Video Weaver (click to expand text)
Video weaver is inspired by Stephen Beck's classic
"Video Weavings" (1976) - an early hybrid of video and digital technology. While this software imitates the film's style and operations, it is not an exact simulation of the actual machine.
The image is generated by mirroring the pattern along an axis which can be set using centerx and centery parameters. The size of the "pixels" can be edited by "block width" and "block height", and the direction of the movement can be flipped. Using "x-repeat" and "y-repeat" it is possible to program the pattern to be flipped further. By typing 0 or 1 separated by a comma the "block" will be repeated respectively without and with flipping. Finally each color in the 16 color series can be set using the color pickers. You can also share your creation by pressing MAKE LINK.
Beck was inspired by weaving techniques in naming the video because the way a video image is "drawn" in horizontal and vertical scan lines could be used like the warp and weft in producing textiles. The imagery produced by this machine sometimes resembles Navajo weaving and Kilim rugs as well as the classical Greek meander, psychedelic hallucinations, optical illusions and the entoptic phenomena appearing to us when we close our eyes or rub them hard. These images are known scientifically as phosphenes.
COMMENTARY by Stephen "Steve" Beck written on December 18, 2016
(© Copyright 2016 Steve Beck, All Rights Reserved. Please see
www.stevebeck.tv for more information.)
When my friend, media arts scholar Kris Paulsen, PhD, at Ohio State University, recently called my attention to Danish video and film scholar Mr. Kasper Lauritzen’s Video Weavings "clone" I was quite impressed. He had made reasonably decent software "clone" of my Video Weaver digital counters and pattern generators, which he had written in JavaScript computer programming code he told me. He did this by "reverse engineering" from a single block diagram, and from his seeing my Video Weavings performance composition on a videotape rented from Electronic Arts Intermix. It was very nice of him to credit my original work as a source of inspiration to him. I am honored by his work, which is part of his Masters of Fine Arts Thesis at the Aarhus University in Denmark.
By the way, I never call, name, or think of my electronic inventions as "machines"; rather they are instruments. There are actually no powered mechanical moving parts in my instruments. No motors, no gears, not much metal or steel actually. Just as one would be speaking about a pianoforte as a machine, well to a musician it is an instrument. Indeed a piano has many mechanical moving parts, all powered by human energy. One would hesitate to call a flute, or a trombone, or timpani a machine instead of an instrument, even though they all have mechanical moving parts. (Well there are some moving parts on my instruments, the knobs, dials, slides, switches, but these are "played" by the performer on my BDVS (Beck Direct Video Synthesizer) or on my Video Weavers. But 99% of the energy in my instruments is electrons in motion, inside of analog or digital circuits. Nobody has ever yet "seen" an electron, but the results of their activities, when transformed into our analog world of senses, is amazing and wide spread.)
Please note that
Video Weavings is © Copyright by Stephen Beck, All Rights Reserved, and is a Registered Copyright with the United States Patent, Trademark Office and the Library of Congress. The copyright registration covers over 14,500 individual image frames, many of which are replicated by Mr. Lauritzen's "clone" generator; the registered copyright is also covered by over 140 countries worldwide who are signatories to the WIPO treaty and other treaties. As such, a limited viewing only license and permission to generate and view the copyrighted images is given to Mr. Lauritzen for a period of time, and to users of his "clone" generator, to view the video weavings images on a screen only. No other rights to reproduction, in print, paper, film, or other medium, nor broadcast, display publically or for sale, rent or license (images covered by the copyright registration), is given without the express written permission of Stephen Beck. Please direct any use permission requests to
www.stevebeck.tv at the Contact section. Video Weavings is NOT a "creative" commons use. Video Weavings™ is a Trademark of Steve Beck and Beck-Tech Corp.
