AUDIO/VIDEO INSTRUMENT S P E C I A L INSTALLATIONS

Following are three instruments included in the exhibition and identified as special installations due to characteristics that distinguish them from the custom built personal tools in the Audio/Video Instrument section: FEEDBACKwas an ubiquitous phenomenon; the SONY PORTAPACK - both CV & AV - was an industrial introduction that put video in the hands and on the shoulders of anyone who could pay (including artists and activists); and, CLOUD MUSIC is an audio/video installation that was a collaboration bythree artists inreal-time that relies on inventive, sophisticated electronics. -MaLin Wilson

no date Experimental VIDEO FEEDBACK WITH AUDIO INPUT MODULATION AND CVI DATA CAMERA

1969 Industrial SONY CV PORTAPAK

1974- 1979 CLOUD MUSIC (Hybrid audio/video installation) Robert Watts, Courtesy ofThe Robert Watts Archive, Sara Seagull and David Behrman Larry Muller in collaboration with David Behrman, & Bob Diamond and Bob Diamond 147

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SKIP SW EEN EY was born 1946 in Burlingame, Following are excerpts from an interview(1978) of California. BA in Theater Arts 1968 University of Skip Sweeney by Woody Vasulka about his early Santa Clara, California. Founded Electric Eye 1969 experiments. a group for video performances and experiments. Co-founded 1970 with Arthur Ginsberg Video Free Skip: The first tools thatI hadwerejust a CV studio America. Selected Group Exhibitions: 1971 Video camera. Iwouldleave a set-up inmybasement back ShowWhitney Museum ofAmericanArt, . room. A camera shooting into a monitor, just the 1973 Video as Art Paris. Works: Philo T. Farnsworth simplestcamera andamonitorat an angle. And, the Video Obelisk San Francisco. 1971 Video for Heath- first tool was my finger on the contrast and bright- cote Williams's AC/DC Chelsea Theater Center, ness knobs - that drastically affected the response New York (with Arthur Ginsburg. 1972 Visual ef- ofthe feedback. . . and,playing with thezoom, focus fects for Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish Chelsea Theater and tripod with its angle. Center, New York (with Arthur Ginsberg). 1975 In my first explorations I set it up at almost 180 Video Art Institute of ContemporaryArt, University degrees, shooting at almost the same angle as the ofPennsylvania, Philadelphia. Events and Perform- screen. Position became critical. Generally, I ended ances 1971 University Art Museum, University of up wantingto beperfectlycentered, findingthetrue California, Berkeley. 1972 Video Free America axis in the tube. I was also playing with the termi- Studio, San Francisco. 1973 The Kitchen, New nationswitch. Usingtermination gave meincreased York; Repertory Dance Theater, University ofUtah, gain. The next step - almost automatic - was trying Salt Lake City. 1974Avant-garde FestivalNewYork . to record some of this stuff, and I instantly discov- Lives in San Francisco. ered that a different affect was gotten by trading off contrast and video gain and super video gain with low iris and low contrast. VIDEO FEEDBAC K is a dynamic flowofimagery Woody: So, would you go into a much more precise created bythe camera looking at its own monitor. It description of how you actually achieved control, was often (and still is) the first phenomena that becausefeedback is normally very hard to control. seducedusers ofvideobyits sheerbeauty. Although everyone who discovered feedback was transfixed Patience . . . I also found something early that gave by it, feedback seemed an uncontrollable, roiling me a tremendous amount of control that other effluent byproduct of technology - one of those people don't get when they start playing with feed- naturalmysteries, appreciated but untamable. The back - the use of a mirror. By placing a mirror that acknowledgedmaster offeedbackwas Skip Sweeney, was angled, and by its angle creating a circle. In organizer of the first video festivals and founder of other words, ifthe angle was more than 30 percent Video Free America in San Francisco. To Sweeney the image was circular. For example, if I brought a feedback was"a religion - a wave to ride." Through- hand between the camera and the screen, I would out his video work Sweeney has approached video see hands from above and from below but, ifI put a as a real-time tool with an on-going involvement in mirror up, the image was repeated and kaleido- video as live performance. scopic. Included in this catalogue is a thorough scien- Themirrorwas generallyangledbelowthecamera, tific explanation "Space-Time Dynamics in Video balanced on piles of something . How far up you Feedback" published in 1984 by Dr. James P. moved the mirror, how far down you moved the Crutchfield, Physics DepartmentUniversity ofCali- camera - all thoserelationships completelychanged fornia, Berkeley. Sweeney, of course, was working the image. In fact I discovered you didn't need a with feedbackin the late 1960's, and coaxed to life mirror, a piece of glass at that angle had so much the complex images later technically described by reflective capability. But, by using the mirror I Crutchfield. instantly got feedbackwhere the range was ampli- fied . . . you had to practically knockthecameraover IIIIIIIiunuumuuuuunnn NANO C frame 18454 to 23665 148

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FEEDBACK

III1II1II11I1III1I11II11III1I FRAME 196 step through next 5 frarnes

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III 11111111111 111111111111111111 STEP BACK STEP FORWARD Skip Sweeney, ca . 1983, with feedback set up at the Exploratorium, San Francisco, California . HW: Setchell-Carlson Television . Photo by Susan Schwartzenberg .

to lose an image. to tryto achieve an image completely isolated from . . . There was a whole other discovery - the anything else. In other words, I wanted a simple Setchell-Carlson camera with a detail knob. I ruined blackimagewherethewhitewas keyedthrough and three cameras fiddling with them, not knowing how the imagewas simple kinds ofcircles that pulsed or to get them back into a legitimate signal. My tape waved to the sound of the music. JONAS' FAVORITE was a combination of finding I guess the MOOG VIDIUM started to whet my thatyou could gettremendous detailon the Setchell appetite for keying and colorizing. Carlson. Everyone else always had the contrast and . . . I knew what I wanted to be able to do. I was brightness set high, and I got into turning them in veryfrustrated by not being able to turn something low ranges and playing with the internal controls - that was light, e.g. the white image of the MOOG the gain and the beams. I started getting the ability VIDIUM to look dark. I couldn't do it because the to control the speed ofthe images. One of the first George Brown Colorizer had no effect on the gray corollaries I developed was the more you turned up level. I think I developed an aesthetic of reversing the target voltage and the lower you turned the iris what I was given, making brighter images dark and in combination, the slower the image got until you darker images bright, having the gray level be the could really get it to crawl like slow motion. And heart ofthe colors I got. then, by removal of the pedestal, by dropping the To what degree do youfeel that you have influenced pedestal down, the blacksbecamecompletely-black thoseparticular elements . Pushing the beams high I got the waterfall effect, where things would roll offas if theywere rolling off Those elements of Bill Hearn's colorizer? I feel like the edge of a cliff. I could get feedback that was I'm theconceptual architect . . . becauseitis exactly either pouring into itself, pouring out of itself or what I asked for. I asked for gray level control, floating. separatable key levels and gray level and chroma I know you have been involved with Bill Hearn's andhue.Iwantedcontrolover eachseparately .Alan VIDIUM. Shulman deserves a certain amount of credit. Alan A the time my interest in the VIDIUM was its was always working with Hearn when that first ability to generate an image. I didn't do theVIDIUM colorizer was built. anyjustice at all because I didn't care for the kind of complicated images the VIDIUM could create. I cared only for the very simplest images. That's *Please refer to pages on the CVI DATA CAMERA in the something I struggledwith from the very beginning: Audio/Video Instruments section.

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THE INTRODUCTION oftheportapackinto ment. Overnight it dissolved the hegemony of docu- artistic formulation was paramount. In the late mentary films. A vast number of genres sprang up 1960's the use ofvideo was confined to close circuit (includingthe notorious 30 minute single take), and installations, a very elegant solution to the use of the documentary branch was neverthe same again. video in the gallery. Withtheinvasion oftape on the The middle ground was also interesting. With scene it took some time to settle the problem of tape new networks of distribution were quickly exhibition. Speaking to Steina about reel to reel established. Video became truly international . It machines Bruce Nauman put it more directly: "I was easy to duplicate, mail, and view. With the almost dropped video when tape was introduced; introductionofthevideo cassettes in 1973itbecame when the tape ran outtherewas no oneinthegallery even easier, and harmonized with the exhibtion to rewind it, thread it and run it again." purposes of video. By the mid-1970's video as art It was an entirely different story for the socially was fully entrenched in the galleries, with many engaged. The portapack was considered a revolu- developed genres, forms and concepts . tionary tool, almost aweapon againsttheestablish- Only a few people tried to develop the so-called "abstract" genre. Itfailed inthefirstdecade entirely. We and other people dealing with early synthetic images used tape primarily as extended studio material (input), and secondarily as a method of documentation of these new processes and phe- nomena unexpectedly popping up in front of our eyes. -Woody Vasulka

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Steina and Woody Vasulka with portapack equipment, San Francisco, 1972. Photo :Warner Jepson .

Page 151 - Black overlay CLOUD MUSIC (Hybrid Audio/Video Installation), 1974-ISm Robert Watts, David Behrman & Bob Diamond Courtesy of The Robert Watts Archive, Sara Seagull and Larry Muller in collaboration with David Behrman, and Bob Diamond

BOB WATTS Born 1923. Studiedengineering and hairs is positioned. As cloud surfacespass these six art history. Professor of Art, . crosshair points, the voltages vary in response to Associated withFluxus. ProducedYamFestival and the clouds' light content . Monday Night Letter with George Brecht. Died Digital electronic music system (D) receives the 1989, Bangor, Pennsylvania. six voltage outputs from the video analyzer. The B O B D I A M O N D Born 1946, . music system senses voltage changes made by the Engineer. Developed computer system for WNET- analyzer and converts the changes into harmonic TV (Channel 13), New York City, in associationwith progressions and dynamic shifts. . Founder and technical director of Sound from the music system is sent to a six WPA theater, New York City. Beginning in 1972 channel loudspeaker system (E). The loudspeakers designed and produced custom video circuitry and surround the viewing space andthevideo monitors. Cloud Music is intended for installation during patented several designs. Currently President of times of the year when weather conditions favor a Imagine That, Inc., San Jose, California. likelihood of high daytime cloud activity. DAVID BEHRMAN Born1937,Salzburg .Well known electronic music composer, long time asso- ciationwith SonicArts Union. Performed withJohn B O B W A TTS : "I discovered when I first arrived Cage, David Tudor, andthe Merce in New York City in 1946, from the midwest, that I Cunningham Dance Company. Producer, series of no longer had the same visual access to the sky. It contemporary music recordings CBS. Lives New was apparent that no longer could I judge the York City. weather by checking out the sky morning and evening as was my custom. I considered this to be C L O U D M U SI C is an installation developed a handicap to my accustomed life style, and still do. collaboratively during the years 1974 to 1979. It This incident shocked me into the recognition that consists of a video camera (black & white 1974-78, the sky was an important aspect of daily living and color thereafter), which scans the sky; a video that it was important to me to be able to see it analyzer, whichsensethechangesinlightproduced whenever I chose. Sometime later, some fifteen or by passing clouds; and a home-made electronic twentyyears, the sky (as clouds) made amore direct soundsynthesizer,whichrespondsmusicallyto the appearance in my work as an artist, in multiple passage of clouds overhead. For this historical exposures onmovie film and photographicmontage. exhibition a black and white camera is being used. Since 1965 clouds, sounds, indeed the whole phenomenology of the natural environment has EXHIBITION HISTORY 1974 Canadian/American Sky, Electric Gallery, Toronto. 1976 Experimental Television Center, Binghamton, N.Y. 1977 TheArmual,SanFranciscoArtInstituteatFort Mason. 1979 Re visions, Whitney Museum of American Art, N.Y. 1979 Fur Augen and Ohren, Akademie der Kunst, Berlin. 1981 New Music America '81 Festival, San Francisco. CLOUD MUSIC Video camera (A) points at the sky. Specially designed video analyzer (B) superim- poses six electronically generated crosshairs upon the video image. Each cross hair may be positioned anywhere. Composite image (skyplus crosshairs) is sent to the video monitors (C). The video analyzer generates six control volt- ages. Eachvoltageisproportional to the instantane- ous light value at the point where one of the cross Diagram and summary, ca . 1975, David Behrman .

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