The God Machine II (2023)
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Made
of maple, mahogany, aluminum, three cameras, five HD feedback monitors, three Roland video switchers, two viewing monitors, two
sheets of beam splitter glass, and a video input.
The device now has two monitor structures.
Both structures have two HD monitors (with analog hue/contrast/saturation knobs) at right angles to one another, with a sheet of beam splitter glass between them. The feedback loop between these two monitors, the reflection in the glass, and the camera, creates fractals in real-time, without a computer.
Using the video switchers, the left monitor structure can interact with the right monitor structure, and vise-versa. When they both interact with each other at the same time, yet another feedback loop is created, producing unexpected and strange results.
There is also a feedback loop between the third camera and the rotating
HD monitor. The output of this loop can be folded into the other loops.
Music:Toyo y Moi, The Medium
Insanity Mode: Fractals Made of Fractals Made of Fractals... (2023)
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In this mode of the Video Feedback Kinetic Sculpture, each of the four monitors effects every other monitor, and the image on the left is composed of the image on the right, while the image on right is composed of the image on the left - all at once (they create each other!) - making fractal sets within fractals sets within fractal sets within fractal sets...
Here, there's a feedback loop between two cameras and two monitor structures (each monitor structure has a top and bottom monitor with a sheet of beam splitter glass between the two). There's also a feedback loop between the monitor structures themselves, where the image created on the left structure is sent to the right structure, while the image created on the right structure is sent to the left structure.
Music: the Kingdom of Leisure
A Long, Traditional, 1 Camera 1 Monitor Feedback Session
This was created before the introduction of the very smooth motion of the linear bearings. This video will be replaced with a better one in the coming days...
Music:
Danielson, Eagle
Pink Floyd, Live at Pompeii 1972
Malinowski Collaboration #1
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This is the first collaboration with Stephen Malinowski. In this video I'm using one of Stephen's musical animations as an input to the Device.
Read about Stephen on his website, and his Wikipedia page. Check out more of his musical animations on his Youtube channel.
Music: Bach, Cello Suite No. 1, 1st movement; Performed by Vito Paternoster
A Two Year Ontogenetic Review (2022)
The Device has evolved naturally since its first iteration, as have the images it creates. This video chronicles the evolution of the Device from 2020 to 2022.
TV Boy Fractal Logo Treatment (Feb, 2022)
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TV Boy Productions in New York gave me a great deal on some monitors in return for making them a video feedback video with their logo.
Thanks again, and here's your video!
Music: Wilco, Kicking Television
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Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival [LEAF]: April, 2022
Had a great time in Colorado with the folks of LEAF. Check out part of the performance in this video.
Bach Segment
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This is a portion of the Exhibition video.
Check out how this was made here.
Bach's Musical Offering used as a tribute to Douglas Hofstadter.
Zemlinsky Segment
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This is a portion of the Exhibition video.
These images were made with Phase I of the Device.
Phase 3.5: Fractals Made of Fractals Made of Fractals!
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This is a brief ontogenetic overview of Phase 3.5.
Phase 3 was the addition of the second monitor structure. Now, Phase 3.5 is the addition of the 3rd Roland Switcher, 5th (rotating) Panasonic monitor, and 3rd camera.
Fractals made of fractals made of fractals. Plus, the Insanity Loop!
See the previous video shoot with the Device here (and an alternate music version here).
Thanks to TVBoy Production for a great deal on these monitors.
Music: Apache 98 by Rich Walkling
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Phase III: A New Complexity (Aug, 2021)
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This is the latest build of the device using t-slot aluminum. Here in Phase III two monitor structures sit side-by-side. The fractal made in the right structure can effect the fractal made in the left structure - and the fractal made in the left structure can effect the fractal made in the right structure, and since they are both effecting each other, another feedback loop is created between the structures. This is madness!
This takes things a step beyond the last iteration where I had
one feedback loop influencing another, but the other didn't not
influence the first, and expands on the 5 Iterations concept where I took the recorded output and put it back through as an input.
In this build, however, it all happens at once, and there are not just 5
iterations, but an infinite number - of course you can only see as many
as the system resolution allows (this would be amazing with all 4K equipment!).
The next step is adding a 5th Panasonic monitor on the end of the 2nd dowel where the 4th Panasonic used to be (and putting the 3rd camera back).
If you're not interested in the explainy stuff, skip to 2:58 in this video for images created with this build (or see the video of just these images here).
The fractal created on Loop A can influence the fractal created on Loop B, and the Fractal Created on Loop B can influence the fractal created on Loop A. When both of these things are happening at the same time, there is a feedback loop between the two structures, creating even more intricate complexities.
When the monitors are on Input 1 they see the camera directly. When they are on Input 2, they see the output of the Roland Switcher.
Input 1 on the Switcher is from the camera, and Input 2 is from the output of the other loop (so Switcher A’s Input 2 is the output of Loop B, and Switcher B’s Input 2 is the output of Loop A).
An HDMI splitter could have been used instead of converter box C (I used this because I like the slight delay these boxes create, and it’s what I had).
See previous schematics here.
2nd Video Shoot: The God Machine (May, 2021)
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This video is 4K (3840 x 2160) but the images the device creates are still HD (1920 x 1080). Maybe one day they'll be in 4K...
Check out an alternate version of this video with different music.
This is the most recent video, shot almost exactly one year to the day from the project’s beginning.
I'd like to thank David Kislin and Federico Baldeschi at JEL Developement for being nice enough to let me use one of their empty properties (free of charge, no less!) to make this video.
Music:
"3 Birds" by The Dead Weather
"Starless" by King Crimson
"We Did it Again" by Bongwater
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1st Video Shoot: Fractals Come Alive (June, 2020)
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This is old-school video feedback - no computers were used (or harmed) in the creation of these images.
The output of the camera goes to the upper monitor (which the camera sees). The camera's output also goes to the lower monitor (which the camera also sees in the reflection of the sheet of beam-splitter glass between the two monitors).
It's this feedback loop, with the two images combined together, that creates emergent behavior and fractals made in real-time - and it's the feedback loop between the Device and the person at its helm that creates organic movements, plants swaying in the the wind, sea creatures, cells, ancient insects and galaxies.
This is a little self-contained universe, and the laws of this universe, which dictate what images are created, are the angle of the glass, the height of the
upper monitor and position and rotation of the lower monitor, plus the
position of the control dials of both monitors and rotation and position of the camera. Through iterations, worlds are created. It looks like magic, but it's really mathematics.
Credit goes to Peter King for his 1997 diagram that inspired this configuration of the device.
Music: Nils Petter Molvær
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Approaching the Infinite: Loops Within Loops (Feb, 2021)
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Loops within loops within loops: maybe the most complex video feedback ever made? This is one of my favorites, and I've not been able to replicate it.
Music: John Lurie, Alone
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Fractals Made of Fractals: 2nd Rotating Monitor Added!
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The Canon’s output now not only goes to the original Panasonic Rotating Monitor through the Roland Switcher, but goes to the new Panasonic Rotating Monitor through the Blackmagic Video Converter (to make a signal the Monitor can see).
The Phone’s camera sees the 2nd Rotating Monitor and its output goes to Source 2 of the Switcher. When this image is luma keyed (bright areas are included but dark areas are not) over Source 1 (the Canon feedback), fractals are created because the two feedback loops influence each other. This keying of the feedback does electronically what the beam-splitter glass does on the Primary Loop.
The Phone can still be used to supply images to do what's done in the previous video.
Note: I say the output of the new monitor is from the Canon - meant to say the input is from the Canon.
Dual Loop / Dual Switcher / Dual Rotating Monitor Schematic
This is getting kind of crazy!
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2nd Roland Switcher Added! (Feb, 2021)
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Some description of feedback, and what the switchers are for.
Music: Los Guitarlos Dangeroso by The Kingdom of Leisure, live in Sliver Lake, July 26, 2013
Dual Loop / Dual Switcher Schematic (Feb, 2021)
The
first layout switched between the main Nikon feedback loop (with the
two monitors and the half-mirrored glass) and the second input (which
started out as just the phone, then the phone’s output on the rotating monitor, then evolved to the Canon feedback loop).
Now, the layout itself is fractal in nature,
and the main switcher switches between the Nikon feedback loop (with
the two monitors and the half-mirrored glass) and the Canon loop, which
itself has a switcher that goes between that loop and the phone (or the
phone keyed over that loop). Or, the main switcher keys that second
input Canon loop (with phone involvement) over the main Nikon loop. Yikes.
Once
again I’m not sure what all this will look like, and once again I’m
posting before it’s all setup and ready to go, because, ya never know.
Notes (mostly for myself)
Preview Out of the Roland Switcher is just used to access the Switcher settings.
I’m
using the Blackmagic Video Converter in place of a simple HDMI to SDI
converter to see what effect a delay caused by converting from one video
format to another will have on the feedback loop.
A 1 in 3 out HDMI splitter could replace the two HDMI splitters in the
Secondary Loop, and an HDMI splitter could be used in the Main Loop.
This is an
updated schematic that puts the Phone back on the Rotating Monitor (I
had somehow forgotten about that aspect). Now, the Canon sees the
Phone’s output on the rotating Panasonic Monitor when Switcher 2 is
on Source 2, then when switched to Source 1, the Canon sees its own
output on the Rotating Monitor. Switching quickly between Source 1 and 2 will have the effect of the Phone's image going into a feedback pattern.
On the Main Loop, when the Panasonic Monitors are on Input 2, they show the Nikon when Switcher 1 is on Source 1. When Switcher 1 is on Source 2, they show the Secondary Loop. Switching quickly between Source 1 and 2 will have the effect of the Secondary Loop going into a feedback pattern.
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Dual Feedback Loops: Particle Accelerator Images?
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I thought this looked a bit like the images made from particles smashing into each other in a particle accelerator (and it was at the Edwards particle accelerator at Ohio University, when I was 13 years old, that I learned what a crowned pulley was when someone working there - I don't remember his name - made a couple of them for me for the Van de Graaff generator I was building. A crown in the pulley keeps the belt from slipping off, and is what I'm using - made from PVC and Gorilla Tape - on the Device).
Music: Jerry Sneede