David Stout - Live Video-Noise Performance
"SignalFire celebrates the elemental power of the digital signal stream in an articulate and commanding performance at the forefront of interactive video." Steina Vasulka - 2005
"David Stout's performance of SignalFire is a whirling irresistible vision; hypnotic, subversive and dangerous". Frances Marie Uitti - 2005
SignalFire,
is a video-sound performance exploring interactive techniques to generate
sound and image from a series of short loops of video noise ( television
snow ). A simple definition of video noise is "a grouping of black
and white pixels randomly changing screen position every 25 to 30 times
a second". The performers subject this visual noisefield to a number of
digital processes, producing a rich vocabulary of images that take advantage
of recent software innovations to apply feedback (folding the signal or
circuit back on itself) in subtle ways not possible with earlier analog
instruments. A central component of this approach is that all sound or
music is synthesized directly from the image; this sound and any sounds
emitted from the performer in the immediate environment can be directed
back into the system to effect various aspects of visual form, color, scale
and movement. The result can be unpredictable as the visual and
sonic elements effect the behavior of each other generating chaotic surprises
for the performer and audience alike.
SignalFire is
conceived as a series of modular movements each exploring different physical
approaches to the laptop performance instrument. The modular form, is in
essence, a strategy that allows the work to be continuously refined, recreated
and recontextualized. These sections include: (1) "OneoNOne ",
is controlled by moving hands over the built-in laptop speakers & microphone
while processing the visually synthesized sounds through a guitar foot
pedal. The resulting audio feedback is played and sculpted in real-time
as it regenerates new images, which in turn, generates new sound. (2) "FaceOff",
utilizes a live video camera played with a flashlight to simultaneously
perform electronic sound and choreograph the screen image as a real-time
layered montage. (3) "Cascade ", the processed video-noise signal
flows between two linked laptops to create an evolving a series of rhythmic
image-sound loops. (4) "Poke " , this section relies on two performers
using extended vocal techniques and simple acoustic gestures, such as tapping,
rubbing and knocking on a wooden box to provoke and cajole images and sounds
from the system.
SignalFire reexamines the basic materiality of live video in a digital context defining the relationship between the pioneers of analogue video feedback systems and contemporary practice. Interactive control has been stripped down to the laptop itself, exploiting the unintended consequences of the emitted sounds feeding directly back into the built-in microphones. The performers use hands, whispers, howls, pokes & slaps to directly mold the cross-synthesis of sound and image. There are no midi controllers or exotic sensors - just two microphones, a web cam and stream of video noise.
