Steina
Bad, 1979
This work provides another example of sound-image inversion, in which the digital differs from the analog modulation of wave forms that either become video or audio noise because audible noise output in the digital uses bits as input: "The tape starts with the register at Zero and adds One at a preprogrammed speed. For sound, the most active bits are selected, translated through a digital/analog converter to voltage controlled oscillators... Bad is a play on a computer performance. By a simple command: 'add one', the machine scrambles for its pictorial and tonal expressions, succeeding at random." (S.V.)
This videotape demonstrates, for its time, a highly complex image calculation, which by today's standards looks simple. Nevertheless, it offers another example, from the early works of the Vasulkas, of how they creatively forced the medium, exhausted the tools, and attempted to exceed the limitations of the machine. Certainly, with the addition of digital tools and algorithms, the dimensional expansion more easily allows transfigurations and reversibility, such as metamorphosis, parallel stream of events in one image field, and image synthesis.
Yvonne Spielmann © 2004 FDL