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As far as I understand from the description of the technique, these aren't actually VCR/VHS errors - they're RCA line errors:
"To discover his glitch art, Johnson plugs short, repeating videos into an Xbox 360 through its USB port, and then feeds that into a VCR. The output is projected on to an old CRT TV he bought from a thrift store. He then manipulates a frayed RCA cable that runs from the Xbox to the VCR while it’s recording in order to interrupt the signal. “The colors tear, images start to warp, and still images start to come alive with organic motion,” Johnson says. “I’ve recently looked into some circuit bending boxes that can be an intermediate between the signal and the recording, but I like the lack of control I have with just jamming some wires together.”"
He's using a VCR to capture the resulting distorted video, but another digital device with an RCA input line would work just as well.
Before digital cable, cable signals were scrambled in a similar way to prevent pirate receivers.
VCRs behaved a little odd surrounding pausing. You probably remember back in the day - a paused VCR would show the frame it was paused on, but usually poorly, with some noise, a bit out of alignment.
This is related to the mechanical design of VHS tapes and the player. VCRs use helical scanning. What this means is that each frame of video is recorded on the VHS tape in a linear track that runs diagonally across the tape. Inside the VHS player, you may remember seeing a drum in the back that seems at an off angle. This is the helical read drum: it spins at a very high speed as the tape is pulled around it, and the combination of the slanted head drum spinning and the tape moving along it at a lower speed results in the heads mounted to the drum tracing these diagonal lines on the tape.
The TV draws to the screen continuously, 29.97 times per second, and draws whatever is coming on the analog video input at that moment. So for the image to remain when you have paused the tape, the VCR must continuously play the same frame back to the television. This requires keeping the drum moving and alternating the tape drive (the capstan motor) back and forth very rapidly to try to keep the same helical track aligned with the head over and over. This never quite works right, leaving a noisy signal that often has a bit of a shake as the tracking goes in and out each frame. Additionally, the capstan rapidly switching directions can damage the tape, which is why most VCRs will switch to Stop after being paused for a few minutes.
Laserdiscs had this problem much worse, as there was simply no practical way to get the disc back to the beginning of a frame quickly enough to rescan it. Higher-end laserdisc players could show a freeze-frame, but they did it with an electronic framebuffer that was digitally replayed to the TV. I wonder if there may have been higher-end VCRs with this same technology, but I haven't seen one.
Hi! Artist in question here.
This is what I'm exploiting with the paused glitches. When you interrupt the signal between the source and the VCR, you end up getting strange artifacts in the paused image. Because the image wasn't fully transferred to the tape, you're basically laying bare the extent of the distortion. Another interesting bit is when the color data goes, and all that remains is black and white information, the pause state gets even funkier. It moves and jitters when paused, and even tears off the screen at times.
It's all sorts of fascinating.
"I wonder if there may have been higher-end VCRs with this same technology, but I haven't seen one."
I recall having one that did a digital snapshot instead, however this was the early 90's and I'm struggling to recall the manufacturer & model. Ferguson, I think...
Consumer VCRs are very complex and are modern mechanical marvels. It's amazing they work at all, let alone so reliably.
You're certainly not the only one who admires them for what they are.
The comment in there by Alen Lecher is pure gold.
Back in 2003, me and some mates set the Guinness World Record for non-stop movie watching (we clocked in at 'only' 63 hours and 27 minutes, but that was enough for the record back then). The rules set by the Guinness Book were long and quite specific, but didn't have a provision for 'technology failure'.
DVDs obviously existed back then, but most stores were still a mix of them and VHS (plus the occasionaly Laserdisc Pocket, futilely seeking a return on investment). We opted to go through all the movies on VHS - basically, a DVD fail was often 'all or nothing' while a VHS tape might scroll or stutter (and indeed, 58 hours in the machine overheated and gave us no visuals for a few scary minutes) but they would usually keep rolling and come good.
Now of course it's all digital, and my wonderful VHS collection taunts me every time I step into my office as I convert them one-by-one.
I have had enough of decaying VHS tapes and dirty VHS heads to not particularly appreciate that form of art :-)
What is the likelihood that millions of people across the globe have worthless VHS tapes due to decay, and worthless VHS players too?
One can only wonder -- will we notice before it's too late?
Aren't we over this visual effect yet? I renember a few years ago every hipster with a 5D was using this effect to give their work the affect of authenticity. It ma be interesting technically, but the overuse has made it far from beautiful or compelling.
I don't think overuse is the limiter on beauty or compellingness. I think an artistic medium only has two requirements:
1) an output space that is vastly larger than could be exhaustively explored on human timescales
2) the proportion of the output space that can be quickly accessed by an artist can be increased through practice.
Many glitches score poorly on one or both of these... Often additional practice with the glitch does not increase the artist's ability to address larger portions of the output space. A completely random glitch would be the worst case scenario there.
But many glitches do fulfill both requirements, and there's no reason those couldn't be used to creat great art.
That's a neat analysis of what makes an artistic medium interesting! Did you come up with that breakdown?
Yeah... I spent some time pondering why people respect the violin more than synthesizers.
Well I don't share this reductionist view. Overuse entirely infringes upon beauty because the technique in question becomes progressively less vitalic and potent with people thoughtlessly employing it for the affect of authenticity.
Overuse only decreases the beauty of kitch, which never required any artistry in the first place.
Real art requires artistry, which requires practice, which introduces divergence, which means you end up with different works. What you're thinking of is people slapping together the same junk over and over, but none of that is art.
It might be done in a medium that has properties #1 and #2 so the medium is OK but the artist isn't practicing so the quality of the work is junk.
Well pop-art is calling, and would like a word about your first point.
As for "real art", how does divergence stem from practice? There are plenty of great works, say a Rauchenberg or a Turrell, who's beauty comes not from the labor of practice, but from the alignment of concept, subject, and vision. Conversely, there are plenty of brilliant artists who fall-off after many years of practice - I think of Hockney's photo collages.
My original point, which I stand by, is that the use VHS warbling is completely mined and tired. Should somebody come by and employ it in a radical way which communicates new meaning then great. But, for myself and many others, it makes me cringe a little inside.
Well, the medium for some artists isn't really the material, it's more purely conceptual. Of course all art spans both, but it's a question of proportion.
Divergence stems from practice because when two people put thousands of hours into the same task, specifics of the individuals and their environment inevitably become calcified in their skills and process.
That all said, I think we're on the same page. The stereotype you are applying to VHS art is not unfounded. I just generally hate stereotypes and I think they hold me back, so I try to question them as much as I can and use better ways of seeing when I can.
I would say that a medium basically turns a limitation of that medium into an opportunity for expression through the artistic process, so the the output space doesn't have to be large... especially the more constraints that are applied. http://www.fastcompany.com/3027379/work-smart/the-psychology...
What would be an example? It doesn't take much to get a huge output space. Even a single continuous variable plus time can provide effectively limitless possibilities. The only place you're really screwed is if every axis is discrete (like really basic MIDI instruments). But even then it only takes a few interactions to get something quite complex.
You talk like complexity for the sake of It equates to value. It is the synthesis of disparate elements into something gestalt that creates something interesting.
Sure... I'm just talking about the basic demands on the medium. There are many additional demands on the artist that have to be fulfilled for them to create great work.
I'm interested in what makes these glitches "creepy"--is it possible to develop some criteria that all of these glitches satisfy? I'm reminded of the photograph distortions (e.g. https://thatwasabitmental.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ringu1...) shown in the 1998 horror movie Ringu (which coincidentally has much of its plot dedicated to a VHS tape). How does such a simple blurring effect manage to do so much?
Like it says in the article, the uncanny valley is a large part of it. Your brain gets spooked by things that look almost but not quite right. Like a cat barking, or a face with no features.
Garage sales. You need a VCR, a CRT tv, some tapes. Everything well-used and crufty. Getting scarce but they do show up. Maybe look for "estate sale" signs, you're more likely to find these things when relatives are clearing out an elderly person's house.
Any Goodwill or thrift store will have 2 or 3 sitting around for $5.
I'm fascinated by this because it's one of those things I don't fully understand. If I had to recreate it, I wouldn't know where to begin.