Revolving C-Trend Histogram for Woody Vasulka - artistic software for the work by The WRO Art Center Team

Revolving C-Trend Histogram for Woody Vasulka at WRO Art Center (Wrocław/Poland)

This piece, inspired by Woody Vasulka’s classic 1974 video C-Trend, is another installation in which the artist has manipulated the signal from a video camera. On the screen, instead of an ordinary camera image, is a “graphicized” image based on the technical parameters of the signal transmitted by the camera. This graphic representation of what the camera lens sees is modified by technical variables that aren’t normally visible on the screen. So the image we see is a representation of reality, although it’s completely different from our usual definition of a realistic image.

Paweł Janicki created special programming for this installation to imitate an analog device that Vasulka used extensively: the Scan Processor, made in 1973. In the current installation, the image from a video camera is transmitted to a computer, processed and then presented on the monitor. The image is shaped by our movements in front of the camera, but not in a straightforward way: The closed circuit system translates us into graphic forms that resemble oscilloscope waves.


Revolving C-Trend Histogram for Woody Vasulka at WRO Art Center (Wrocław/Poland)