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Concert Thu Nov 04 2010
Static in my attic
Bas van Koolwijk and Gert-Jan Prins are...SYNCRONATOR
It's a musical duo, it's a DVD, it's a device, it's an investigation into audio/video interfaces in art...it's SYNCHRONATOR! Sound artist Gert-Jan Prins and visual/video artist Bas van Koowijk have unveiled a device of their own making, an unassuming-looking box with three audio inputs and one video output, allowing the user to turn three channels of audio directly into a video signal.
The Synchronator DVD displays the process via ten short films ranging from a minute-and-a-half to six. The audio that drives these pieces is almost uniformly low-end and buzzy, sounding as much like a badly-grounded speaker cable as anything you'd associate with music, the multiple streams of sound nonetheless combine in the synchronator box, spitting out rhythmic, slightly hallucinatory patterns and effects onto the TV. Although 90% of the DVD is black and white, the Synchronator is also wired for color, as each of the three inputs controls the Red, Green, and Blue on the screen.
Is the Synchronator for you? First of all, be aware that the DVD, while being a region 0 DVD is also shown in PAL, so you will need some sort of all-region player to play or (or a laptop, possibly). If that's no impediment, then this disc is recommend to fans of The Flicker, the films of Viking Eggeling, the Paper Rad collective of Providence, RI, and the 2003 video by LoVid, who will also be playing Lampo in about a month.
swp continuum from synchronator on Vimeo.
(This Saturday, Lampo's Fall season continues with the duo of Gert-Jan Prins and Bas van Koolwijk, performing with the Synchronator at the Graham Foundation's Madlener House, 4 W. Burton Place in Chicago. The event is sold out, but click here to get added to the waiting list)
