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Woody Vasulka

No. 25, 1976

Woody Vasulka, No. 25, 1976 (full version) (video)
Woody Vasulka, No. 25, 1976 (full version) (video)
Steina and Woody Vasulka, Vasulka Video: Objects, 1978 (excerpt) (video)
Steina and Woody Vasulka, Vasulka Video: Objects, 1978 (excerpt) (video)
In No. 25, we see on the screen recorded accidents of the signal as it’s shaped through voltage and frequency. In saying that the image derives from "noise," according to Woody we need to understand noise as all frequencies together, which means unstructured energy that bears the "potential" of all video. Surprisingly, the imagery that arises from the deflection of 525 lines is not made through a camera lens but rather the empty television frame. The Scan Processor affects this information electromagnetically, so that the whole information of the empty TV is shrunk and bent into a 360 degree shape that appears as an abstract object in video void. The density of scan lines is spread until the structuring of the lines is brought to visibility. The image source in No. 25 is the rewinding of a videotape and this signal of random noise is processed in the Scan Processor, where it is then rescanned according to the raster system, and finally filmed.

Before it can be filmed or rescanned, the distorted "image" needs to be stabilized and locked in order to stop drifting so that it matches with the constraints of the preset raster frame and therefore can be recorded. This happens through a clock operation, which, in case of the Scan Processor, is carried out by an internal oscillator. The newly "created" image self-reflexively refers to signal processing, because in its internal movement from top to bottom it verifies the vertical synchronization jump, usually invisible. The visual demonstration of how drifting scan lines are locked in the internal form of the presented image as frame reveals the function of the clock to adjust random noise so that we can see and hear an image. The modulation of frequency and voltage into a cylindrical form also demonstrates how dimension and direction of electronic imagery can be easily manipulated. The transformative potential of the empty screen also reveals that the visual part of video can take any form and even become a spatial object, thereby foregrounding 3-D computer graphics.

Yvonne Spielmann © 2004 FDL