COMPUTER ART as a WAY OF LIFE By Gene Youngblood hen I think of computer art I think of Chicago, and of four people there- Jane Veeder, Phil Morton, Dan Sandin and Tom De Fanti-who are pioneer- ring a visual art form that ultimately is not visual at all, but rather the cre- ation of language, and of conversational "envi- ronments" out of which will emerge our future images and the images of our future. Together Wwith Steina and Woody Vasulka in Santa Fe, they inspired me, taught me, and changed me profoundly over thelast tenyears. With infinite patience and dedication, with the passion of vi- sionary seekers, they guided me ever deeper into the digital domain and caused me at last to understand that computer graphics is some- thing more than art, that it is a kind of practical philosophy, a way of life, a way of being in the world anda way of creating a world to be in. No story reflects this more vividlythan that of Jane Veeder, an artist-programmer whose life and work epitomize both the unique computer- art community in Chicago and a personal path- way of growth and discovery that will become representative of the life of the artist in our time. In my opinion, Veeder stands with Ed Em- shwiller and Larry Cuba as one of the most gifted computer artists working in America to- day. Relatively unknown until recently, she is beginning to get the recognition she deserves. Her 1982 animation Montana is the only work of computer graphics in the Museum of Modern Art's video collection, and her interactive paint program/arcade game Warpitout-the sensation of the SIGGRAPH '82 Art Show in Boston-will later this year be installed at the Ontario Sci- ence Center in Toronto, one of the most presti- gious science museums in the world.

Gene Youngblood was a member of the jury for the SIG- GRAPH '83 Exhibition of Computer Art. He is working on a new book, The New Renaissance: The Computer Revolution and the Arts. SEND 25

Photo credit : Chip Dodsworth "The computer is the future . . . and remain autonomous and at the same connected with thefuture . . . "

MONTANA: A constellation of totem-like icons dancing on a dreamworld stage.

The road to success has been a long one for 39-year-old you can make it work. You actually are encouraged to Veeder, whose personal journey as an artist-involving apply your energy. That's so satisfying. Howmany rela- excursions into theatre, painting, ceramics, sculpture, tionships have you had with humans where you knew filmmaking and video-reflects a widespread disen- that no matter how hard you tried itjust wasn't going to chantment with traditional art forms, a conviction that get any better? So on one hand I just want to talk to the the leading edge of culture is no longer defined by what's computer because we understand each other so well. exhibited in art galleries or purchased by museums. And on the other hand it gives me a whole other level on "The go-nowhereness of traditional art forms just kills which to communicate with people. With the computer I me," she said. "First painting. The go-nowhereness of can get at my dreamlike images; I can visualize my painting killed me offit. And then ceramics. I did ceram- made-up pictures with a lot of power and control and ics for ten years and after a while you sort of know every- detail ; there's this detail tweakability that enables me to thing. You start reinventing the wheel. First there was get at this weird place; the computer offers more control abstract ceramics, then sculptural ceramics, then utili- in support of that space than video ever did." tarian, then Japanese, then you run out of things and you go around and around. But with electronic stuff, es- ZGRASS: AN ENVIRONMENT FORARTISTS pecially computers, there's always so much you don't Veeder works in ZGRASS, a language written by Tom know about. It's this incredible carrot that just keeps De Fanti exclusively for real-time interactive motion hanging out there in front of you . The computer is the graphics. Incorporating the best features of Pascal, future of everything and it's a tool for building tools: you Smalltalk, Lisp and BASIC, ZGRASS is by all accounts can remain autonomous and at the same time literally the best graphics language around. Among other things, create the tools that keep you connected with the future it is self-teachingand user-extensible-the users can cre- of the world." ate their own commands and integrate these commands Veeder's migration from the analog world ofvideo syn- into the language, expanding and evolving it to fit their thesis into the digital domain of computer synthesis is a personal style of making images. trailblazing journey that more and more electronic art- ZGRASS runs only on the Datamax UV-1 Graphics ists will follow as the advantages and satisfactions of Computer which contains three custom chips designed computer life are recognized . "I like video but it's very for Bally Arcade games like Wizards of War and Gorf- expensive, so I couldn't afford personal tools. Also video one chip for processing instructions, one for controlling skills don't get'much in the way ofrewards. Video's very the display, and one for sound synthesis. This makes easy to do. Many people have these skills. It's not very ZGRASS faster than anything around at its price (about strategic. But having my own computer graphics sys- $10,000), and speed is essential for real-time animation. tem has made a huge difference. It's like doing video There's also a 16-screen memory that allows you to cre- without the videotape recorder. Videotape recorders are ate and store sixteen different full-screen images and horrible machines. They're complex, they're expensive, then call them up in a real time animation cycle. Output they don't last very long. That whole electromechanical is standard NTSC video. Veederworks with a single Sony combination is problematic. 5850 videotape recorder and builds her editing com- "Also, being collaborative, video always involves has- mands into her graphics programs. "Every tape can be sles with other people. But with a computer, if the soft- first-generation," she explained. "It's just as easy to run ware is any good at all, the conversation is incredibly the computer and make a first-generation tape as it is to direct. It's encouraging to know that if you keep trying do a dub ofthe master. And with the 16-screen memory I SEND 27 it's a tool for building tools: you can time create the tools that keep you

can work up the individual screens and then program Utah. The trips were part them sequentially and of a unique lifestyle approach the animation just happens." to video, a desire to live with and through the medium The UVII offers less resolution and fewer colors than conversationally, incorporating larger, more expensive computer graphics into systems-only 320 x 202 x2 bits semi-didactic "simulations" of imagined and desired per pixel (256 colors with four colors per area). This re- video realities. They "processed presents a tradeoff in favor their life" in the elec- of real time operation while tronic domain, producing video "communiques" of the keeping the cost down; but if you're moving images you realities they created by living don't need that much and processing them. The resolution anyway; moreover, al- visual signature of these tapes is absolutely unique, though Hi-Res has been elevated to a quasi-religion in whith Jane's poignant, ideosyncratic the commercial graphics computer graphic world, the fact is that for many complementing Phil's sublime image processing-all of artists real-time interaction is far more important. this tographic "Pho- superimposed over, and integrated into elegant realism is not,my goal," Veeder explained. "I black-and-white tapes of animal life can see its utility but I don't think and geological it would be a triumph, splendors of the American wilderness. The tapes have a you know. I have no desire to use a super-high resolution joyous, chatty, conversational, system because I grass-roots flavor that don't draw in super-high resolution. I resonates against the otherworldly strangers-in-a- just go so far and beyond that it's the integration and strange-land consciousness manipulation that I that pervades them . They enjoy-movements and gestures." are pioneering works by two genuine pioneers of the In fact, animation per se is not the primary motivation Electronic Life. for Veeder's involvement with ZGRASS. "I'mjust inter- Gradually Jane evolved away ested in real time graphic from video and deeper interaction that results in a into computer graphics. She and Morton no longer work dynamic visual event," she explained. "What I want is to together, but her love ofthe wilderness, integrate my eye, hand and and much of the brain with the computer's graphic material she evolved for the videotapes, con- ability to perform complex relationships very tinue to The rapidly. inform her work in computer animation. This fact is I'm addicted to the high-speed personal evo- imagery-soaring hawks, mountain lution and perceptual education peaks, stampeding you get from continu- buffalo, erosion patterns in the terrain-are combined in ous contact with a real-time interactive machine intelli- Montana with icons of gence." Nevertheless, the technological world: video Montana and Veeder's most cameras, the Sears lower in Chicago, the Space Shuttle. recent computer animation, Floater, rank with the best Veeder organized the works of material into 16-screen sequences experimental hand-drawn animation . The programmed as a loop that increases in speed over eight quirky, totemic, dreamlike, cyclical image-events of cycles, with each of the are elements moving at different Montana reminiscent of Harry Smith's Early Ab- speeds. The effect is a constellation of totem-like icons stractions, whereas Floater inspires comparison with dancing on a dreamworld Robert Breer, Paul stage-hence the similarity to Glabicki, and the optical-printing Harry Smith. Equally remarkable is the stereo films of Pat O'Neill. Both works are essentially auto- soundtrack, which consists of biographical . an audiotape of birdcalls from the Audobon Society combined with sound synthe- sis performed on the Sandin Image Processor. The effect MONTANA of the narrator numbering and naming the birdcalls in a For five years, Veeder and Phil Morton spent their cascade of electronic echoes perfectly summers camping out and complements the making video in the moun- imagery and gives the tape a poignant, haunting, other- tains of the Western Badlands-Montana, Wyoming, worldly flavor.

28 FALL 83 "Being able to earn my living by sitting at home with my intelligent machine . . . the I sense ofpower and control over my life is immense."

WARPITOUT an installation in the form ofan arcade game whose tar- get is everyone's favorite image-their own, sensation at SIGGRAPH '82.

FLOATER events (Veeder calls them "skeletal figure-sounds"), As impressive as Montana certainly is, the six-minute punctuated with intervals of silence, that have a dron- Floater (1983) is an even more sophisticated work, a ing/ringing quality like musical Morse Code . It is a re- tounde-force of subtle animation, a masterpiece of sim- minder that she is as talented a sound composer as she is plicity, nuance and economy of gesture . The complex a gifted visual artist. canvas of Montana is here reduced to a minimal set of Ultimately, of course, the images and sounds are all emblematic objects which serve, in Veeder's words, "ei- that matter; they are the whole point, the reason why ther as foils for dynamic graphic processes or manifest a Veeder is simply a good artist, computer or no computer. particular motion behavior intimate to their identity." Indeed, art is always independent of the medium All that is left ofthe Badlands are two buffalo that gallop through which it is practised: the domain in which in place and two simple gestures that suggest moun- something is deemed to be art has nothing to do with tains, water and reflections: squiggly lines and a dia- how it was produced. The use of the computer in the mond shape that transforms into a ripple and floats of- creation of animated graphics does not suddenly trans- screen . (The ripple, which Veeder refers to as a form this noble tradition into "computer art"-it re- "frequency being," also represents a sinewave, a natural mains animation, whose status as art will ultimately be phenomenon found not only in the electronic domain determined by art-historical concerns relevant to anima- but in water and erosion patterns as well.) tion, not by any consideration of the computer as a crea- In place of the video camera are two simple icons that tive instrument. represent Veeder's evolution into computer graphics: a rotating constellation of mathematical signs floating WARPITOUT cloudlike in a black void, and two white lines, one verti- If there is an art unique to the computer, I suspect it cal, one horizontal, manifesting the x-y coordinates of will not have much to do with producing a drawing or the two-dimensional graphic space. A few diagonal grid sculpture or videotape; indeed it might not involve pro- patterns constitute the only other imagery, except for ducing anything at all-for what is most unique about the outline ofthe artist's hand that periodically "wipes" the computer is precisely its intelligence, that is, its in- the screen as a transitional device . Floater ends with a teractivity. In other words, the great value of the com- remarkable figure-ground reversal as a grid of black puter is ontological rather than phenomenological-it squares emerges from the black background, obliterat- has more to do with processes of being in the world (on- ing the image: the ground becomes a figure that is indis- tology) than with the commentaries and judgements we tinguishable from the ground, and nothing is left. make as a consequence of being here (aesthetics, phe- The lyrical economy of gesture in Floater is strongly nomenology). This is repeatedly confirmed by computer reminiscent of Robert Breer's Gulls and Buoys, while artists themselves, whose testimonies are almost always the rhythmic clustering of iconographic objects in a ontological, seldom aesthetic-always about the proc- black void is as effective as Paul Glabicki's Five Improvi- esses ofproducing art through conversation with the in- sations; and the cyclical orchestration of the whole telligent machine rather than about the art itself. This is dance calls to mind Pat O'Neill's earlier films like Down- what Dan Sandin means when he says that one cannot wind and Runs Good. The sound for Floaterwas created understand computer art by looking at it. And it is why simultaneously with the animation using the audio-syn- Warpitout is such a brilliant approach to the idea of com- thesis chip (originally used for sound effects in those puter graphics. Bally arcade games) that is resident in the UV 1 system ; Warpitout is an interactive installation in the form of in other words, the audio was built into the animation an arcade game whose target is everyone's favorite im- programs, sharing variables with them. The result is a age-their own . A menu-driven environment of pro- beautiful composition of small, sensitively'-chosen sonic grams written by Veeder in ZGRASS allows the "player" Continued on p. 29 SAN FRANCISCO VIDEO FESTIVAL CATALOG

THE 1983 SAN FRANCISCO VIDEO FESTIVALOCTOBER 6 TO 15

Theatrical use of prop and stage device; manipulation of the narrative form; computer animation ; television production and documentary; and works expressive of the video medium's fine arts tradition: this array of formal approaches promises to free artists' video from both the iconoclastic stranglehold of the seventies and the hardware fascination of the past few years. We may all rejoice. The diversity of style found in contemporary artists' video is reflective of the variety of traditions now influencing production . The recent recognition of the power and significance of artists' video has attracted creative workers from many fields . (Admittedly an awkward admission from a reticent art world struggling with its own often questionable economic traditions.) Each group is crafting its own special genre of expression . The catalog which begins on the next page fully represents this new body of art, with twenty-four videotapes and collections, installations and perform- ances: of Warpitout to make computer art with an image of idly-growing population of computer programmers who, their own face, experiencing interactive graphics much by working at home with more powerful personal tools, exem- directly than is possible in the restricted, essen- plify the emerging 'electronic cottage' lifestyle. tially one-way environment ofvideo games. The system is housed in a "I never visualized my future in career terms," she Wizards ofWar cabinet that contains a 21- said, "you know, jobs. My inch TV screen with a black-and-white video camera images were always of pure mounted above it, lifestyle with no visible means of support. Pure lifestyle aimed at the player. There's ajoystick issues. I've never been able and two buttons; push one and your face is digitized. to get into the Professional "It's one ofthe world for more than a year at a time. I get dissatisfied . I few things I've ever done that only makes can't possibly integrate those a still picture.") Next you select a color map and the im- junkjobs into-my life. But I can integrate the computer into my life . I can respect its age is colorized. Then you are presented with a main power. There's menu consisting of nine options for visually processing something to deal with there. Who the wouldn't want to integrate that kind ofpower with their image. The joystick is used to select a particular op- life? I've always tion. Some of them, such as Symbol Draw, Symbol been into control, you know, and what Fill better instrument than a computer? By teaming up with and Pattern Fill, cause secondary menus to be dis- a computer and played; from these you either select objects to be drawn the ZGRASS language I have finally as found a way to make being Jane Veeder a prime career foreground figures, or fill in areas of the image with slot." symbols or patterns which thus become a background field. Still other options, like Magnify, Ripple and Edge She earns her living as a freelance graphics designer Blow modify the image geometrically. For example, the doing animated sequences for ads and spots, and as a Ripple option redraws a swatch between two points des- programmer, writing programs for ZGRASS graphics ignated by the player' using the joystick; the redrawing packages. In computer jargon, a package is an environ- process is modulated by a sine wave, ripplingthe image. ment, a collection of small programs that mediates be- Unfortunately, the arcade game metaphor of Warpi- tween a user and the software language, in this case, tout will remain only a metaphor: it's too expensive to ZGRASS. "My graphics packages stand between the manufacture and too slow for commercial environ- user and ZGRASS the way ZGRASS stands between me ments. "One-way stuff like arcade games have to be fast and assembler code," she explained. "So I create envi- and snappybecause one-way is boring," Veeder pointed ronments for the ZGRASS user. I turn the computer and out. "Also, arcades want to kill the kids off quickly so its controls into different things. You have menus and they can get the next quarter. But Warpitout doesn't de- you choose stuff." The software modules for Warpitout, stroy you-you get to destroy you, and you get to sit for example, were originally written as graphics pack- there and watch the computer do it. That's the joy of the ages for commercial applications. whole thing. It's fascinating to watch it all unfold before "Being able to earn my living by sitting at home with you. It gives you this tremendous sense of power." my intelligent machine has made a huge difference," she said. "The sense of power and control over my life is AUTONOMY: THE COMPUTER LIFESTYLE immense . . . I want to evolve so far out there that I don't Power is a word used frequently in reference to com- even know where I was before. I was reading recently puters, and for good reason, since a computer is a uni- some MIT pundit who was warning of the `dangers' of versal machine that can contain and become all media, using powerful interactive computer languages. One of conferring autonomy upon the user and erasing the dis- the dangers he sees is that you get these feelings ofpowr. tinction between professional and amateur insofar as You start thinking that you're evolving into this sort of that is determined by the tools to which we have access far-out electronic person. Well, the fact is that you are! as autonomous individuals. Jane Veeder is among a rap- And I mean what else do you want to do with your life? 30 FALL 83

oomputer

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PRIMER animation by Larry Cuba omputer animation has been in `computer animation,' we'll consider The position of the beam is analo- development and use for years, but techniques based on both kinds of gous to the amount of voltage in the only recently has become a common computers. wire. That's why this is called an ana- feature of our visual world. We see it log system. In digital systems, num- in movies, TV commercials and PART 1-ANALOG SYSTEMS bers are used to specify the position of video games. 1 . OSCILLOGRAPHICS the beam rather than voltage levels. There are hundreds of computer The patternofvoltage channels in the animation techniques just as there Analog computers were being used wire is called an electronic signal. are hundreds ofways to make music. by artists to make films as early as So the problem of making draw- To help understand these tech- the 1950s . Figure 2 is from a film by ings on an oscilloscope is a matter of niques, we can group the computer Hy Hirsch. The system used to create generating electronic signals. This animation systems into categories, this film consists of an analog com- can be accomplished with an elec- just as musical instruments are puter and an oscilloscope, and the tronic music synthesizer. The classic grouped into woodwinds, strings, technique is called oscillographics. music synthesizer (Moog, Buchla, percussion and brass . An oscilloscope is a screen and a Arp) is an analog computer. In this article we will discuss seven beam of electrons which hits the The film or video artist creates ani- generic systems as illustrated in Fig- screen and draws a point oflight. The mating images on the scope by ure 1 . point of light can be controlled in generating signals with the music All the computer animation sys- three ways. The beam's position is synthesizer and using them to con- tems that we look at are composed of trol the movement of the beam . Thi- at least two component parts: the process of composing an electronic computer and a drawing device. The signal by patching modules together drawing device makes the images with cables is used on all analog sys- which are photographed onto film or tems. The differences are in how that videotaped. The computer controls signal is used to make an image. the drawing process by sending the device electronic signals, and the art- 2 . IMAGE PROCESSOR ist controls the computer. There are two kinds of computers : By generating two independent Analog and Digital. Usually when we signals and using them to control the use the word computer, we're talking vertical and horizontal movements, about digital computers. These are Figure 2 a pattern can be formed which com- the ones that send out utility bills and run video games. controlled by turning 2 knobs, one Few people have even heard of ana- for Horizontal movement and one for log computers, because when we en- Vertical movement. A third knob counter one, it's called something controls the intensity of the beam, other than a computer. An electronic and consequently the brightness of musical synthesizer, for example, is the point on the screen. actually an analog computer. Instead of using knobs, we can at- Since the machine is not usually tach wires to these functions and called a computer, calling the work control them by, changing the volt- produced with it computer anima- age in the wire . The amount of volt- tion has led to a confusion between age flowing in the wire substitutes analog and digital work. Rather than for the `position' of the knob, and de- argue the semantics of the term termines the position of the beam.

SEND 31 is, it can modify the horizontal and 5ELFCteD vertical movements of the beam). If the scanning pattern is modified, ift. then the result is no longer a stand- ma PEAS P85tRACT C^~eEQ OA7~CiTOR =rAVE p ;~ 1`~1 _-Y ard video signal. (So, it can't be fed directly to a TV or N tape recorded.) PMYSICALQuMrllryL S a The results ANALOG DIG ITAL1E=Eo~ANr,PT~~-5RNr appear on an oscillo- scope-like display and so scan proc- essors belong with oscillographics on our chart (Figure 1) . And just like os- cillographics, to be recorded the screen must be filmed or rescanned with a video camera. If rescanned with a video camera, then a video signal is created which can be processed with an image proc- essor. So you couldproduce an image on a scan processor and process it and colorize it on an image processor. These two functions are combined in a single system called the Scani- mate, which was developed by Lee IWI101 ~i Harrison in the late 60's. Ron Hays used a Scanimate system to create his videotape Canon (Figure 6) .

Figure 1

pletely fills the screen from top to 3. SCAN PROCESSOR bottom with horizontal lines. This is the scanning pattern used in video The next analog system we'll dis- and the pattern is called Raster scan . cuss is the scan processor. Video art- A television picture tube is similar ist Woody Vasulka used a scan proc- to an oscilloscope except that the essor to produce the image in Figure horizontal and vertical motion is 5. A scan processor, like the music fixed in such a way so that the beam synthesizer system, uses an oscillo- is constantly scanning out a raster scope-like display. Figure 6 pattern. If the horizonal and vertical In a scan processor, the raster is movements are fixed, then that scanned as in video, but unlike stand- leaves only the Intensity signal to ard video, the pattern can be modified form the image. by the user. Any of the three signals REAL TIME VS. CONVENTIONAL Variations in the beam's intensity forming the raster pattern (vertical ANIMATION during the scan produces an image movement, horizontal movement, composed of various shades of grey. and intensity) can be modified. These In the systems covered so far, The levels of grey in the image range we've seen analog computers used to from black to white and correspond to generate and process electronic sig- the range of possible intensity levels. nals. These signals were used to If we use signals generated with a drive two types of displays : oscillo- synthesizer to control the intensity, scopes and video monitors. With then variations in the voltage level of each of these two displays we could the signal will result in variations in see the images moving on the screen grey level. This is how a video syn- in front of us. This display could then thesizer forms an image. The image be filmed or videotaped like a live ac- in Figure 3 is from Electronic Masks tion scene. Should we call this ani- by Barbara Sykes and was produced mation, though? with the Sandin Image Processor Figure 5 In any film, what we see as a mov- (Figure 4) . ing image is really a series of stills projected in sequence at great speed: modifications come from either syn- 24 per second. In live action, these thesized signals or a video camera. stills were created by the camera In both of the video synthesizers capturing a series of snapshots of the we've looked at, image processors constantly changing real world at the and scan processors, signals could be same speed as projection : 24 per sec- generated internally or with video ond. cameras. In conventional animation, each of An image processor is designed to these stills is a photograph of a draw- process the image as encoded in the ing. The drawings are placed on an standard video signal (that is, the in- animation stand and photographed, tensity signal only) . A scan proces- one at a time. When projected back Figure 4 sor, on the other hand, can actually at 24 frames a second, movement is alter the scanning pattern itself (that synthesized. Film is the mechanism 32 FALL 83 which allows us to project at great ney Cam Machine. Motion Control around in a circle and the lights speed drawings which were created techniques opened the door to a flashed several times during the ex- and photographed at slow speed (or whole new world of special effects posure, a multiple image is created . one at a time) . magic in Hollywood. When the This is the technique used by James In contrast to conventional anima- movie Star Wars came out in 1977, it Whitney (John's brother) to produce tion, the systems we've looked at so started a science fiction craze in Hol- the film Lapis. (Figure 7) far create and display the sequence lywood with dazzling effects like the Another way to use motion control of images at high speed so movement jump into "hyperspace" is to leave the lights on while the art- is visible directly on the display. This jump into "hyperspace" effect work is moving. This creates a time This is called Real Time Anima- iscalled a streak, and was invented by exposure effect like a photograph of tion. The sequence of images is being John Whitney, Sr., who invented mo- car headlightswhose movements are produced and displayed at a speed tion control in the 50's by building the visible as astreak of light. Afilm, Ter- which produces the illusion of move- first computer-controlled animation minal Selfwas consisting entirely of ment. This eliminates the need for stand in his garage with an army sur- streaks were made by John's son, film as the mechanism of animation. plus analog computer. John Whitney, Jr. Once a sequence of images is visible The analog computer controls the This streak effect has often been on the screen, then either film or movement of the artwork which is mistakenly called slitscan, but video can be used to capture it at live back lit on a light table. The film streak and slitscan are two totally dif- action speed. camera looks down from above and ferent effects. The only thing they photographs the artworkas it moves. have in common is that they are both The principles of the Whitney Cam VIDEO ANIMATION Machine were copied in machines that Doug 1Yumball built for the In conventional frame-at-a-time 2001 stargate corridor sequence, the animation, the recording medium ones Bob Abel built to make TV com- must be capable of recording in a mercials, and the one John Dykstra still-frame mode . built for S tar Wars. Since S tar Wars, This is easy for a film camera, hard motion control has blossomed into for a videotape recorder. So anima- an industry standard, but now all tion has traditionally been made on systems are controlled with digital film. More recently, single frame vi- computers. We'll see them shortly in deotape recording has been devel- Part 2 on Digital Computers. oped, making "video animation" Figure 7 possible. But this "video animation" has time exposures. Slitscan is a 3rd been confused with work produced technique developed on the Whitney on a video synthesizer, which has Cam Machine. In slitscan, the art- also been called "video animation. " work is not seen by the camera lens In one case, you have video record all at once. The artwork is comple- single frames, so you can shoot draw- tely covered except for a sliver re- ings with it, and in the other, you use vealed through a narrow vertical slit video technology to synthesize ani- in the covering. While the camera mating images in real time. shutter is open for a time exposure the slit moves across the artwork and reveals it progressively to the camera 4. ANALOG MOTION CONTROL Figure 8 which records an image on film. If, during the exposure, there is no The movement in conventional an- movement ofthe artwork or the cam- imation comes from two sources: WHITNEY CAM MACHINE era but only the slit, then the art ap- 1) changes in the image from one pears on the film as it would without drawing to the next, and The control mechanisms have ad- the scanning slit, i.e. normal. How- 2) slight movements of the stand vanced and become quite elaborate ever, if while the slit is scanning between exposures to animate pans since motion control was invented, across the artwork the camera zooms and zooms. These stand movements but the basic vocabulary of effects in toward it, then a distortion is intro- can be automated and controlled was established on the Whitney Cam duced: a bulge is produced in the fig- with computers, and since these Machine: ure . For example, a rectangle is movements alone can create anima- 1) multiple exposures, transformed into a trapezoid. tion, the animation stand can be con- 2) streaks, and These three elements of the basic sidered a drawing device. This tech- 3) slitscan. vocabulary of the Whitney Cam Ma- nique is called Motion Control . One benefit ofmotion control is the chine can be found in the later (and Analog computers, because of precise repeatability of animation current) crop of motion controlled their speed, have an advantage over stand movements. This ability can animation stands that use digital digital computers when it comes to be used to produce multiple expo- computers. generating real time animation. sures. If, while the shutter is open, an But for motion control, which is object that emits light is moved into PART 2-DIGITAL SYSTEMS frame-at-a-time animation, you're several positions and its light turned better off with digital computers be- on, then multiple images of the ob- For each of the 4 types of analog cause of their many other advan- ject will appear on the film. animation systems we have covered, tages. And today's motion control This principle is applied to anima- there was a different KIND of analog systems are all digital. Still, the first tion in motion control: on an anima- computer. One was a Scan processor, motion controlled stand used an ana- tion stand, artwork can be lit from another was an Image processor, and log computer. It was called The Whit- behind. When the artwork is moved so on. SEND 33 We'll look at several digital anima- computer program. Aprogram isjust In the digital system, the anima- tion systems, but only one kind of a description of the steps required to tion stand is structured the same, digital computer. That's because all complete a task. In the past when but the user doesn't control its move- digital computers do the same thing someone might have built a mchine ments with signals per se. Instead, fundamentally: they follow lists of in- to perform a particular task, now one commands are sent via the computer struction and can store these lists need only describe the process in a with numbers to specify the desired (and other data) internally. program. A digital computer is a ro- positions of the artwork and the cam- The major variations among digi- bot which will exhibit the behavior era. For example, for a simple streak tal computers are: specified by the program and so be- the program might look like this: 1) the speed at which they operate, come the machine desired by the 2) the size oftheir internal storage. user. Open shutter These are usually a function of the This is the most important feature Zoom IN 50 units size, cost, and age of the computer. of digital computers, and apparently Close shutter What distinguishes the digital ani- the least understood by the com- This program puts one streak on mation systems on our chart in Fig- puter illiterate. For example, when a one frame of film. For a stationary ure 1 is the type of display. We'll con- TV journalist reports a story with the image to appear on film, this streak sider three different kinds (vector, sentence, "Some students at MIT must go on every frame . So what we raster, and animation stands), but have developed a computer that can want to happen is for the computer to they're not mutually exclusive; a sin- play chess," they invariably mean, repeat this sequence of commands gle system can include more than not that they've built a computer but once foreach frame. A5 second effect one type of display. lasts 120 frames, so we add a Repeat command, causing this group of ANALOG VS. DIGITAL commands to be repeated 120 times: The usual method of distinguish- Repeat 120: [Open shutter ing between analog and digital com- Zoom IN 50 units puters is by comparing the way they Close shutter process signals internally : analog Zoom OUT 50 units] computers use a gradual scale, whereas digital computers use dis- After the frame is exposed, the com- crete on-offelements. But these char- mand, Zoom OUT 50 units is used to acteristics are at a microscopic level Figure 10 reposition the camera to begin the that they've developed a program. We use the word `computer' to mean a general purpose programmable machine. As soon as it's designed for a specific purpose, then it's no longer a computer. Also, once a program is stored in a digital computer, you can use it at any time in the future. With analog systems, the way in which the modules are connected is the `program,' and there's no way to store it. If you take it down so some- Figure 11 Figure 9 one else can use the machine, you'll and do not directly affect the user. A have to put it back together again next frame. (There is also an assump- more useful distinction is at the level next time you want to use it. tion here that openingand closing the of user control. The way in which an And there is another difference be- shutter advances the film one frame). instrument's control is structured tween analog and digital computers: This puts the same streak on each will determine what will be easy to do in the analog systems, we saw that frame, producing a static image. For a and what will be hard. values, such as how far the beam is to moving streak, we introduce a slight For example, imagine trying to be moved on the screen or howbright change between frames, such as a drive a car by typing commands on a it is, were encoded in the amount of small vertical movement of the art- keyboard, or trying to write by guid- voltage in the wires. On digital com- work. This we do with the command, ing a pencil with a steering wheel. puters, when using a vocabulary of "Move UP 2 units": Clearly, then, the control structure of commands to control the display, a tool can determine its usefulness to these values are conveyed with num- Repeat 120: [Open shutter a large degree. bers. Inside the computer, electronic Zoom IN 50 units If we compare the control struc- signals encode these commands and Close shutter tures ofanalog and digital computers numbers, but unlike the situation in Zoom OUT 50 units we find . . . analog systems, the user does not Move UP 2 units] Analog computers are controlled have to deal with them as much. So as we zoom in and out to streak by routing signals through modules each frame, the artwork slowly with cables, and by turning dials. 5 . DIGITAL MOTION CONTROL moves up on the stand and the streak Digital computers can be controlled moves up in the frame. Multiple ex- in a number of ways, which may in- The Analog Cam Machine move- posures and slitscan are also pro- clude turning dials of drawing with a ments are controlled by an electronic duced on digital motion control pen, but primarily they're controlled signal. There is a correspondence be- stands. Figure 8 is a slitscan image by typing in commands at a termi- tween amount of voltage in signal from Ron Hays' videotape nistan nal. A list of these commands ~is a and position of artwork being moved. and Isolde . 34 FALL 83 6. VECTOR GRAPHICS gives us a short exposure (1/30th sec.) no matter how long we hold If we look at our chart in Figure 1 down the release. And the third way, again, we see two types of electronic live action speed, is 24 frames/sec. displays : Raster scan and Vector 1) time exposure-A film recorder scan. The difference between the two is a vector-scan display with a cam- is the way in which the beam scans era mounted facing it so a lengthy the screen to create an image (like drawing process can be captured on the difference between an oscillo- each frame offilm as a time exposure scope and a video monitor) . Raster (not unlike the streaking process of scan, as we learned before with ana- motion control). log systems, is the scanning pattern Since the drawing accumulates on that video monitors use . The whole the film over time, it can't be seen in SUNSTONE screen is scanned, one line at a time, its entirety by the user until the film ous memory devices. Software in- from top to bottom . The image is is developed. This isn't very conven- cludes programs which help you edit formed by varying the intensity of ient, so these displays are usually other programs, programs that draw the beam during the scan. used in conjunction with another pictures, or data such as the num- A vector scan display, on the other type of display which can be used for bers in a phone book. hand, is like an oscilloscope, in that previewing the image. This type of But in another context, like the the image consists of lines (called display is called a storage tube. phrase 'Software Development,' the vectors) which are drawn by the 2) short exposure (but still frame- word software does not refer to data, beam as it moves around the screen. at-a-time)-the storage tube display but to a class of programs which are But again, in digital displays the has a screen which retains the image designed specifically as tools. A pro- user doesn't create the signals that of the points and lines as they're be- gram which helps you edit text, for control the beam. These signals are ing drawn instead of allowing them instance, is a software tool. Software, created internally by the display in to fade, so that the user can see the in this sense of the word, can deter- response to commands. The com- whole drawing all at once and a cam- mine how useful a piece of hardware mands instruct the display where to era can record the drawing on one will be for a particular task. Software draw points and lines by means of frame of film with a short exposure has a hierarchical nature which al- numerical coordinates. (rather than a time exposure). lows users to extend the tools pro- There are various kinds of vector The process is still one-frame-at-a- vided, with their own. This is one of scan displays and they can be time-animation, though. You can see the more powerful aspects of digital grouped into three classes based on individual drawings, but you can't computers and it doesn't exist in an- three ways ofrecording an animation see movement until the film is devel- alog. This extendable nature of soft- sequence : film recorders, storage oped and projected. There are dis- ware makes it unique among man's tubes, and real time displays. plays on which you can see move- tools in that the tool user can also be In a typical film camera, like a Bo- ment directly without filming, and the tool builder. lex, we can identify three ways to they're called real time displays. shoot animation: single frame with a 3) live action speed-Real time dis- 7 . RASTER GRAPHICS time exposure, short exposures (still plays draw and redraw images fast single framing) and live action speed. enough to see the animation without Each of the three methods of re- In single frame mode, we can shoot filming or taping (just like the proc- cording animation (on film or tape) time exposures by holding the re- ess we saw in the analog systems). that we identified for vector graphics lease down. This holds the shutter Figure 9 is from my film 3/78 which apply to raster graphics as well, open. The second way is also single was animated on a real time system. namely: framing, but pushing the release Since the vector images are ani- 1) time exposures-the same film mating in real time, we can point a recorder that's used for vector graph- video camera at the display and proc- ics is capable of operating in a raster ess the signal with an Image Proces- mode, too. As in the vector mode, sor. Figure 10 isfrom Spiral 5 by 'Ibm each frame in a sequence is stored on DeFanti and Dan Sandin and was film via a time exposure. Figure 11 is produced on a system which com- from a commercial produced by Digi- bines real time vector graphics and tal Effects using a film recorder. image processing. 2) short exposure (frame-at-a- time)-in vector graphics, a storage tube was used to preview images and SOFTWARE VS. HARDWARE to avoid the need for time exposures during filming. But there is no such Regardless ofhow the image is cap- comparable screen that can store a tured on film, the programming is a raster image. So the problem of dis- function of the main computer and appearing images is solved by creat- the sofware available for it. The word ing a special section of the comput- `Software' has two connotations . er's memory (called a frame buffer) One contrasts Software with the for the storage ofthe data required to word `Hardware. Hardware consists draw one frame. The display screen of all the pieces of the system which is constantly refreshed from the data are material objects, such as the in this frame buffer memory. So, as main computer, the display, the ter- the main computer builds the image minal, the printer, the disc drive and by changing the numbers stored in so on. Software, in this context, is the the frame buffer, the results are con- information that is stored in the vari- tinuously visible on the screen. Figure 12

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The resolution of a frame buffer is ~.dsn _ra~irnher_o~..ni~eJs -T-b- 6p~~elzs~~~~~~~~ bpi-mT1 Element. The pixels fill the screen the way squares fill a page of graph paper. The finer the grid of your graph paper, the smaller is each pixel and the more you have . The more f(rr pixels, the higher the resolution . For each pixel on the screen, there is a number stored in the frame par- buffer which determines the shade of grey (or color) for that pixel . Chang- ing the number assigned to a pixel V 9 n. 1 . Emphasis on changes its shade (or color). The consistentid'e-ostrategies for .non-commercial experimen- range of numbers is limited and de- termines how many colors are possi- tation. 2. Productive confrontation with contemp- ble for any pixel. Since this number orary issues. 3 . Fully accredited BFA and MFA is stored in binary form, its size is programs . measured in number of bits per pixel. But you don't need to know bi- nary Applications are now being accepted for the Spring arithmetic to compute the reso- 1984 lution of a frame buffer-just this re- semester . For a free copy of our current lationship: 1 bit means 2 colors, 2 College Bulletin, with complete information about bits means 4 colors, 3 bits, 8 colors all our programs in the fine arts, write or call the and so on. The amount of memory Office of Admissions. devoted to each pixel (in number of bits) is a measure of the color resolu- tion ofthe buffer. The complete reso- lution ofthe buffer, then, would com- bine spatial and color, and would be specified as number of pixels Wide by number of pixels High by number of bits per pixel, or Depth . For exam- ple, the resolution of the frame buffer in the Datamax Zgrass computer is 320 Wide x 2 bits/pixel. (Figure 12) San Francisco Art Institute High resolution frame buffers were 800 Chestnut Street used by Ed Emshwiller to produce San Francisco, CA 94133 his videotape,,Sunstone, (Figure 13). (415) 7717020 3) live action speed-if these buff- ers can be udpated fast enough, the animation can be seen in real time. From video games to flight simula- tors, real time animation is required when the images must respond to human interaction. Stan Vanderbeek used the flight simulator at NASA's Houston center to create the images of his film, Euclidean Illusions, in real time. The difference in resolution, real- ism and visual quality between video games and flight simulators is obvi- ously enormous. This reflects the large difference in size and cost ofthe AFO computers. But as these factors con- tinue to drop, who can say how long it will be before playing a Star Wars computer game will look like being vitd,,eo onoo IN Star Wars, the movie? original material needed for ongoing artshow in s f A videotape of this presentation will soon be available. For more in- clubs/galleries ais 6210909 formation write: Larry Cuba, 1803 Mission Street No. 123, San(a Cruz, CA 95060.