CHA/V How to Build a DIY Analog Video Synthesizer w/Jonas Bers, August 18th 2018 in Los Angeles, CA

Event details here:
Facebook event page.

From the Facebook event page:
Coaxial Arts Foundation is honored to have Jonas Bers in Los Angeles to lecture and teach a workshop on how to build an analog DIY video synthesizer on the cheap.

CHA/V (Cheap, Hacky, Audio/Visual) is a simple, inexpensive, DIY alternative to costly and complicated video synthesizers, providing artists and amateurs a low-cost, low-barrier entry into audiovisual synthesis. Participants will build, customize, and take home a battery-powered micro-modular audiovisual synthesizer based on VGA hacking.

CHA/V is an ideal entry point into analog video synthesis for electronic musicians, circuit benders, and tinkerers but also appropriate for absolute beginners with no electronics background.

$55 include all the parts needed to build the analog video synth

Please PayPal for guarantee reservation. ( https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=5QQTSPNG2M594 )

Class will be limited to build enough video synth for 15 individuals but anyone is welcomed to attend the workshop to learn and take notes . If you would like to provide your own parts please message us at info@coaxialarts.org for a list of materials needed.

Jonas Bers is a NY based media artist who works with with hand-built and hacked audiovisual systems. Bers’ single-channel video-sonification performances incorporate salvaged VHS-era editing machines, surveillance cameras, vintage science lab equipment and military surplus devices that have been modified and repurposed into an audiovisual palette. Tangled systems of obsolete equipment and a home-made modular synthesizer are used to uncover and amplify audible frequencies within video signals, creating a stark and droning synesthetic score; an intuitive and meditative illustration of the hidden waveforms that create both electronic video and sound. Bers’ work is concerned with connections between technology, sensory perception, and the physical universe; and the phenomenological aspects of synthetic audiovisual stimulus.
Bers has performed and exhibited at The Wrong New Digital Art Biennale (Ghent, Belgium), Seeing Sound (UK), Télépresence at La Lumière (Montreal), Sound + Vision at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the NY Hall of Science, 3LD Art and Technology, and Transient Visions Festival of the Moving Image.
He has been an artist in residence at CultureFix and Signal Culture, and will be a performer/workshop facilitator at the upcoming Vector Hack festival in Zagreb, Croatia, and Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The CHA/V has been included in the curriculum for Sonic Practices at Rhode Island School of Design and Experiments in Electronic Arts at Cleveland Institute of Art. Workshops using the CHA/V tutorial have been taught at TOYZNOIZ in Bolzano, Italy and in the UK at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex.

CHA/V FAQ:

Q: “Will I be able to plug this into a projector?”

A: You can plug it into anything with a VGA jack, like a computer monitor (no computer required) or most projectors.

Q: “But can I also plug it into a TV?”

A: With an adapter, yes.

Q: “It says battery-powered. Could I also plug it into the wall?”

A: No problem.

Q: “Cool! Does it also make sound?”

A: Yup.

Q: “Yeah, but how many oscillators does it have?”

A: Six adjustable square wave oscillators, and you’ll be able to customize them at the workshop.

Q: “WHAT?! I bet you can’t control it with light, like a theremin…”

A: We’re actually going to do that too.

Q: “Yeah, but can I plug my guitar into it?”

A: Pretty much anything you want. Your guitar would just need to be amplified, and then no problem. You could use a microphone like that too."

Q: “What about my modular synth?”

A: That would be perfect – it will even sync your VCOs. A handful of people have built DIY CHA/V Eurorack modules.

Q: “I don’t know what any of that means, can I just use my computer?”

A: That would also work really well, but again, you don’t even need a synth or a computer. A CHA/V will work just fine on its own.

Q: “This sounds awesome but I don’t know how to solder, can I come anyway?”

A: Yes, DON’T WORRY, this workshop would be a good place to learn. Soldering is easy and fun once you get the hang of it. If you have a little bit of patience, you’ll manage just fine. This is a forgiving project for beginners.

August 18, 2018
12-5pm
$55
For questions info@coaxialarts.org

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Hope this someday happens in ny.

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Whoa! Thanks @creatorlars. @Maytoast – I live in NY and regularly perform in NYC. We did a small CHA/V workshop in the Hudson Valley a few years ago, and there’s talk of an NYC one as well.

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