subliminalTV

This is part of my subliminalTV live audiovisual set - an edited segment of a performance I did at Roxy's Bar and Screen, London in April 2007 (courtesy of body > data > space).

This section is a good example of my lo-tech experimental approach to multimedia - here most of what you can HEAR is actually the video itself. Basically I simply split the video signal and shove it into my audio input (as well as sending it to the projector). If you do this, quite often you won't hear anything (I think the frequencies involved are actually out of the range of human hearing), but if you mix the signal with something else, you get strange kinds of interference. Here I combined it with some rather filthy bass to get this rather raw, distorted kind of sound - I really like the way the video has a tendancy to punch 'holes' in the audio - hence the title of this section. It does make for a pretty raw and nasty sound - if this bit isn't your cup of tea, do try some of the other sections which you might find easier going!

I'm trying to develop a kind of audiovisual feedback loop based on this (where the audio signal is fed back into the video too), but I haven't really got this working yet.

I like to do live visuals in strange ways, and this is a good example. The visual material is all super8 film, captured live off the screen of a funny little super8 editor thing I've got (it probably has a more proper name than that). It has two little handles that you spool the film through with, and with a bit of practice you can get the film to 'dance' in time with the music (expecially if the film is actually of dancers!). Here and there I do some rudimentary 'mixing' simply by putting two bits of film through at once. I really like the super-low-quality effect you get from filming off the tiny scratched screen with its little flickering bulb.

One of the ideas behind subliminalTV is to use rather unlikely material - things off the cutting-room floor, things no-one else might want. This is a good example of that - the super8 material was literally discovered in an attic. I've absolutely no idea who these people are, or any of the background behind the footage - I find that fascinating, and a bit sad. Oh, and there's a tiny bit of Chris Marker's 'Sans Soleil' in there too - don't really know why.

I'm interested in the idea of visual material seeming somehow symbolic, without actually symbolising anything. This has led me to develop (unsurprisingly) an interest in symbols - I've accumulated quite a library of books of/about them (my favorite is 'Symbol Sourcebook' by Henry Dreyfuss). All the symbols used here were literally scanned in by hand, which took weeks. Although this is a bit crazy, I like the idea of a hand-made film put together a frame at a time.

Although these sequences were done 'manually', I've subsequently developed a piece of software called 'choosyviewer' that automates this process. It can sift through images/video and find frames that are similar and sequence them according to this similarity, which can be defined using various rules. It's quite cool actually - more anon.

The little sequences of symbols are synchronised perfectly with the sound through the power of my AViator software - I find I can build up little visual 'rhythms' this way.

I tend to throw these little 'blipverts' in between longer sections during a gig to break things up a little. Like the opening section, this uses the trick of feeding the video signal into my audio input so that you can actually 'hear' the video. AViator has an video effect that basically converts video into messed-up ascii art, and I've found that the ascii version sounds much better than the original version for some reason. Rather than the kind of interference and distortion I used in the opening section, you get these quite nice harmonic sounds.

I'm interested in the idea of video 'remixes' (see my more recent 'La Antena' remixes). This is made from material taken from two films made by Hans Richter in the 20s - 'Vormittagsspuk (Ghosts Before Breakfast)' and 'Filmstudie'. There is a reason for such blatant pilfering - I really want sections of subliminalTV to seem incredibly old, as though they have been dug up from another era (kind of a reaction against shiny digital-ness, I guess), and in my opinion that can't be simulated.

The 'borrowed' material is mixed with a live video layer - this is generated using the very high-tech technology of a dusty mirror and a torch - I find such simple things can be much more tactile and immediate than even the most sophisticated interactive technology.