Modern Video Processor

Description

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.

Modern Video Processor, © 2014 Everyware.

Artist Statement

Machines do not understand human language. Even tiny animals have the wits to guess our intentions by the tones of our voice. But machines simply can’t. If you want to command something to them, you 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 the grasp of our common sense. So we, the artists, don’t understand how these translations work and get lost in translation. We need metaphors, not interpreters or compilers. By patching wooden video effector modules like the 1980s’ audio synthesizer, you can cascade through 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 through what happens on the TV screens while you play with them.

Modern Video Processor, © 2014 Everyware.