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Analog Color Field Computer (ACFC)

 

Gregory Shakar

 

The Analog Color Field Computer (ACFC) is an installation of participant-controlled sculptural computers that produce articulated washes of uniform colors and pure tones. Exhibitions of the work present multiple ACFC units in the same physical space where their simple pulsations combine to form an emergent composition of light and sound. The piece embodies a purposeful austerity in several aspects of its design including the clarity of its visual and sonic output, the immediacy of its user-interface, the spareness of its physical form and its anachronistic electronic workings. These elements serve to counter the preponderance of information-based stimuli in technological society.

overview

The Analog Color Field Computer (ACFC) is an interactive video and sound installation that makes both minimal and maximal use of computer monitors. Exhibitions of the piece employ a suite of sculptural computers whose custom electronics drive standard video displays and loudspeakers. Instead of presenting complex images (like computer graphics or photographs) each ACFC unit repurposes its monitor such that at any one time a solid field of color is spread across its entire display surface. Likewise with sound, instead of producing complex timbres each unit produces a pure sine tone. The sculptures' colors and tones surge in steady pulses, conveying sonic textures and luminescent patterns into the sparsely lit exhibition space.

 

 

The ACFC endeavors to revisit the computer as a standardized multi-function instrument. By reducing the content of its audiovisual renderings to solid colors and pure tones, the device offers relief from the myriad of visual, sonic and operational conventions traditionally associated with computer displays. Each unit provides controls for users to adjust its hues, pitches and rhythms. The audience is offered a renewed ability to determine what they see and hear. This experience represents a novel mode of interaction with everyday computer hardware and affords participants a fresh perspective on a ubiquitous technology.

 

An installation of the ACFC demonstrates the complexity encountered when multiple sources of steady, asynchronous pulses are combined. When a number of units are exhibited together, their individual surges of light and sound merge to form emergent textures of hue and melody. Simple pulsations give rise to intricate musical passages with compelling rhythmic structures and shifting multi-part harmony. The walls, objects and visitors in the sparely lit exhibition space become illuminated by stray light from the computer screens. Their surfaces serve as palettes where colors are blended in manifold and changing proportions. The ACFC's continuous audiovisual renderings along with its controls for color, pitch and volume, allow its exposition of light and sound to satisfy both contemplative experience and purposeful composition. The piece can accommodate a wide range of audiences, from a small group of passive listeners to a crowd of active participants.


functional details

The brightness of the Analog Color Field Computer's solid color and the amplitude of its pure tone are rhythmically articulated by a sinusoidal control signal that is generated by its internal circuitry. When the screen climbs to its brightest level, the tone is increased to its loudest and when the screen fades to black, the tone diminishes to silence. As the control signal throbs between minimum and maximum, the device produces a repeating pulse of light and sound.

 

The ACFC's user interface elements are ergonomically comfortable and supple to the touch. Three control knobs in the center of each unit's instrumentation panel allow the participant to individually adjust the brilliance of the monitor's red, green and blue color channels. By combining different relative quantities of red, green, and blue (RGB), the screen can reproduce any desired color. Composing hues in this way is similar to mixing colored theater lights. A large dial on the left of the device's front panel is the throb control which allows its pulsations to be made faster or slower. This affords users an influence over the rhythm of the sound-and-light composition that is being created. A precision control knob on the upper right hand side of the front panel sets the frequency of the pure tone. It allows for the fine-tuning of a wide range of musical pitches. A smaller knob beneath it adjusts the overall volume of the tone. With these controls, the audience contributes to the audiovisual environment that is being rendered all around them in the exhibition space.

 

 

The ACFC is motivated by the obsolescence of Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) based computer monitors. The advent of flat panel displays has resulted in a massive purging of the bulky older systems. CRT screens can be found on the street awaiting trash collection in surprising quantities. The ACFC reclaims video screens by giving them new life as pieces of art. It serves as an homage to the CRT - an exquisite, century-old analog technology that was the basic element of video screens throughout the twentieth century. As a tribute to this scientific heritage, the ACFC uses custom engineered analog electronics almost exclusively. The analog paradigm of electronic design spawned the CRT and has been used in concert with video display systems for decades.


intentions

The Analog Color Field Computer inhabits the nexus of several conceptual and practical objectives centered around the theme of Reclaiming the Video Screen. Its function, form and underlying theory exist in harmony, supporting a sculptural endeavor with multivalent emotive consonance. The fundamental aesthetic inspiration for the piece is the ghostly illumination that can be witnessed as emanations from lonely urban windows in the dead of night. This is the signature flickering glow of video screens in unlit rooms. The installation seeks to capture and optimize this lovely and spooky vision. It serves to elicit the churning moods and sentiments that emerge from simple, solitary moments of wonderment in our modern lives.

(left) The ACFC exhibition at Piksel, Bergen, Norway. November 2007. Photo: Olle Cornéer. (right) The ACFC exhibition at BAPLab
New York City. July 2006. Photo: Brendan Fitzgerald

 

The ACFC embodies an assertion that televisions and computers are more beautiful when viewed in this way: as washes of undulating colors. The bulk of the information having been removed from their signals, what remains are prototypes of visual communication – luminousness modulated over time. As participants in a technological society, individuals bear an increasing burden of communication ubiquity. Diverse channels of programmed information impinge upon them from all directions. The origins, intentions and meanings of this deluge of “content” is essentially impossible to know or rationally absorb. By treating computer monitors as if they were one large pixel - in spite of the fact that they actually can display upwards of a million pixels - the ACFC offers users a reprieve from the pervasive pressure weighed on them by modern information capacities. This dissolution affords participants a sort of quiet in which their own thoughts and feelings can be heard over the storm of external complexities.

While the Analog Color Field Computer shares certain physical and operational features with common desktop systems, it deviates from the accepted notion of the computer by devoting itself to a single, straightforward artistic function. In order to reinforce its transparency of purpose, the front and real panels of the ACFC are made of perforated aluminum. The many openings allow visitors to peer inside and all the way through the machine. Its unlabeled aluminum control knobs present an austere instrumentation surface that emphasizes the materials and forms of conventional user-interface elements. These aesthetic reductions are not intended to deemphasize the device's physical presence as a sculptural object. Conversely, the ACFC is meant to have a pleasing appearance that explores the emotive dimensions of computer-human interaction. The resulting affects can be nostalgic, intellectual or sensory. There is an undeniable satisfaction in the simple act of turning a control dial and experiencing the ability to regulate the workings of a machine. The ACFC with its clear functionality and the immediacy of its controls, offers users an opportunity to reclaim the enterprise of interacting with computer systems. Instead of operating within the predetermined information structures of unknown parties (i.e.: computer programs), participants become the direct and sole arbitrators of the fundamental RGB color signals that drive the video screen.

 

 

This article was earlier published in Vague Terrain

 

Gregory Shakar is an artist and musician whose work seeks to reveal the emotive implications of electronic media and physical devices. His recent installations have employed over-sized undulating pixels, melodic electrical arcs and towering sonorous metronomes. Shakar's solo work and collaborative performances have been presented worldwide, including venues in New York, London, Tokyo, Rome, Barcelona, Montreal, Turin, Bergen and Kyoto. He has been an Artist in Residence at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria and served as both a Fellow and a Resident Researcher at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) after receiving his Masters degree from the program. Shakar is currently an Adjunct Professor of Physical Computing at ITP. He is native to New York City where he continues to live and work.

 

 

 

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