This isn’t your average oscilloscope. This is that buttoned-down lab equipment with the tie off, gone psychedelic. The Derraindrop is the latest strange hardware creation from the wizards at Critter and Guitari, the folks who brought us the brilliant DIY Video Critter custom video synth and other wonderful video creations. In an age when hardware has waned as video input, they’re keeping the dream alive.

The Derraindrop is simple but brilliant: plug in an audio input, get oscilloscope output, but repainted into sweet, groovy color. Knobs adjust mode (both lines and filled areas are available), color, and gain. And the box is ridiculously pretty.

I hope this is just the beginning of a wonderful age of DIY video hardware. Even if you’re not inspired to go buy one (I’ve personally hid my credit card in a 100-foot-deep hole), this may inspire your own creations – or at least a new paint job for your V4.

Derraindrop Scope on the C&G Store

Dearraindrop Video Scope from Critter and Guitari on Vimeo.

Filament @ Tyneside Cinema Launch - The Wall from Steve Holmes on Vimeo.

Dan Shiffman’s Run Lola Run creation, built in Processing, appears here at Tyneside Cinema in the UK. This is how to watch a movie: 1400 frames on screen at a time. Cuts cascade across the screen, colors shift as the in-frame palette changes, and Lola’s action turns into sculptural wallpaper.

There’s no better time to mention that Dan’s Most Pixels Ever library is getting some fall semester refreshes, with new documentation and other improvements. If you haven’t used it before, this is your ticket to working on Processing with multiple displays – even if it’s just, you know, like two displays.

http://code.google.com/p/mostpixelsever/

Oh, and incidentally, it is Shiffman, not Shiftman.

Looks like Tyneside made a nice launch event for this Filament event. I love the shadows walking in the windows and colored lights. I’ve been talking with visualists lately about improving the quality of live events. Really turning something into an event, and making a visual splash on the outside of the venue, is a great way to start.

Filament @ Tyneside Cinema Launch from Steve Holmes on Vimeo.

Vague Terrain, a journal on digital technology, has put together an issue surveying the global state of VJing, edited by VJ, sound artist, and designer Carrie Gates of Saskatoon. (Saskatoon, the place, though that’d also be a great name for, like, an edgy Web animation firm or something…)

Vague Terrain 09: Rise of the VJ

Blogged by Vague Terrain’s Greg Smith @ serial consign

The issue is fully of great stuff, with VJs Ana Carvalho, Kelly Bolen & Jake Hardy, Defasten, Francis Theberge, Jackson 2bears, Lara Houston, Leeane Berger, Michael Betancourt, Mo Selle, Neubau & Kero, Ryan Stec, Tim Jaeger, VJ Pillow & VJ Mademoiselle, VJzoo and Chrism & Fenris, Xárene Eskandar and Ziv Lazar, and an interview of Jaygo Bloom by Michelle Kasprzak. I contributed our interview with Solu.

Why? Because…

…live video mixing performances certainly address a hunger for immersive and synaesthetic sensory experiences where aural and visual elements work together to create a whole that is something beyond the sum of the parts.

From video turntables to political messages (Singapore riots), deconstructed vehicles to guerilla visual actions, vintage gear and VJ history to modern digital techniques, they run the gamut. And it’s clear that the range of expression and subject matter in VJing is far deeper and broader than what many people recognize.

Let us know what you think, and if you have any favorite bits.

Hong Kong, seen through the eyes of vj pillow & vj mademoiselle (Thien Vu Dang and Yasuko Tadokoro).

It’s been almost 6 months since we posted about Shiffman’s Most Pixels Ever processing library, but that doesn’t mean there’s been no progress.

Recently he’s left the lab and ensconced himself in front of the IAC Video Wall, bringing Most Pixels Ever to the screen with the most pixels to give.

Run Lola Run Lola Run Lola Run Lola Run from shiffman and Vimeo.

A little technical detail, with an announcement:

Each cell of video is 60×45 pixels. The entire system is run by 3 Mac Pros each pumping out 2720×768 (totaling 8160×768 for the entire wall.) I’m going to be releasing the Processing library/framework this week! Stay tuned!

Releasing the library? You mean this library?

The site is still a little lean, but early adopters can download the Alpha version and read a little about running it with processing.

Bouncy bouncy!

Data Is Nature brings to our attention the Valsuka Archive, an incredible trove of early video art history, exhibitions, work, designs and circuit diagrams. Paul describes it better than I:

The Vasulka Archive is massive repository of documents from the pioneering days of electronic, computer and video art. Containing a staggering 27000 pages of scanned documents, replete with hand typed texts, circuit diagrams and skuzzy ink marks, I could spend the rest of the week perusing this stuff, believe me. The big names are here, Crutchfield, Conrad, Paik, Van der Beek, Youngblood etc - hand written correspondences to the Vasulka’s as well as reviews and even obituaries of each artist/scientist - but history is selective and remembers according to its own algorithm. Encouragingly, not only do we find artifacts from the so called key movers of the time but also an exhaustive list of lesser, and relatively unknown practitioners waiting to be (re)discovered.

Check out the The Vasulka Archive and see what has inspired every generation of video artist. From TV to film to Music Video and club style VJing, it all started with these pioneers.

Via Data is Nature.