It’s been nice reading everyone’s thoughts here. I know this rant is probably getting off topic, but hey… it’s just a few of us in the room, right?
I feel like there’s too much focus on designer intent with our gear, and too much mental gymnastics taken by many users in trying to sort out how it all is supposed to fit together. There’s no magic formula or master plan in my head about how you are supposed to use any of this stuff at all. That’s why it’s a deconstructed “universal input” format. I’m just trying to keep a specific way of making stuff alive. Heck if I know what you’re gonna do with it – that’s not my department, that’s yours!
The biggest magic behind any of this is just that you can plug any voltage you want into a jack, and see it on a screen. Lick the end of the cable. Mix a camera with your saliva. Plug in a microphone. Patch your camera thru a chorus pedal and see what comes out the other end. Use a joystick to control two video wipes at the same time. Transition between two different live shots based on the amplitude of the actor’s voice. These were the kinds of wonders I was imagining when starting to dabble in all of this in the first place. I wanted to break an accessibility hole into how you are supposed to use video signals. What’s on the other side of that is a group effort.
As a company, we just try to be the art supply store, not the studio, not the record label, not the gallery. It’s designed to be used creatively – but more like a baton race or a game of exquisite corpse. When I sit down to make a module I’m taking the baton from a lineage of broadcast and synth designers – when you sit down to use it, you’re taking the baton from me. Now it’s yours.
I would love to see more discussion prompted by individual artistic visions for actual videos you want to make. For me, that’s the most useful feedback we can receive from any of you, in how it plays into the evolving system.
“How do I make this look like my grandma’s wallpaper?”
“How do I make the output feel more ghostly?”
“Any tips on creating a transition from a high energy patch to a low energy one?”
“I have an idea for a mood shift in a song I’m doing visuals for, what color palette works best?”
These are the kinds of questions and discussion that I think will help us grow. The least interesting part of the answers should be what exact modules or gear you used to get you to the right output. If we fixate too much on “what modules should I buy” then we’re truncating a wider discussion on creative goals before it can even occur. Sometimes the right answer might just be smearing chap stick on half of the camera lens.