Glitch Art Dot Com

Back in 2015 I finished a project I was particularly excited about.  Still am really.  In typical Pauper fashion I used it on a couple of things and then let it collect dust for three years with minimal documentation.  In an effort to get back in to a creative practice (need…. to…. make….. more…. art…. *GASP*)  I recently plugged in my well-abused modified Playstation 2 and sat down to work on some brief sketches.  It’s a rewarding machine to approach as an artistic tool.  As with most corrupted gaming environments the palette changes from game to game depending on the manner in which the engineers utilized the hardware.

The level at which you can stack bends and shred polygons down to their basics is b-b-breath-taking.  I spent a lot of time researching the PS2 hardware before I dove in.  Fortunately there is a lot out there on the subject.  The GPU corruption mods I wired up for the PS2 are a lot more varied in comparison to what I cooked up on the Dreamcast (which I will highlight in a later installment).  The PS2 has some very nice object trailing modes and vertical polygonal stretch modes that far exceed the corrupted malleability of polygons on both the PS1, Sega Saturn & Dreamcast.  The right conditions even create little rivers of feedback in conjunction with object texture-stripping (see “Where the Water Meets the Ruins” below).

I was never a PS2 fan as a kid, my allegiance was with Sega.  In my later years however my primary fascination with the PS2 became how vast and trashy the library of titles is.  They pumped out a lot of soul-less crap for this thing.  It’s library is a pretty apt reflection of American culture in the early two thousands.  Speaking of which, another aspect worth noting about the PS2 was how dark, realistic and graphic the depictions of violence suddenly got.  Where else could you strangle a dude with a plastic bag?  Or beat a prostitute to death after paying them for sex?  Lord knows what cruel fantasies we’re acting out in video games these days but the PS2 featured some of the first titles to genuinely shock and disturb me.

I initially wanted to work with some of the most objectively cruel and useless titles and see if I could flip ’em in an interesting way.  This is what lead me to working so extensively with Cabela games for a little while there.  The premise to every Cabela game is simple (and poorly executed); kill animals.  While I’d rather people kill virtual animals than real ones I still find these games a special breed of depressing.  For “Fabricating Elk Meadows” I utilized the game Dangerous Hunts where you follow an old man into the woods to shoot all manner of woodland creatures.  I was delighted to discover that you can choose not to pick up any weapons and walk right past the old guy into the woods for a leisurely stroll where effectively nothing happens.  The forest is designed to look dark and “dangerous” but by utilizing the right combination of GPU corruptions it becomes a pretty peaceful and warm place to take a stroll.

In anticipation of a Basement Labs VHS release I’m working on with the circuit bent PS2 I’ve uploaded a couple of quick sketches from 2015-2016.  I’ll be uploading and sharing some more recent works shortly.  I also hope to document a number of other curious things I’ve done with my time on planet earth in the near future.  Keep your Eyes peeled for “Mining the Emotion Engine” from Basement Labs this September.

Are you a vidiot living in, and or around Portland, OR?  Looking to kill some time with other potentially like-minded vidiots?  Perhaps you might consider the BPMC Takeover edition of Cathode Ray Consortium’s VIDEO MIXER at Modular8 tuesday Marh 13th.  Rather than run my gums all night I’ll be setting up little video art workstations centered around some of the unique gear available at Pauper Palace.  This will be a great opportunity for you to get your hands on a number of obscure tools like the Fairlight CVI, Pinnacle Prizm, Videonics Studio Skech, Innisfree Picasso as well as some shit I cooked up.  I am also hoping to have a number of prototypes of the NEW BREED available for demo in eurorack form.

We are about a year deep in to hosting these things and I’ve gotta say they are a fun way to pass an evening.  Big thanks as always to Phil at Modular8!

For those interested, who also have facebook accounts, please peep the event page.

For those not on facebook… I truly salute you.

You are cordially invited to Video Mixer.

When: March 13th 2018 (7pm – 9pm)

Where: Modular8 (1416 SE Morrison St, Portland, OR 97214)

Signal Culture is currently accepting applications for it’s spring/summer artist, researcher & toolmaker residencies.  As a past attendee I highly recommend Signal Culture to new media artists seeking a unique hands-on signal processing experience.  The mid-february deadline is already creeping right up so don’t sleep!

Back in the fall of 2016 I flew in to Albany, NY and somehow found my way to the quiet little upstate town of Owego (not Oswego… by all means, do not fuck this up).  I had been accepted to the toolmaker residency  and had the Codename: Video-3 (now Televandalist) to iron out and build.   Scott Kiernan (pictured), of ESPTV, was the artist-in-residence and chief wobbulator-modulator for the duration of my stay.

Aside from working on my circuit design (and a couple of fifths of Bulleit rye) I was excited to research and wrap my head around NY state signal processing history.  The library at Open Signal had a lot of unique and obscure reads but of all the books I stumbled upon The Emergence of Video Processing Tools (Vol. 1 & 2) was by far the most useful in my quest.  A great video companion piece to the books was the Experimental Television Center’s Early Media Instruments 8-DVD set which will eat up a full day of your residency if you are not careful (as it did mine).

You could go the entire residency without leaving the studio for anything more than coffee at Carol’s and booze from the Wine Connection.  HOWEVER, there are a couple of things worth checking out in the darling town of Owego.  Perhaps a Pauper top-five is in order?

1. I highly recommend a morning stroll/jog thru yee ol’ historic cemetery on the north side of town.  It’s got an incredible view of the valley and a couple of creepy unmarked trails that lead to Blair Witches.  It’s a great place to film from the back of your Mom’s bright yellow Subaru Baja (footage came out terrible – my bad Scott).

2.  If looking for a comfortable local watering hole stick to the John Barleycorn Tavern.  If you are looking for a bar that offers free teeth removal and lousy crank check out the Rainbow Trail.

3.  Are you a fellow insomniac?  If you just need to air out your brain with coffee & pie at 4am peep the Skylark Diner in Vestal which is just a couple of towns over.  You’ll need a vehicle to get there but it’s a great little greasy spoon to scribble schematics in a notebook & cold house a stack of pancakes in.

4.  I have no idea what I did with mine but you’ve got to pose for a photo in front of Video World before it gets demolished…. oh mighty pillar of our once proud video rental industry.

5.  Oh wait…. here is a good one…. GET TO WORK!  You’ve got a whole world-class video art studio at your fingertips… what are you doing wandering Owego?!?!  Enough with the avoidance behaviors AND GET BACK TO WORK!

I recently had the good fortune of trading in the endless doom and gloom of another winter in Portland for a little taste of that smog-drenched LA sunshine I hear so much about.  Moog‘s House of Electronicus was a designed to be an alternative space to all the NAMM hub-bub and a chance for Moog to debut it’s incredible little DFAM drum machine (amongst other things… my lips are sealed).   Electronicus was situated smack dab in the middle of Echo Park (which was lovely by the way) and hosted a number of performances, workshops (from the good people at Portland’s S1 synth library) and Moog-fueled art installations.

Theremini Visions was an installation based around Moog’s new theremin, the Theremini.  While I was admittedly giving this thing a hard time for adding a T-Pain auto-tune mode the sound set is quite nice and the on-screen display has a number of cool practice aids.  The Theremini also has onboard CV out (with voltage scaling options) unlike it’s lovable predecessor, the Etherwave (which required a 100USD CV expansion board).  Utilizing the CV generated by playing the theremin I routed the output in to a little LZX travel rig I assembled for the occasion (thanks for the last minute help Perfect Circuit).  From LZX Bridge CV was fed to a number of parameters to keep things interesting & fluid.  I had hoped to setup some more intense envelope following actions but simplicity won out in the end.  Video from two LZX Visual Cortex modules wound it’s way through a series of BPMC Premium Cables, Basic Cables and Fluxus glitch video fx processors before arriving at their target CRT stacks.  A big shout out to Joey with Purdy Lites for hooking up the CRT delivery!  Another big shout out to Evan Shamoon for an assortment of PVMs and last-minute converters.

Subsequent 37 dreams was an installation that invited users to crawl into bed, get comfy, toss on headphones and slide Moog’s Sub37 synthesizer over them for bedtime synth noodlings.  An array of Subpac tacticle bass systems lined the mattress effectively shaking the bed with every note played.  For further sensory stimulation video by Charles Goldberg was processed & projected by the Pauper Palace edition of the BPMC SFX-M Glitchmix with audio reactivity from the original Fluxus glitch video processor.  The wooden synth-slider bed contraption (that delighted so many) was cooked up by North Carolinan sculptor Richard Goldberg.

It was a blast working with Moog on this project.  Much love to Charles for bringing me in.  A big thank you to Ian for tech-ing the installation in my absence.  Thanks to all who experienced the MOOG HOUSE OF ELECTRONICUSSSSSSSSSSSS.

It’s summer twenty seventeen and BPMC users have been busy mangling video in a variety of beautiful & creative ways. If you enjoy the work below I encourage you to dig deeper for more from the artists. Chances are it’s hot stuff! As always I love seeing what you folks do with all these broken machines I keep tossing into the mail. Keep up the good work, I salute you and remember to send your completed works my way! Happy summer!

Japanese Dream Pools 儀式 (Ritual) by Night Diver
Video by  Brian Callaghan

Skinny Legs – Elohim
Video by Chase Black

Polygon -『Indigo』
Video by Arthur Demeure

Currency – The Black Angels (Visualizer)
Video by Bob Mustachio

Meeca – BEZVĚDOMÍ (prod. Donie Darko)
Video by Arthur Demeure

A Place To Bury Strangers – Straight
Video by Brook Linder

Boogarins – Lá Vem a Morte (Album Visualizer)
Video by Rollinos

Khalil – Níngjìng
Video by George Kountouras

Distorting Louïs
Video by Saou Tanaka

Video by Gabriel Edvy Aka Blackswitch Labs

In anticipation of Martha Daghlian’s “La MoDe: experimental personal uniforms collection” exhibition at Impossible Box Arts (in Portland, OR on thursday May 4th 2017) we are highlighting a number of glitch-camera based works exclusive to the web.  Martha Daghlian’s show incorporates photographs taken with a BPMC modified 4 megapixel digital camera in a series of conceptual fashions and digital prints.  It’s definitely a show worth checking out.

“La MoDe is a new collection of experimental fashion concepts by intuitive apparel artist Martha Daghlian. The photographs and garments on display at Impossible Box are personal uniforms, amateur couture, and/or multiverse chic. The artist’s self-portrait photos have been processed through secret special effects engineered by Drew McIntyre of BPMC; the results represent theoretical textile prints for the La MoDe collection.  A limited run of prototype uniforms, created in collaboration with Ben Houston of Tellurian Fieldwear, is displayed in La MoDe signature printed twill with official-looking shiny embellishments.”

Only a couple of days left to get in on the crowd-funded madness.  Arius Blaze of Folktek has been hard at work for two years now dialing in the revolutionary new Mescaline synthesizer.  It’s hard to pin the Mescaline down and call it any one thing, but that has always been the joy of Arius’s work (who’s reign of sonic terror is closing in on two decades).  It’s a tonal synth, it’s a drum synth, it’s a sequencer, it’s an effects processor, it’s a customizable sound design platform…… and finally, it’s on sale.  Show some early-bird support and get one now for a fraction of the list price via the Indiegogo campaign.

You’ve got a couple of options now when it comes to picking out a BPMC glitch video mixer. With the recent addition of the modified Edirol V4 you’ve now got four designs to choose from. They each have various strengths and hold different advantages over one another so it can be a rather tough choice…. choosing one that is.  For me what it ultimately comes down to is the mod aesthetics however it’s nice to know a device’s strengths and weaknesses before you commit.  I thought I’d take a minute or two to outline the primary differences and give you my personal opinion on each mixer and it’s modifications.

Glitchmix SFX-M.

Price: $480 USD
In production: Mid 90’s
Channels: 2
TBC: Full Frame Synchronizers.
Monitor Outs: 2
Video Outs: 2
Superimpose Layer: None
Wipe/Mix: Yes
Key Functionality: Yes, as channel FX.
Titler Add-on: No
NTSC/PAL switchable: NTSC only (via BPMC).

Mixer Feedback Rating: 6/10
Durability Rating: 5/10
Projector Friendliness: 10/10
TBC Dropout: I have not run in to any instances where this thing dropped out on me.
TBC Flavor: Pretty true to the original circuit bent FX.  Do the effects you throw at it look the same as on a CRT?  No, definitely not… but I find that this mixer is as good as it gets.

Audio Reactivity: No
CV Reactivity: No

Mixer Strengths:
Has awesome onboard FX (including chroma/luma!!!!).
Has unique wipe shaping abilities.
Has a wide edge feather on the wipe.

Mixer Limitations:
You can only use one effects bank at a time.
No divisional wipe settings.
The channels are naturally a little dirty.

Modifications:
Six glitch ports per channel.  Mix and match ports with patch cables.
While minimal this offers you an interesting assortment of illustrative looks and digital corruptions.
Glitch FX also work great in combination with mixer feedback.

Final take:  This mixer has some serious lofi charm.  I understand why Sima felt the need to offer the world the SFX9.  The SFX-M is internally very dated for it’s 1995 manufacturer’s date.  But that’s where the charm comes in.    The channels (pre-modification) are gritty… the faders are coarse and the overall feel of this thing is unusually analog for a mid-90s era mixer.  It has a nice assortment of onboard effects that blow the AVE5 and even the Videonics MX1 out of the park.  It would have been nice if they tossed a wipe division button on here as you run low on different wipe shapes pretty quick.  Despite my critiques of this unit I feel like everyone should have an SFX-M modified or unmodified in their arsenal for the gritty charm it brings to your palette.

Glitchmix AVE5.

Price: $680USD
In production: 1990’s
Channels: 2
TBC: Yes
Monitor Outs: 2
Video Outs: 2
Superimpose Layer: Yes
Wipe/Mix: Yes
Key Functionality: No
Titler Add-on: Yes
NTSC/PAL switchable: NTSC Only (via BPMC)

Mixer Feedback Rating: 8/10
Durability Rating: 6/10
Projector Friendliness: 10/10
TBC Dropout:  Never gotten it to dropout
TBC Flavor: Digital, draggy, not true to the original FX but still very cool.

Audio Reactivity: Yes
CV Reactivity: See AVE5 CV

Mixer Strengths:
This is my favorite sub-v4 mixer for goopy blobby classic video feedback.
The AVE5 has a decent number of wipe patterns.
The superimpose feature is handy for quickly keying in the optional titler.

Mixer Limitations:
Limited on-board effects. No negative or luma.

Modifications:
Newest revision boasts 5 touch corruptions per channel, 5 corruption knobs per channel, 1 cv input per channel and 3 magnetic patch fx per channel.  Yow!

Final Take:  A video jazz standard.  The AVE5 is a bare bones and reliable mixer in it’s unmodified form.  In it’s modified form dare I say it’s a completely different machine?!?  This was my go-to mixer for video feedback and live TBC flavors for years.  While limited in it’s onboard effects and bells n’ whistles it is terrific as a glitch video production centerpiece.  I also love the ability to take on and power up the proprietary AVE series titler (via the bottom front port).

Glitchmix SFX9/10

Price: $740USD
Channels: 2
TBC: Yes
Monitor Outs: 2
Video Outs: 2
Superimpose Layer: No
Wipe/Mix: Yes
Key Functionality: Yes as a mix mode.
Titler Add-on: No
NTSC/PAL Switchable: Yes

Mixer Feedback Rating: 3/10
Durability Rating: 7/10
Projector Friendliness: 10/10
TBC Dropout: I’ve only experienced mild dropout with some of the harder analog glitch FX.
TBC Flavor: Laggy with some looks but pretty clean for the most part.

Audio Reactivity: No
CV Reactivity: No

Mixer Strengths:
Mixable luma/chroma blends are super sweet.
Incredible wipe options.
Extremely clean signal
Easy NTSC/PAL switchability.
Sweet multi Picture in Picture modes

Mixer Limitations:
The mixer feedback is garbage without throwing an effects processor in between or something in the feedback chain.
TBC flavor can be a little stiff at times.

Modifications:
A number of patchable FX buffer corruptions per each channel.
A series of wipe corruption effects
LED pushbutton based corruption effects.

Final take:  The number one church mixer on the planet!!  And it’s still in production strangely.  I wish I could take over licensing for this thing…. would be a blast to hard wire some mods on the next production run.  This has pretty much everything you can ask for in a basic hardware mixer…. luma mix, all sorts of wipe shapes, the run of the mill onbaord effects, monitor outs for duplicating channels, and a reasonably agreeable TBC.  The mixer feedback, while not so hot on it’s own, does indeed stand to greatly benefit from throwing either a Fluxus or Premium Cable in the feedback loop.

Glitchmix V4

Price: $1100USD
Channels: 4
TBC: Yes
Monitor Outs: 1 for OSD
Video Outs: 2
Superimpose Layer: No
Wipe/Mix: Yes
Key Mix: Yes
Titler Add-on: No
NTSC/PAL: Switchable

Mixer Feedback Rating: 9/10
Durability Rating: 10/10
Projector Friendliness: 10/10
TBC dropout: HEAVY.  Does not consistently display compromised signals.
TBC Flavor: Non-existent.

Audio Reactivity: Yes
CV Reactivity: No

Mixer Strengths:
The quality & selection of the onboard FX is awe-inspiring.
Boy oh boy this T-bar feels goo-oo-ooood.
All sorts of cool user preset options and wipe settings.
Super tough aluminum housing.
MIDI functionality.
Tempo-based fader modulation!!!

Mixer Limitations:
Just the internal TBC giving you a blue screen (by default) with most any corrupted analog signal you throw at it.
You’ll need a decent external TBC for each channel when using glitch video devices.

Modifications:
3 light up push button effects on the front console.
9 FX knobs per channel (18 total knobs!)

Final Take:

This is the mixer of your dreams, for the most part.  If you are using analog glitch gear with it however the threshold for what to display and what not to display when it comes to running glitch visuals into this machine are not in your favor. But that aside, this mixer is fantastic. With a dedicated monitor for the OSD you have a massive collection of transitions that you can modulate via the tap tempo or bpm dial. The mixer feedback on this guy is naturally quite gorgeous and the onboard effects far exceed what is capable on any other mixer highlighted here. The glitch aesthetics exist in three flavors. There are some color processing expansions that tilt the colors a bit and add some cool channel artifacts. There are luma trails that are quite incredible and deeply resemble the classic buffer trails look with limited control. Then there are 9 very digital, almost datamosh-y, looking effects per channel which push things in a fractured Matrix-y looking direction.

Hope this helps.  Pauper… OUT!

Glory be!  The wait is over!  Paracosm’s Lumen now has MIDI functionality!  Oh brave new world.  That’s gotta feel pretty sweet for Jason.  Should cut down on his e-mails.  I have to have been driving him nuts…..

“Ay Jason, you got MIDI yet?”

“No Drew, not yet.”

(2 minutes pass)

“Ay Jason, how about now, got that MIDI yet?”

“No Drew.”

(2 minutes pass)

“Ay Jason….”

Times a thousand, nyuk nyuk.  Well it was worth the wait.  With MIDI ironed out and a whole slew of published tutorials now is a great time to dive in on Lumen, which is easily the single greatest software based video synthesis platform in the world.  The only thing to figure out is what to nab for it in MIDI controller-land.  There are a lot of options but it’s tough to find a solution best suited to Lumen’s key features.  I personally just want a heap of knobs and a couple of assignable buttons for the mod destination toggles.  Given my prerequisites the most well suited controller seems to be the Behringer bcr2000.   They are a little heavy and it’d be nice to have something with an X/Y pad but that’s enough knobs to route the patch section out to controls too.  Could always use that in conjunction with something tiny like a Korg NanoPad for the X/Y and saving snapshots.   Let me know if you’ve got a better option.

Took this joyous occasion to produce a new Lumen video featuring BPMC processing video.  Cut this down from a little 2 hour session the other night using a mix of modified presets and from scratch noodlings.  The primary BPMC elements include the Premium Cable, the SFX-M Glitchmix and the new Codename: Video-3.  The results where filmed on a CRT via a DSLR.   Enjoy the quiet storm.

Been a little too quiet with the site over the summer months.  No worries though.  Rain clouds are moving in, the sweet scent of decay is in the air and I no longer need to feel like golem for staying inside slaving over a hot CRT.  Let’s get this fall started off right with a bunch of demos.  I’ve got a lot of new stuff on the horizon (as always, as always) but also long over due have been demos for some of the basics.  Here we see a lot more Premium Cable coverage and AVE5 CV coverage.  Still need to get better documentation for the Touch Deluxe and the……. Zola.

This October I will finally be offering mail-in Edirol v4 upgrades.  I’ve got two tiers of mods at two different price points.  When it comes down to it the modified V4 has three effect types; channel corruption, illustrative chrome looks and 2 buffer trails modes.  This video gives you a sneak peak of what to expect from some of the radical channel corruption effects.  For this video I’ve mixed an HDMI camera signal with the V4 via the Roland V-1HD.

Not only is this a solid glimpse into what’s possible with the Premium Cable but it highlights the affect TBC has over computer capture.  I’m using a Black Magic Intensity Shuttle and capturing the Premium at 1080i.  The video on the left has a Sima SFX9 with a built in TBC providing us with a drop-out free capture.  The video on the right has no TBC in place and is serving up a little intermittent drop-out.  You’ll also notice I don’t push some effects as far as they go on the right as it will results in an extended period of lost signal.  While the Premium Cable is totally still awesome and sufficient without TBC in conjunction with computer capture hopefully this video shows you a bit of what’s lacking when capturing sans-TBC.  Mostly what you lose is the rich scrambles and hot moments of frame drift.  A lot of blurs, posterize looks and edge feedback looks still shine through.

Had a good rainbow day the other day.  This video stresses the importance of experimenting with different makes and models of CRT when it comes to the scrambled signals.  Until I began working with DIY CRT-walls I did not realize that a TV’s circuitry & size affects it’s interpretation of corrupted signals.  This 18 inch Sony Trinitron I found on the side of the road a while back really produced some eye-popping results in link with the Premium Cable.  While the Premium Cable normally produces rainbow feedback (it can take a little work…. you have to get just the right knob combination) I found that this TV just made it pop like no other.  Maybe I was just high.  Either way, experiment with displays.  Nuff’ said.

People often ask me if there is much difference in between the effects on the AVE3 & the 2 channel version, the AVE5.  Let’s just say there are more similarities than not.  The wipe effects are really what set the two apart.  The AVE5 is like having 2 AVE3s under one roof plus a bunch of rad transitions and less onboard effects.  This just as easily could be an AVE3 CV demo but it’s not.  It’s me feeding function sweeps (as always) into one channel of the AVE5 CV and having a damn good time doing it.

Finally.  A proper AVE5 CV demo.  As stated above so much can be done with this little guy and only a handful of modules.    Over the course of this video the AVE5 is receiving up to 6 different CV sources.  Various eurorack parameters are being controlled via oscillators and such to perform sweeps.  All of the looks were created and patched with only video in mind.  I know a lot of people have massive audio rigs and are looking to sync everything up to visuals but I have experimented very little with this.  That stated who knows what my CV sources sound like here…. they sure look great though.  🙂