The website, censtron.com, contains footage and information about electronics modified to become instruments of experimental audio visual entertainment.
Some of these are available for purchase, but personally I see the construction of such an instrument to be the most interesting and glorifying part of the experience.
The website contains an online tutorial (link) on how to create your own "wave vessel", this is basically an old television set, or computer monitor, using a cathode ray tube capable of only projecting one colour of light. Though they've recently managed to create a wave vessel with a colour monitor, I wont go into that for this entry.
Creating a wave vessel seemed straight forward, especially following the tutorial, the only major problems were finding a black and white TV, then being careful not to die while working on the modifications.
Here are some shots of my vessel, I used a little portable TV I found in the closet.
With a black and white TV the only inputs for the cathode ray tube are horizontal +/- and vertical +/-
re-routing them through a switch allows the TV to alternate between 2 modes, when the audio +/- input is connected. I connected my computer audio out to the 1/4" jack i had soldered in, which i had to then rip off when encountering various problems, it all worked out in the end.
Here is an extract from one of my films, showing the wave vessel in action, The audio is by Kazumoto Endo:
Kazumoto Endo was a great choice to have for this scene, to see the peaks and shapes of the noise he creates in a raw fashion suited the primitive and dangerous modification of the television.
ka.zumo.to
In my next post I'll be looking at Nam June Paik, a great artist with a style incorporating "old" technology such as this.
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