Gaming for Visualists: Jeff Minter Gridrunner Revolution, Trippy Sheep
Introducing Sheepintology from Jeff Minter on Vimeo. You know the type - the VJs who have eighteen layers of videos, particle effects exploding everywhere. Jeff Minter's Llamasoft is to game design as those people are to projectors. The thing is, he does it perfectly. Llamasoft's creations can make you laugh at a ... read more.
Rutt/Etra Visual Synth as Software; Etra's Legacy Needs Your Support
Ed. It's one of the most important live visual inventions of all time -- a visual creation on the level of something like the Minimoog for audio synthesis. And it's now in software form. But just as importantly, there's a chance to help its inventor complete his vision. -PK Anton Marini, ... read more.
State of the 80s: Fairlight CVI Demo Video, BBC on "Tomorrow’s World"
A bank of faders, a touchpad, and then ... it just does anything you want. Even today, the idea of a fully-integrated visual instrument is a pretty profound concept. Ableton's creators thought about the design of the Synclavier digital synth (the rival of the CVI's music sibling, the ... read more.
State of the 80s: Fairlight CVI Demo Video, BBC on "Tomorrow's World"
A bank of faders, a touchpad, and then ... it just does anything you want. Even today, the idea of a fully-integrated visual instrument is a pretty profound concept. Ableton's creators thought about the design of the Synclavier digital synth (the rival of the CVI's music sibling, the ... read more.
Video: Fairlight CVI Video Instrument Development, Ca. 1984
This brief video, uploaded to YouTube by Fairlight co-founder and designer Peter Vogel himself, gives a brief history of the development of Fairlight's legendary video hardware, the CVI. The CVI was a theoretical (in name, at least) visual counterpart to the ground-breaking CMI digital ... read more.
MeekFM Synthesizes Synesthetic Typography, Sound
You're an incurable font geek and you love sound. Can't choose? Combine them. The MeekFM synth is both a visual synthesizer for typography, and a synthesizer -- it actually sonifies the letterforms you generate. This is synesthesia on such a high geeky level that my mind is blown wrapping ... read more.
Oscilloscope Artist Ray Sweeten Interviewed on VJ-U
This week on VJ-U, Benton-C Bainbridge interviewed Ray Sweeten, an audio and visual artist who pushes the creative limits of the oscilloscope, creating gorgeous, abstract forms with intense waves of sound. Watch VJ-U episode dvadeset i dva: Applications in cross-modal media read more.
Bill Etra's Pioneering Video Processing Work: Retrospective @ Blip.tv
Click To Play Bill Etra, the analog video processing pioneer, has been posting some of his original works from the late 1960s through 2005 on video sharing site Blip.tv. It's a sort of ongoing retrospective of his work. His techniques are varied, including Rutt-Etra processing (using the hardware he co-designed), hand-controlled ... read more.
Rutt-Etra Restoration in NYC
VJ-U has posted a wonderful livecast on Operator 11 featuring the restoration of 3 Rutt-Etra raster analog video synthesizers. I was fortunate enough to be invited to check the machines out in person and have some time to try and help out. Mathew Schlanger and Benton C Bainbridge help explain ... read more.
Classic Analog: Futuristic 1972 Rutt-Etra Video Synth and a 2004 Music Video
Think vintage video hardware has nothing on classic analog music synths like the Moog and Buchla? Think again. The Rutt-Etra video synthesizer, circa 1972, did sophisticated video raster manipulations. The invention of Steve Rutt and Bill Etra, the Rutt-Etra may not have had its Keith Emerson, but it did inspire Nam ... read more.
