional software processing is occurring here.  It’s just that raw hacked shit.  I find that these photos are a lot more vivid prior to compression.  I’m still working on a way to scale down the size and keep the artifacts from softening a bit.  Please note, hacked digital cameras are no longer anything I am pursuing manufacturing or selling due to impracticality.

Why upgrade your Premium Cable?  Excellent question.

Well I’ve stumbled upon a number of revisions over the years and for one it would be nice to get everyone on the same page.  I’ve also seen some well-loved PCs out there that could use a little tune up.  More than all this, considering the doors CV integration opens up on the PC I think that everyone should have this functionality.  I’ve long had a CV injection point for the Premium Cable worked out.  Sadly, the housing size renders adding extra jacks near impossible without removing components.  Recently I realized that the “titler control” jack is a 3.5mm input and by cutting the trace associated with it’s original functionality I can re-assign it.  Perhaps your Premium Cable has the white switch that turns the neon knob on and off?  Well, this would be removed and a 3.5mm jack would be installed in it’s place.  This would give rise to the tiniest bit of green-ing depending on your model of Cable but I think personally it is worth it.

In regards to the CV input.  The CV injection most directly effects a shared point.  The neon, white fill, horizontal tare & hard de-sync all share the same point so that these effects are most directly effected by CV (the neon making the most pronounced impact).  Should you have another knob combination dialed in and then combine it with one of the for mentioned effect knobs you will be feeding CV in to the global look.  In the LZX world the Premium Cable responds well to ramps from Cortex, Pendulum and various outputs from Shapechanger.  Anything you can conjure via a Prismatic Ray can be inputted in to the Premium Cable and visualized via certain knob combinations (with the use of the Cortex).  No additional CV features can be added to the Premium, there just is not any more room.

I’ve also changed some capacitor values on the actual circuit that give you easier access to the Premium Cable’s unique variety of thicker chunkier ringing/edge feedback.  It’s that sci-fi shit all the kids are going coocoo over.  Is this necessary to enjoy the Premium Cable?  No.  Does it improve it’s overall aesthetics and make it easier to dial in ringing across a wide-variety of CRTs?  Yes!  This is what I’ve set out to demonstrate in the demo video below.  Check it out for yourself:

Please note: Matters of cosmetics beyond missing knobs will not be addressed.  The price of the upgrade includes fixing broken pots, replacing switches and replacing missing knobs.  Nothing else.  That about covers it!  Head over to the Premium Cable Upgrade page to purchase your upgrade now.

Back in 2015 I finished a project I was particularly excited about.  Still am really.  In typical Pauper fashion I used it on a couple of things and then let it collect dust for three years with minimal documentation.  In an effort to get back in to a creative practice (need…. to…. make….. more…. art…. *GASP*)  I recently plugged in my well-abused modified Playstation 2 and sat down to work on some brief sketches.  It’s a rewarding machine to approach as an artistic tool.  As with most corrupted gaming environments the palette changes from game to game depending on the manner in which the engineers utilized the hardware.

The level at which you can stack bends and shred polygons down to their basics is b-b-breath-taking.  I spent a lot of time researching the PS2 hardware before I dove in.  Fortunately there is a lot out there on the subject.  The GPU corruption mods I wired up for the PS2 are a lot more varied in comparison to what I cooked up on the Dreamcast (which I will highlight in a later installment).  The PS2 has some very nice object trailing modes and vertical polygonal stretch modes that far exceed the corrupted malleability of polygons on both the PS1, Sega Saturn & Dreamcast.  The right conditions even create little rivers of feedback in conjunction with object texture-stripping (see “Where the Water Meets the Ruins” below).

I was never a PS2 fan as a kid, my allegiance was with Sega.  In my later years however my primary fascination with the PS2 became how vast and trashy the library of titles is.  They pumped out a lot of soul-less crap for this thing.  It’s library is a pretty apt reflection of American culture in the early two thousands.  Speaking of which, another aspect worth noting about the PS2 was how dark, realistic and graphic the depictions of violence suddenly got.  Where else could you strangle a dude with a plastic bag?  Or beat a prostitute to death after paying them for sex?  Lord knows what cruel fantasies we’re acting out in video games these days but the PS2 featured some of the first titles to genuinely shock and disturb me.

I initially wanted to work with some of the most objectively cruel and useless titles and see if I could flip ’em in an interesting way.  This is what lead me to working so extensively with Cabela games for a little while there.  The premise to every Cabela game is simple (and poorly executed); kill animals.  While I’d rather people kill virtual animals than real ones I still find these games a special breed of depressing.  For “Fabricating Elk Meadows” I utilized the game Dangerous Hunts where you follow an old man into the woods to shoot all manner of woodland creatures.  I was delighted to discover that you can choose not to pick up any weapons and walk right past the old guy into the woods for a leisurely stroll where effectively nothing happens.  The forest is designed to look dark and “dangerous” but by utilizing the right combination of GPU corruptions it becomes a pretty peaceful and warm place to take a stroll.

In anticipation of a Basement Labs VHS release I’m working on with the circuit bent PS2 I’ve uploaded a couple of quick sketches from 2015-2016.  I’ll be uploading and sharing some more recent works shortly.  I also hope to document a number of other curious things I’ve done with my time on planet earth in the near future.  Keep your Eyes peeled for “Mining the Emotion Engine” from Basement Labs this September.

Are you a vidiot living in, and or around Portland, OR?  Looking to kill some time with other potentially like-minded vidiots?  Perhaps you might consider the BPMC Takeover edition of Cathode Ray Consortium’s VIDEO MIXER at Modular8 tuesday Marh 13th.  Rather than run my gums all night I’ll be setting up little video art workstations centered around some of the unique gear available at Pauper Palace.  This will be a great opportunity for you to get your hands on a number of obscure tools like the Fairlight CVI, Pinnacle Prizm, Videonics Studio Skech, Innisfree Picasso as well as some shit I cooked up.  I am also hoping to have a number of prototypes of the NEW BREED available for demo in eurorack form.

We are about a year deep in to hosting these things and I’ve gotta say they are a fun way to pass an evening.  Big thanks as always to Phil at Modular8!

For those interested, who also have facebook accounts, please peep the event page.

For those not on facebook… I truly salute you.

You are cordially invited to Video Mixer.

When: March 13th 2018 (7pm – 9pm)

Where: Modular8 (1416 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR 97214)

Signal Culture is currently accepting applications for it’s spring/summer artist, researcher & toolmaker residencies.  As a past attendee I highly recommend Signal Culture to new media artists seeking a unique hands-on signal processing experience.  The mid-february deadline is already creeping right up so don’t sleep!

Back in the fall of 2016 I flew in to Albany, NY and somehow found my way to the quiet little upstate town of Owego (not Oswego… by all means, do not fuck this up).  I had been accepted to the toolmaker residency  and had the Codename: Video-3 (now Televandalist) to iron out and build.   Scott Kiernan (pictured), of ESPTV, was the artist-in-residence and chief wobbulator-modulator for the duration of my stay.

Aside from working on my circuit design (and a couple of fifths of Bulleit rye) I was excited to research and wrap my head around NY state signal processing history.  The library at Open Signal had a lot of unique and obscure reads but of all the books I stumbled upon The Emergence of Video Processing Tools (Vol. 1 & 2) was by far the most useful in my quest.  A great video companion piece to the books was the Experimental Television Center’s Early Media Instruments 8-DVD set which will eat up a full day of your residency if you are not careful (as it did mine).

You could go the entire residency without leaving the studio for anything more than coffee at Carol’s and booze from the Wine Connection.  HOWEVER, there are a couple of things worth checking out in the darling town of Owego.  Perhaps a Pauper top-five is in order?

1. I highly recommend a morning stroll/jog thru yee ol’ historic cemetery on the north side of town.  It’s got an incredible view of the valley and a couple of creepy unmarked trails that lead to Blair Witches.  It’s a great place to film from the back of your Mom’s bright yellow Subaru Baja (footage came out terrible – my bad Scott).

2.  If looking for a comfortable local watering hole stick to the John Barleycorn Tavern.  If you are looking for a bar that offers free teeth removal and lousy crank check out the Rainbow Trail.

3.  Are you a fellow insomniac?  If you just need to air out your brain with coffee & pie at 4am peep the Skylark Diner in Vestal which is just a couple of towns over.  You’ll need a vehicle to get there but it’s a great little greasy spoon to scribble schematics in a notebook & cold house a stack of pancakes in.

4.  I have no idea what I did with mine but you’ve got to pose for a photo in front of Video World before it gets demolished…. oh mighty pillar of our once proud video rental industry.

5.  Oh wait…. here is a good one…. GET TO WORK!  You’ve got a whole world-class video art studio at your fingertips… what are you doing wandering Owego?!?!  Enough with the avoidance behaviors AND GET BACK TO WORK!

I recently had the good fortune of trading in the endless doom and gloom of another winter in Portland for a little taste of that smog-drenched LA sunshine I hear so much about.  Moog‘s House of Electronicus was a designed to be an alternative space to all the NAMM hub-bub and a chance for Moog to debut it’s incredible little DFAM drum machine (amongst other things… my lips are sealed).   Electronicus was situated smack dab in the middle of Echo Park (which was lovely by the way) and hosted a number of performances, workshops (from the good people at Portland’s S1 synth library) and Moog-fueled art installations.

Theremini Visions was an installation based around Moog’s new theremin, the Theremini.  While I was admittedly giving this thing a hard time for adding a T-Pain auto-tune mode the sound set is quite nice and the on-screen display has a number of cool practice aids.  The Theremini also has onboard CV out (with voltage scaling options) unlike it’s lovable predecessor, the Etherwave (which required a 100USD CV expansion board).  Utilizing the CV generated by playing the theremin I routed the output in to a little LZX travel rig I assembled for the occasion (thanks for the last minute help Perfect Circuit).  From LZX Bridge CV was fed to a number of parameters to keep things interesting & fluid.  I had hoped to setup some more intense envelope following actions but simplicity won out in the end.  Video from two LZX Visual Cortex modules wound it’s way through a series of BPMC Premium Cables, Basic Cables and Fluxus glitch video fx processors before arriving at their target CRT stacks.  A big shout out to Joey with Purdy Lites for hooking up the CRT delivery!  Another big shout out to Evan Shamoon for an assortment of PVMs and last-minute converters.

Subsequent 37 dreams was an installation that invited users to crawl into bed, get comfy, toss on headphones and slide Moog’s Sub37 synthesizer over them for bedtime synth noodlings.  An array of Subpac tacticle bass systems lined the mattress effectively shaking the bed with every note played.  For further sensory stimulation video by Charles Goldberg was processed & projected by the Pauper Palace edition of the BPMC SFX-M Glitchmix with audio reactivity from the original Fluxus glitch video processor.  The wooden synth-slider bed contraption (that delighted so many) was cooked up by North Carolinan sculptor Richard Goldberg.

It was a blast working with Moog on this project.  Much love to Charles for bringing me in.  A big thank you to Ian for tech-ing the installation in my absence.  Thanks to all who experienced the MOOG HOUSE OF ELECTRONICUSSSSSSSSSSSS.

It’s summer twenty seventeen and BPMC users have been busy mangling video in a variety of beautiful & creative ways. If you enjoy the work below I encourage you to dig deeper for more from the artists. Chances are it’s hot stuff! As always I love seeing what you folks do with all these broken machines I keep tossing into the mail. Keep up the good work, I salute you and remember to send your completed works my way! Happy summer!

Japanese Dream Pools 儀式 (Ritual) by Night Diver
Video by  Brian Callaghan

Skinny Legs – Elohim
Video by Chase Black

Polygon -『Indigo』
Video by Arthur Demeure

Currency – The Black Angels (Visualizer)
Video by Bob Mustachio

Meeca – BEZVĚDOMÍ (prod. Donie Darko)
Video by Arthur Demeure

A Place To Bury Strangers – Straight
Video by Brook Linder

Boogarins – Lá Vem a Morte (Album Visualizer)
Video by Rollinos

Khalil – Níngjìng
Video by George Kountouras

Distorting Louïs
Video by Saou Tanaka

Video by Gabriel Edvy Aka Blackswitch Labs

In anticipation of Martha Daghlian’s “La MoDe: experimental personal uniforms collection” exhibition at Impossible Box Arts (in Portland, OR on thursday May 4th 2017) we are highlighting a number of glitch-camera based works exclusive to the web.  Martha Daghlian’s show incorporates photographs taken with a BPMC modified 4 megapixel digital camera in a series of conceptual fashions and digital prints.  It’s definitely a show worth checking out.

“La MoDe is a new collection of experimental fashion concepts by intuitive apparel artist Martha Daghlian. The photographs and garments on display at Impossible Box are personal uniforms, amateur couture, and/or multiverse chic. The artist’s self-portrait photos have been processed through secret special effects engineered by Drew McIntyre of BPMC; the results represent theoretical textile prints for the La MoDe collection.  A limited run of prototype uniforms, created in collaboration with Ben Houston of Tellurian Fieldwear, is displayed in La MoDe signature printed twill with official-looking shiny embellishments.”

Only a couple of days left to get in on the crowd-funded madness.  Arius Blaze of Folktek has been hard at work for two years now dialing in the revolutionary new Mescaline synthesizer.  It’s hard to pin the Mescaline down and call it any one thing, but that has always been the joy of Arius’s work (who’s reign of sonic terror is closing in on two decades).  It’s a tonal synth, it’s a drum synth, it’s a sequencer, it’s an effects processor, it’s a customizable sound design platform…… and finally, it’s on sale.  Show some early-bird support and get one now for a fraction of the list price via the Indiegogo campaign.

Glory be!  The wait is over!  Paracosm’s Lumen now has MIDI functionality!  Oh brave new world.  That’s gotta feel pretty sweet for Jason.  Should cut down on his e-mails.  I have to have been driving him nuts…..

“Ay Jason, you got MIDI yet?”

“No Drew, not yet.”

(2 minutes pass)

“Ay Jason, how about now, got that MIDI yet?”

“No Drew.”

(2 minutes pass)

“Ay Jason….”

Times a thousand, nyuk nyuk.  Well it was worth the wait.  With MIDI ironed out and a whole slew of published tutorials now is a great time to dive in on Lumen, which is easily the single greatest software based video synthesis platform in the world.  The only thing to figure out is what to nab for it in MIDI controller-land.  There are a lot of options but it’s tough to find a solution best suited to Lumen’s key features.  I personally just want a heap of knobs and a couple of assignable buttons for the mod destination toggles.  Given my prerequisites the most well suited controller seems to be the Behringer bcr2000.   They are a little heavy and it’d be nice to have something with an X/Y pad but that’s enough knobs to route the patch section out to controls too.  Could always use that in conjunction with something tiny like a Korg NanoPad for the X/Y and saving snapshots.   Let me know if you’ve got a better option.

Took this joyous occasion to produce a new Lumen video featuring BPMC processing video.  Cut this down from a little 2 hour session the other night using a mix of modified presets and from scratch noodlings.  The primary BPMC elements include the Premium Cable, the SFX-M Glitchmix and the new Codename: Video-3.  The results where filmed on a CRT via a DSLR.   Enjoy the quiet storm.