Glitch Art Dot Com

Been a little too quiet with the site over the summer months.  No worries though.  Rain clouds are moving in, the sweet scent of decay is in the air and I no longer need to feel like golem for staying inside slaving over a hot CRT.  Let’s get this fall started off right with a bunch of demos.  I’ve got a lot of new stuff on the horizon (as always, as always) but also long over due have been demos for some of the basics.  Here we see a lot more Premium Cable coverage and AVE5 CV coverage.  Still need to get better documentation for the Touch Deluxe and the……. Zola.

This October I will finally be offering mail-in Edirol v4 upgrades.  I’ve got two tiers of mods at two different price points.  When it comes down to it the modified V4 has three effect types; channel corruption, illustrative chrome looks and 2 buffer trails modes.  This video gives you a sneak peak of what to expect from some of the radical channel corruption effects.  For this video I’ve mixed an HDMI camera signal with the V4 via the Roland V-1HD.

Not only is this a solid glimpse into what’s possible with the Premium Cable but it highlights the affect TBC has over computer capture.  I’m using a Black Magic Intensity Shuttle and capturing the Premium at 1080i.  The video on the left has a Sima SFX9 with a built in TBC providing us with a drop-out free capture.  The video on the right has no TBC in place and is serving up a little intermittent drop-out.  You’ll also notice I don’t push some effects as far as they go on the right as it will results in an extended period of lost signal.  While the Premium Cable is totally still awesome and sufficient without TBC in conjunction with computer capture hopefully this video shows you a bit of what’s lacking when capturing sans-TBC.  Mostly what you lose is the rich scrambles and hot moments of frame drift.  A lot of blurs, posterize looks and edge feedback looks still shine through.

Had a good rainbow day the other day.  This video stresses the importance of experimenting with different makes and models of CRT when it comes to the scrambled signals.  Until I began working with DIY CRT-walls I did not realize that a TV’s circuitry & size affects it’s interpretation of corrupted signals.  This 18 inch Sony Trinitron I found on the side of the road a while back really produced some eye-popping results in link with the Premium Cable.  While the Premium Cable normally produces rainbow feedback (it can take a little work…. you have to get just the right knob combination) I found that this TV just made it pop like no other.  Maybe I was just high.  Either way, experiment with displays.  Nuff’ said.

People often ask me if there is much difference in between the effects on the AVE3 & the 2 channel version, the AVE5.  Let’s just say there are more similarities than not.  The wipe effects are really what set the two apart.  The AVE5 is like having 2 AVE3s under one roof plus a bunch of rad transitions and less onboard effects.  This just as easily could be an AVE3 CV demo but it’s not.  It’s me feeding function sweeps (as always) into one channel of the AVE5 CV and having a damn good time doing it.

Finally.  A proper AVE5 CV demo.  As stated above so much can be done with this little guy and only a handful of modules.    Over the course of this video the AVE5 is receiving up to 6 different CV sources.  Various eurorack parameters are being controlled via oscillators and such to perform sweeps.  All of the looks were created and patched with only video in mind.  I know a lot of people have massive audio rigs and are looking to sync everything up to visuals but I have experimented very little with this.  That stated who knows what my CV sources sound like here…. they sure look great though.  🙂

Earlier this spring Leaving Records released Sisters, a full length album by Odd Nosdam featuring a limited VHS visual companion from yours truly. Don’t worry if you missed out on the VHS run however. All the videos (minus one which remains VHS-only) now exist on the information superhighway and are easily accessed via the “youtube” links below. A couple folks were asking about gear used on certain videos so I chose to toss up a little inside scoop with each viddy. Thanks again to Odd Nosdam, Leaving Records, MatthewDavid & Stones Throw.

Track: Bow They Will
Equipment used: BPMC Basic Cable, Modified WJ-AVE5 (strictly for TBC) & a modified Amiga 2500 (although no modified effects are utilized and all Toasted buffer footage was later replaced with the Frame Buffer app to retain HD processing).
Screen: LCD
Additional Software Processing: Signal Culture Frame Buffer

Track: Profane Bong Sue
Equipment Used: All made with video feedback and BPMC Premium Cable for the edge feedback effects.
Screen Used: CRT
Additional Software Processing: None.

Track: Ten Echoes
Equipment Used: Oh man, just about everything wound up on this one. Primarily we’ve got the Fluxus for any and all corruption effect. Also present is the Premium Cable, Basic Cable & even the Fritz Decontroller makes a couple appearances (for all the color processing FX, often used in conjunction with the Fluxus).
Screen Used: CRT
Additional Software Processing: None.

Track: Burrow/Center
Equipment Used: Burrow was all Modified Ave3 of some sort. I believe it was the BPMC Touch to be specific. This video is about three+ years old now so the memory eludes me.  The second half features a high concentration of Fluxus usage.
Screen: LCD
Additional Software Processing: None.

Track: Sisters
Equipment Used: There is a little Fritz Decontroller on the intro and outro. Otherwise all effects were produced utilizing the Premium Cable in conjunction with a very touchy LCD screen. The LCD’s interpretation of the lo-fi HDR effect is what makes the video.
Screen: LCD
Additional Software Processing: Trapcode Shine

Track: Rained (For Lise)
Equipment Used: This look was concocted utilizing the digital video feedback effect in combination with some on-board features on the Touch Deluxe. Only the Touch Deluxe can produce this effect.
Screen: LCD (Can’t believe I used so much LCD on this project).
Additional Software Processing: None.

February 26th marks the release of Odd Nosdam’s Sisters LP on Leaving Records.  It also marks the release of Sisters, the videos, on VHS featuring 8 videos by yours truly, the Big Pauper.  Sisters, the videos, is limited to fifty copies and is on some deluxe japanese laserdisc edition tip shit.

“The Sisters VHS multimedia experience serves up a track for track visual companion to Odd Nosdam’s Sisters LP.  Video artist & glitch video tool designer Big Pauper takes you on a journey that is equal parts sound & vision weaving fractured dream-like narratives that explore subjective reality, human absurdity & cosmic origin.  Pauper employs a small army of self-modified video hardware & BPMC glitch video tools to produce a world, alike Nosdam’s, that is fragile, vibrant, vast & compelling.”

We’ve got screenprinted artwork from Jason Blandford, non-robotic hand assembly & 29 minutes of dreamy lysergic sleepy Nosdam inspired visuals.  In the lead up to friday is an unbelievable Boards of Canada’s remix for the title track, Sisters.  I’ve heard it easily 1k+ times and I still love every second of it.  Makes me feel like I’m on a bad ass hike in slow motion and I’m about to do something really cool like kickflip over a waterfall or surf a mountain goat.  When it came time for the video I dusted off my collection of Bread & Puppet VHS tapes and got hacking.  I’ve always wanted to pay homage to the influence Bread & Puppet had on me as a child and I felt the tone of the track really lent itself to the footage.

As far as FX processing goes the wipe FX were generated with the Sima SFX-9 Glitchmix aka BPMC Holy Grail aka Big Trouble in Little Portland aka the Master (Wipe) Shredder.  This actually isn’t it, this was the prototype before I got carried away (DENNIS!!!!), but what a great pic.  Additional FX processing via the now OOP Fluxus glitch video fx processer.

You may have noticed the removal of the “add to cart” function on the Fluxus page.  Sadly, I am ceasing production on the Fluxus altogether and that “add to cart” button won’t be returning any time soon.  Been having coocoo trouble tracking down ICs for this thing.

But fret not as I am getting ready to introduce the new (as yet untitled but tentatively titled) Video-3 analog glitch video FX processor.

I learned a lot designing and building the Fluxus.  I also received a lot of great feedback from the beta group, much of which I am applying to the new Video-3.  With the Video-3 I am not simply seeking to replace the Fluxus but I’m looking to create your new video best friend.  I want this thing to make you feel like a line of blow every time you turn it on, haha.  Alright, drats!  I can’t live up to that goal, but I want this thing to really stand the test of time on the usefulness tip.  Aside from new glitch effects galore I’ll be sticking with CV and audio visualization functionality, like on the Fluxus, but also adding some more general and useful video processing capabilities like color processing, brightness/contrast adjust and a good ol’ enhance feature.

I also really hope to have the kit version ironed out for this release.  Had an overwhelming response from people interested in kits and I will do my damnedest to make sure that all pans out this time.

We’ll leave it at that for the time being.  The seeds have been planted.  Peep it late Spring!!

I love when I get a chance to put down the soldering iron (turn it off even), put on a pot of good coffee, blast some Espirit and plug a bunch of weird shit into the big screen.  It’d be even better if I could do all of this from the bath (as I am a lazy comfort-seeking bitch)… but there is a serious electrical hazard there.  Man oh man, when winter chills ya’ to the bone nothing beats a silky smooth hot bath.  Candles, powdered milk, a good oatmeal scrub, some dead sea salts loaded with essential oils…. oh, I don’t know, call me crazy but perhaps even a glass of 2012 Californian Merlot?!?  But I digress…. ah yes, you’ve no doubt got a little time off on the horizon so I suggest you get plugging in some video gear of your own.  If you are looking for a little inspiration take a gander below.  Here I’ve posted some recent demos and excerpts with a brief explanation of what is going on technically behind da scenes.

I knew there was more to this thing!  Recently I re-worked my mods on the extraordinary Sima SFX-9 two channel mixer.  The intent being to take better advantage of the multi-option chroma-key feature.  I really love the chroma options on the SFX-9 and wanted to ensure that the surgery hit it right-proper.  The demo utilizes a VHS input on channel one and an out being routed back into channel 2 in conjunction with the chroma mode.  One of the mods implemented greatly distresses the FX buffer sending it cycling through all FX settings (independently on each channel) at warp speed.  The joystick, in this mode, has a lot of say in corruption speed, feedback speed & effect variability…. and you see that here.

While the SFX-M does not have a TBC, instead frame synchronization, it sure handled every conceivable corrupted signal I could throw at it via the Premium Cable.  Here we have the SFX-M plugged directly into a projector.  I’ve got a VCR on channel one with the monitor out on channel one going into the Premium Cable and then back into channel two.  Utilizing the awesome, though limited, wipe patterns on the SFX-M I dialed in a nice feathered circular blend with the processed signal on channel two and the clean signal on one.  I enjoy the moments when the corrupted channel artfully shadows the action on channel one.  Radical!

Some serious stoney baloney shit right here.  Here I’ve got a GlitchMix’d SFX-M with mixer feedback set up on channel two.  The feedback channel, in wipe mode, also has negative and strobing on to create this cool stutter-steppin trippy goodness.  The soft pastels and posterization come from some of the delightful FX buffer mods I stumbled upon.  These mixers are like little old plants.  They have a look like a mushroom and taste like you just picked ’em fresh from the garden.

These are some recent sketches I made for Leaving Records utilizing the Fairlight CVI processed by a Premium Cable.  The two make a delightful combo with the CVI doing the bulk of the heavy lifting.  The Leaving logo was transplanted into the CVI via laptop and processed within the confines of the almighty trails effect.  Great for green-screenin’ but also great for spicing up something simple like this.

It takes some care putting the audio reactivity feature of the Fluxus to good use.  It is all about implementing audio in conjunction with a stable effect.  Wild and erratic effects tend to make it challenging to pick out the audio reactivity… “is it doing anything?”  The dropshadow effect in powered mode reflects the influence of audio well.  As does some of the chunky artifact feedback in feedback mode.  Choosing the right sonic source is important as well.  The feature was not designed with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless in mind.  More like the output of an 808 or an old Fender Rogue.  The more defined attack and decay you give this thing the better.

I am a certified gearwhore and was advised, somewhere in the mid-two thousands, against getting into modular synthesis due to it’s crack-like effects on the gearwhore brain.  I am glad I held out so long, definitely saved me a buck or two, but I can think of a number of video projects over the years where a healthy modular setup would have been most helpful.  The first time I hit the AVE3 with CV my jaw damned near hit the floor.  It was like seeing the machine in a whole different light.  “Why the hell didn’t I get into CV sooner?”  Damn you.. sensibly responsible self!

My apologies to your brain if you’ve ever seen this early Herschell Gordon Lewis student film but it definitely made good b&w fodder to toss into a Touch Deluxe.  The Touch Deluxe has a weird digital feedback made available by one very particular mod in conjunction with the onboard “art” effect.  It has varying degrees of line thickness and fill however in this video I dialed it in to one silky lil’ position and let it go for the full duration.  This look is B-U-T-T-A!

Here we have but a mere function generator injecting tiny little voltage packets into the guts of an AVE3.  Pretty entertaining for a single module but imagine the visual potential all you Celldwellers & professional Muff Wigglers have at your fingertips.  We are going to leave it there folks, thanks for having a look and let me know if you develop a bathtub friendly video synth anytime soon.  Error successfully illustrated.

With the immortal WJ-AVE5 two channel mixer from Panasonic being so plentiful on ebay right now I thought it might be a good time to highlight the unique Time Base Correction flavor making it popular amongst live glitch folk (the price tag and extreme mod-ability helps as well).  Time base correction creates a stable signal (in moments of desired instability) by digitally buffering the signal and releasing it at a steady rate.  For those seeking stable use of circuit bent glitch video gear a mixer with a TBC (or a stand-alone TBC) is imperative to prevent projector or capture card dropout.  In the process of buffering your signal those analog glitch video FX that may have looked one way on your CRT may now look another way when passing through a mixer.  This is not true with all mixers as I find some to buffer video with minimal digital impact.  The Sima SFX-9 for instance creates little to no variation or artifacts.  The WJ-AVE5 is another story however.  It’s buffer does pleasantly AWFUL things to video.  Like a full episode of MTV’s Amp crawled into your TV and died, in a good way.  Or like you rented the Lawnmower Man 2 on VHS and Jobe gave your eyes AIDS or whatever he does, I forget.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen Lawnmower Man 2 thankfully.

With instances of working with really broken video the WJ-AVE5 tends to artfully stutter and pause segments of your image coating whatever sweet sweet analog signals you may have had cooking with a thick layer of cold digital soot.  Personally I really like it’s flavor.  I think that while the WJ-AVE5 has a tendency to stray away from the original look of some FX (namely heavy sync corruption and edge feedback) it in no way produces whack-ness.  Often times you’ll be surprised by how it re-interprets your favorite (or least favorite…. rendering them your favorite) effects.  Combine all of the above with a corrupted FX buffer as found on the BPMC Touch 2xCH CV edition and you got yourself somethin’ extra tasty.  Possibly deserving of a whole other video.

In the video above I highlight a couple of things.  I’ve got a great new Burton video for source going in clean to channel 1 on the WJ-AVE5.  I’m taking the monitor out of that channel in to the Lil’ Wizard glitch video FX processor and back into channel two.  This way I can easily mix the clean and the dirty.  Somewhere at about a fifty percent channel mix you get a cool glitch shadow effect.  For the most part I am just using two sync corruption fx from the Wizz-Wizz.  The L-Wizzy?  L Wizz Hubbard?  Anyways…… while not shown, quite a few glitch FX seem to produce an infinite horizontal scroll.   I also find that exploring heavy sync corruption with the WJ-AVE5 is terrific for producing interesting stills being that you have the strobe and lag factor to work with.  Peep the captures below and grab yourself an WJ-AVE5 before it’s back down to 2 month waits for a decent one under two hundred bucks.

The autumn rains are here (at least in Portland they are) and it’s time for you to stop feeling so bad for stayin’ indoors with the blinds closed videotaping your CRT.  Some tend to spiral downward into the winter blues but I for one find I’m as productive as a mudderfucker without all that sun.  As long as I have a fresh pot of coffee, a formal tuxedo snuggie fleece & fresh batteries in my heated shiatsu massage video-art-making chair I’m bound to do great things.  Here is a small treasure trove of videos from talented BPMC users, the world over, who managed to stay productive despite the sun’s best & brightest efforts this summer.    Here’s to a productive spat of seasonal depression!  Best wishes, the Big Pauper.

Season of Maintenance by Greyghost + Teasips.

Dreamcrusher – Fear (and No Feeling) by Videopunks.

Dewy Sinatra – No War by Matt Woodman.

Aquarius Heaven feat. dOP – Nasty Boys by Timur Musabay

City Lights (Pixelated Passion Phase 1 Remix) by Dakota Reed.

Dreamtrak – Do Re Mi by Hard Science.

HEAP (Excerpt) – Toby Kaufmann-Buhler.

exm – Hold On by Fracta

Evacuated Fern – Need it When I’m Older from Glob Records.

Getting started with glitch art video production may seem a little daunting at first but there are really only a couple of key things you need to know. First, we should clarify what we mean when speaking of glitch video production. I am speaking of any video project that incorporates modified or circuit bent video mixers, fx processors, titlers or cameras into the mix.  Speaking of which, this website is infested with them.  If you’re new to glitch video production in general have a look around. While glitch video production does draw some parallels to the world of eurorack video synthesis and video art in general there are some things unique to glitch video production worth mentioning.

Display.

Displays ultimately decide the manner in which your destabilized signals are interpreted. They decide whether you get all those crazy squiggles or the ol’ blue screen of i-can’t-handle-this-shit. CRT TVs are the quintessential display when it comes to broken standard definition video. I design my machines strictly on CRTs and then later test them on other displays as an afterthought. Unless your CRT has digital noise reduction on (dig through the menu and make sure that shit is OFF as a mutherfucker) a CRT will display any signal you throw at it. This is not the case with LCD screens, projectors & capture devices as they all utilize analog to digital conversion and drop your signal rather than try and interpret a corrupted signal. An LCD screen will do it’s best to display corrupted signals but certain FX will create signal dropout for sure. What FX sneak through and at what amount varies from LCD to LCD but this is the same story with all those projectors you want to plug directly into. Projectors are even more touchy and are quick to interpret some corrupted signals as a lack of signal. But don’t worry, all is not lost. This can be worked around with a TBC unit or a cheap video mixer with a TBC in it, but we’ll get to that shortly. Before moving on I’d like to point out that each display type has it’s own flavor and subsequent time/place.  It’s also good to note that results can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even between sizes when it comes to CRTs.

Time Base Correction.

For stable results when working with LCD screens, projectors and capture devices Time base correction is imperative.  To quote wikipedia, “TBC counteracts errors by buffering the video signal and releasing it at a steady rate.”  In instances where analog signal drop-out would occur a TBC unit, either a standalone box or a video mixer with one in it, would cleanly convert it up in to the digital realms.  A TBC also changes the aesthetic of some FX.  Often times this is the trade off.  The Panasonic WJ-AVE5 for instance has a really weird flavor.  It’s buffer has a very digital glitch feel; pulling out greens, often freezing or strobing the bottom half of your screen.  The Sima SFX-9/10 does a really accurate job of displaying corrupted video.  I find that it is most true to the original effect.  The Videonics MX1 seems to vary over the course of it’s production run.  There are also many stand alone units but the newer ones tend to either drop out to color bars or black (I’m looking at you AVT-8710).  I highly recommend checking out ebay for cheap old rackmount ones often under a hundred bucks.

Video Capture.

You’ve got a couple of ways to record your glitch video.  You can find a display you love and point a DSLR or a camcorder it.  With a little time and care this looks lovely.  It is usually the way I go.  There is a bit of an art to it; getting the right focus, dialing in your moire patterns or eliminating screen banding.  It’s a nice easy way of bumping your video up to HD as well.  If you’d like something a little more practical (or travel handy) you can always go the capture card route.  There are many options to choose from and price varies based on software integration, input varieties, data transfer type, resolution availability and codec support.  I say there is no shame in going the cheaper route for starters, just don’t expect a lot of support or integration into your preferred video editors of choice.

Laptops.

It is inevitable that you will one-day want to process youtube cat footage through your glitch art rig.  It is not that challenging to setup, you just have to dumb that digital signal back down to analog.  How to do it depends on what kind of computation device you are runnin’ over there.  This Macbook Pro I am typing to you on for instance has both a mini-display port or and HDMI port I can utilize.  The mini-display port for instance would require that I use an Apple mini-display to VGA adaptor and then a VGA to composite video adapter.  The HDMI port is a little more straight forward and would only require an HDMI to composite video adapter.  In my case I use the VGA method more often because I have found it to be more reliable.  I have run into a couple of instances where I lose color going from the HDMI converter to certain pieces of glitch gear.  This could be due to the converter I was using.  Haven’t tried them all yet.  You can even create a laptop loop by running out of your display port into your glitch gear and back into your laptop via a capture card.  This can pose some challenges and be a little tricky to setup but I have seen it done.  Despite the latency created utilizing this method it can still be pretty useful.

So these are the basics I want to make sure you know before you dive in but I hope this has been helpful and if you have any BPMC related glitch art video questions do not hesitate to hit me up. Cheers and be well.

As a man who blubbers over every discarded photo album I find at Good Will I can really get behind the Rescued Film Project. They collect and process undeveloped rolls of film sent into them from all over the world.  Their sights appear to be set on anything from the 1930’s to the 1990’s.  The images are then digitized and curated on both their web site & blog which I highly recommend.  While never explained at what point in the digitization process it occurred a recent batch of photo scans produced unintended results.  Unintended but not unwelcome.  More of this please.

Thanks to a mysterious software bug that occurred while scanning these joyful family photos, probably from the 80s, strange colourful shapes swarmed the peaceful scenes, harmonizing with the colour palette of the original negatives. The results are stunning. I personally almost feel like Neo from Matrix, when he starts to see the code.

“Is this real life?” asks the Rescued Film Project. I say: this might be the fabric of our world.

From Gizmodo. Glitch art images courtesy of the Rescued Film Project, republished here with permission.

Sure you can toss a 99 cent app on your phone and snap exceptionally broken photos until you forever break glitch art (nyuk nyuk) but there is something unpredictably charming about working with a real broken camera.  Over the years I have been tinkering (as I do) with a number of different digital cameras & DSLRs.  The goal is to settle upon a model with a mod stable enough to release.  Digital cameras pose some challenges as they are lacking any room for controls & not built with repairs in mind (a number of cameras have died at the hands of just trying to open them).  Despite this I think I’ve settled upon both a design and a camera that may be headed your way some time soon.  While it might be a little while before any release date is set in stone it is on the front burner.

Here is a glimpse at some recent flicks from the BPMC glitch camera prototype.  Thanks for looking.

Photo credits include Big Pauper, Seahorses United, Brad Hamers, Jessica Daugherty & Hush 47er.