A question that's been coming up frequently about my Hypercube series is,
Where are the videos you're using coming from?
Where are the videos you're using coming from?
A: These are strictly analog, single-channel videos from my Experiment series, shot with a super cheap, black-and-white surveillance camera; I threw on a potentiometer so that I could basically solarize the video manually. In 2008 at the Experimental Television Center in New York, I live-processed original footage from my first research trip to Indonesia (also 2008), from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, my studio in Boston, and from Manhattan, incorporating several feedback loops using things like voltage control (aspects of the audio driving some video channels) and The Wobbulator, a device invented by Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe expressly for the ETC. (My second residency last Spring was one of the last in the ETC's 40-year history. I am LUCKY, and sad it's gone!)
Extended A:
To make the videosculptures, I worked with my friend Iyok (a.k.a., Budi Prakosa), a super sweet, disturbingly smart garage-computer scientist at House Of Natural Fiber. We mapped the video by hand, projecting directly onto the objects, measuring with a ruler, and masking the different layers in Motion as we went along. Needless to say, I am pleased as punch that programs like Touch Designer and Modul8 are out there now, which are making projects like Amon Tobin's ISAM possible (I witnessed this at The Warfield last Fall here in San Francisco, and I remember bahaving like a genuine Beatlemaniac). I'm excited to use the open source version on THE BEGINNING WAS THE END that our Creative Strategist, Matt Howell, just found.
These multi-layered pieces were done in the same way as Palindrome, which I made in 2006 using AfterEffects. While I was working in Java, I had initially intended to create videosculptures in exactly like Palidrome, making more elaborate arrangements of scientific glass to express the ideas in my Diagrams.
My assistant Sita and I toured the glass labs at Univeritas Gaja Mada's chemistry and physics departments, where they produce and repair their own scientific glass by hand. I wanted to see if I could commission my own shapes but it was exorbitantly expensive; I solved the problem by having negative shapes cast in cubes of resin, a baby-step in the right direction.
While we were there, I took a stab at a potentially complicated conversation with the lab tech: I asked him how to metaphorically express the energy behavior in a ritual called ruwatan in terms of an actual chemistry experiment, what equipment could be used to represent its different aspects. Amazingly, THIS WORKED. It turned out the guy moonlights as the gatekeeper for the Sultan's tomb, a special cave-like place in the palace graveyard where one can go to pray, but must wear traditional costume to enter (if you're shy on gear, never fear: they will provide). He completely and effortlessly rolled with my idea, the perfect consultant. THIS is why I love Java.
