FILE SP 2014 – INSTALLATION

Everyware: Hyunwoo Bang & Yunsil Heo – Modern Video Processor

Abstract:
Machines do not understand human language. Even tiny animals have wits to guess our intentions in voice tones. But machines simply can’t. If you want to command something to them, you’ll need multiple steps of translation until your words are finally converted to a series of ons and offs. To speed up these translations, programmers have invented numerous gadgets. But their working principles exceed our common sense. So this time, we, artists, don’t understand how these translations work and get lost in translation. We need metaphors not interpreters or compilers. The “Modern Video Processor” is a skeuomorphic metaphor to reminisce about the simple days when talking to machines just meant plugging cables, switching buttons and rotating dials. By patching wooden video effector modules like the 80’s audio synthesizer, you can cascade a series of video effects in real time creating limitless combinatory output videos on the brown tube TV sets. The way it functions is simply a metaphor and has nothing to do with what’s inside the circuit boards of these tiny video translators. But your instinct will guide you into what will happen on the TV screen while you play with them.