VGA AUDIO/VIDEO SYNTHESIZER STILLS 2010-2013
I created my VGA audio/video synthesizer mainly for realtime performance, but the wide range of its visual output means that it lends itself to the still image. These photographs are the result of hacking VGA cables to enable the red, green, and blue pins of CRT computer monitors to be controlled by bending audio into video, bypassing their user interfaces and exploiting the repressed analog materiality within these consumer devices; they are brief, fleeting moments in explorations of electronic visual noise. Using simple sine waves, video feedback, no-input mixing from a sound mixer, and other sources the VGA video signal is liberated into unstable, perpetually shifting, and often impossible to predict chaotic visualizations.
→On But Does it Float
→On The Creator's Project
→VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer
→Cracked Ray Tube
→VGA Hacking Tutorials
![](http://www.foxnewsgo.com/"projects/vgasynthstills/17.jpg")
I am a Chicago-based artist, educator, museum worker, and archivist. My videos, open-source tools, and real-time audio/video performances undermine the interfaces and break through the algorithms of digital and analog systems, examining hidden power structures and liberating latent aesthetic materialities in cathartic and captivating compositions.
I am an Adjunct Associate Professor in the department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Collection Manager of the Roger Brown Study Collection.
NEWS/EVENTS
2022
September 10, 2022, 8:30 pm CRT Flux Phaser/RGB.VGA.VOLT performance at The Latent Space for the "Control Signals" exhibition performance series, Chicago, IL
August 13, 2022, 8:30 pm CRT Flux Phaser/RGB.VGA.VOLT and Cracked Ray Tube performance at The Latent Space for the "Control Signals" exhibition performance series, Chicago, IL
August 6, 2022, 7:00 pm opening for "Control Signals" solo exhibition at The Latent Space, Chicago, IL
August 6 - September 10, 2022 "Control Signals" solo exhibition at The Latent Space, Chicago, IL
October 13, 2020 Phasing the electromagnetic flux of another shit moment, February 4, 2020 screened at BIDEODROMO International Experimental Film and Video Festival, Bilbao, Spain
August 15 - September 26, 2020 installation at "New Media 10101" at the Peninsula School of Art
April 27, 2019 worked screened in "Video Worship" guest curator film and video series curated by Sky Goodman at the Comfort Station, Chicago, IL
April 2019 essay on Rolling Ryot's Rainforest Reverb published in exhibition catalog for 2019 Fusebox Festival, Austin, TX
February 28, 2019 RGB.VGA.VOLT performance for the Performing Media Festival at Indiana University South Bend
February 18 - March 9, 2019 2019 Romp Through the Sandin Image Processor exhibited in the Performing Media Exhibition at Indiana University South Bend
January 25, 2019 Aesthetic Catharsis in the Era of American Fascists screens at Collective Misnomer's "the way things are. the way they are going to be." at the Dikeou Pop-Up, Denver, CO
November 29, 2018 Light/Transmission/Protocol interactive outoor installation for CounterVolt Version.002 at The North Door, Austin, TX
November 29, 2018 RGB.VGA.VOLT performance for CounterVolt Version.002 at The North Door, Austin, TX
August 11, 2018 RGB.VGA.VOLT performance for ARIADNE/CONNOLLY/CATES/KOLAR at Digital Art Demo Space, Chicago, IL
April 10, 2018 Aesthetic Catharsis in the Era of American Fascists premieres at the Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, OH.
April 8, 2018 short video screened at ACRE TV's Nightingale Tele-thon fundraiser, Chicago, IL.
March 24, 2018 RGB.VGA.VOLT performance for the Ann Arbor Film Festival "Off the Screen" expanded cinema program
April 2017 Universal Codec Error Aborting Video and Ball Skills/Waveforms/White Bro Riots screened at "VIGOROUS—a series of shorts" at Mini Microcinema, Cincinnati, OH.
October 2016 RGB.VGA.VOLT performance for "Ariadne, James Connolly, Jon Cates" at Elastic Arts, Chicago, IL
September 2016 Light.Transmission.Protocol interactive sound and video installation at the Paseo Festival, Taos, NM.
June 2016: Cracked Ray Tube performance at the Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe, NM.
June 2016: Cracked Ray Tube hardware hacking and DIY video synthesis workshops at the Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe, NM.
June 2016: Cracked Ray Tube hardware hacking and DIY video synthesis workshops Austin, TX.
1.9.2016: Cracked Ray Tube performance at the Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, TX.
1.6.2016-1.11.2016: Residency at the Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, TX.
10.16.2015: RGB.VGA.VOLT at Aurora 2015 in the arts district of Dallas, TX.
9.10.2015-9.12.2015: RGB.VGA.VOLT performance at DINCA VISION QUEST 2015, exact location and date TBA.
7.18.2015: video screening at Physical Education, ChiTown Futbol, Chicago, IL.
7.9.2015: work available for download in TCC Chicago's Digital Buffet at Catalyze Chicago.
6.25.2015-7.2.2015: Residency at Signal Culture, Owego, NY.
5.27.2015: Essay "Cracking Ray Tubes: Reanimating Analog Video, a Digital Context," published in the 2014 Leonardo Music Journal now available for download.
5.2.2015: RGB.VGA.VOLT at Coop Gallery, Nashville, TN. Installation from 6:00-9:00, performances at 7:00 and 8:00.
5.1.2015: Artist talk and hardware hacking workshop at Watkins College of Art, Design, & Film, Nashville, TN.
4.10.2015: Remote performance for VIRTUALPUBLIC.NETWORK at the Museums and the Web 2015 conference, Chicago, IL.
1.10.2015: Artist talk and hardware hacking workshops with Kyle Evans at Oil and Cotton, Dallas, TX.
1.9.2015: Cracked Ray Tube performance for the Dallas Medianale at the Mckinney Avenue Contemporary's Black Box Theater, Dallas, TX.
1.23.2014-3.7.2014: Cracked Ray Tube performance for Discarded: The Afterlife of Everyday Electronics at Columbia College's Arcade Gallery, Chicago, IL.
11.23.2013: VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer performance for DINCA VISION QUEST at Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL
9.30.2013: Jon Cates and James Connolly at Elastic Arts, Chicago, IL.
6.21.2013: VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer performance for mACREs & brACREs at Landscape, Chicago, IL.
5.30.2013: Articular Facet collaborative performance at the Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL.
4.30.2013: VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer performance with Dither Doom at the Empty Bottle, Chicago.
4.28.2013: VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer performance for Expanded Cinematic at Tritriangle, Chicago, IL
2.15.2013: Universal Codec Error Aborting Video screened for the Floating World Animation Festival at the Synchronicity Space, Los Angeles, CA.
1.12.2013: Collaborative John Cage-influenced performance with Julia Miller and Enid Smith at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL.
12.8.2012: Cracked Ray Tube performance at the GLI.TC/H DeFunct/ReFunct thread, Chicago, IL.
12.7.2012: VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer performance at GLI.TC/H Open Robin at Tritriangle, Chicago, IL
12.5.2012: VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer performance of John Cage's Variations VI, organized by Julia Miller at the Leroy Neiman Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
10.19.2012: Cracked Ray Tube performance at the Vancouver New Music Festival, Vancouver, British Columbia.
9.14.2012: Essay on Spectralina published, the catalog for the exhibition Afterimage at the DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL.
10.14.2012: Cracked Ray Tube performance at Bernadette's, Austin, TX.
4.14.2012: Cracked Ray Tube performance of Jon Cage's Variations V score organized by Julia Miller at Room 300, Chicago, IL.
3.6.2012: VGA Audio/Video Synthesizer performance at the Burlington bar, Chicago, IL.
2.19.2012: Cracked Ray Tube performance at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN.
2.16.2012: Cracked Ray Tube wins 2nd place at the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA.
2.16.2012: Cracked Ray Tube performance at the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA.
11.21.2011: Universal Codec Error Aborting Video screened for the Floating World Animation Festival at the Hollywood Theater, Portland, OR.
11.5.2011: Hardware hacking workshop with Kyle Evans at the Nightingale for GLI.TC/H festival, Chicago, IL.
11.4.2011: Cracked Ray Tube performance at ENEMY for the GLI.TC/H festival, Chicago, IL.
5.6.2011: Cracked Ray Tube performance at ENEMY for Strange Electronics 2, Chicago, IL.
2.18.2011: Cracked Ray Tube performance for Strange Electronics at Transistor, Chicago, IL.
10.2.2010: Die Computer performance at the Nightingale for the GLI.TC/H festival, Chicago, IL.
4.14.2010: Die Computer performance for Critical Glitch Artware Category at Notacon, Cleveland, OH.
