Technical Glossary for “Steina. Playback” in alphabetical Order
Analog: An analog video is based on a continuous electrical signal. The image is created by an electron beam that scans a picture tube line by line. Analog video is an imprint of reality onto a physical medium. It ages and changes over time.
Closed-Circuit refers to a closed video arrangement in which a camera and monitor are directly connected to each other in real time. The video recording is shown on the monitor in real time.
Digital: A digital video translates image information into binary code (0 and 1). The image consists of a grid of pixels, each pixel having a precisely defined color value.
Drift: In analog video technology, “drift” refers to the uncontrolled, gradual deviation of a signal from its target value – for example, when an oscillator shifts slightly, colors change unintentionally, or synchronization becomes unstable.
Environment: In art, the term environment refers to a space-occupying, three-dimensional form of work that physically surrounds and involves the viewer.
Feedback is a special case of the closed-circuit: the camera actually films its own monitor – the output of the system is literally fed back into its input.
Interlacing is a technical method of analog video transmission. A video image is not built up all at once as a complete frame, but in two passes – first all odd-numbered lines, then all even-numbered lines. These two half-frames alternate so rapidly that the human eye perceives them as a single complete image.
Real-time Processing: In the context of video art, real-time processing refers to the processing of image and/or audio data in real time – that is, without pre-production or post-processing. This means that visual effects, transformations, or generative content are created at the very moment they are also seen.
Scanning: In the video context, scanning refers to the technical process in which the electron beam of a CRT tube scans the image line by line from top to bottom – row by row, at high speed – in order to build up the image on the screen. This process is the foundation of the analog video image. In the work of the Vasulkas, this otherwise invisible technical process becomes artistic material: the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor intervenes precisely in this scanning motion and bends the raster lines according to their brightness values.
Vocoder: A vocoder (short for Voice Coder) is an electronic device or software that analyzes the human voice and reassembles it synthetically. It breaks down the speech signal into its frequency components and transfers them onto another sound – often a synthetic tone or noise. The result is that characteristic, mechanical-robotic sound familiar from electronic music of the 1970s – for example from Kraftwerk. The voice remains recognizable as a voice, but loses its natural quality and becomes something artificial, electronic.