VSSTV: Very Slow Scan TelevisionBy Gebhard Sengmüller in collaboration with Jakob Edlbacher,Johannes Obermayr, Gerhard Proksch-Weilguni, Ludwig Ertl

and Andreas Konecky

Very Slow Scan Television (VSSTV) is a new television format that we havedeveloped by building upon Slow Scan Television (SSTV), a nearly-50-year-old image transmission system used by ham radio amateurs. In contrast toregular TV, SSTV runs on a dramatically reduced frame rate.

Developed in 1957 by Copthorne Macdonald, Slow Scan Television uses theshortwave (ham) radio band to transmit television images. Ham radio notonly broadcasts information (as conventional radio does) but also uses theradio spectrum for personal communications, usually on a point-to-pointbasis over a previously negotiated frequency. In contrast to telephone

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SyStemic Beat

VSStV, Bitm

Ohrwu

Schleunig

PerPetual

infecting m

[Art Projects by Gebhard Sengmüller, TobiasGrewenig, Roman Kirschner, Alexei Shulginand Victor Laskin, 0100101110101101.org]

At the basis of innovative and creative uses of technology lies a refusal toregard technological systems as hermetic and closed. Technologicalserendipity can be attributed to the insistence of hackers, crackers, artists,reverse-engineers and their ilk on straying from comfortably laid-out tech-nological paths. Their challenge is to tamper with the system, circumvent itslimits, beat its carefully designed affordances, open the black box andreshuffle its content in order to elaborate, expand, alter and adapt the sys-tem. It is this very destabilization that yields a fertile matrix for new aes-thetic, material and technological possibilities. Whether it’s bubble wrap andimage broadcasting technologies being used to scan TV images, a microwaveoven being turned into a sound collider, a computer virus negotiating therealms of politics and art, the graphical user interface (GUI) of the Windowsoperating system becoming the basis for a VJ tool, or ASCII coding humangestures and expressions – the versatility of the artists and the projects hereshows us that “You don’t need eyes to see, you need vision.”

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GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER• Very Slow Scan

Television •

GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER• Very Slow Scan

Television •

conversations, this communication is open and can be listened to by anyonewho happens to be tuned in to the same frequency. The ham radio band wasreserved for the purpose of voice transmission and therefore uses only asmall amount of bandwidth. Broadcasting images within this narrowbandwidth requires reducing their quality and rules out transmitting movingimages. Furthermore, the visual information has to be converted into anaudio signal.

According to British ham radio operator Guy Clark (N4BM), “The original ideawas to find a method of transmitting a television picture over a singlespeech channel. This meant that a typical (at that time) 3MHz widetelevision picture had to be reduced to around 3kHz (1000:1 reduction). Itwas decided at the outset that the scanning rates must be very slow, whichprecludes the use of moving pictures. The choice of time base forsynchronizing was the readily available domestic power supply at 50 or 60Hz (depending on the country of origin). This gave a line speed of 16.6Hz and120 or 128 lines per frame (against the then UK standard of 405 lines (now625) per frame), giving a new picture frame every 7.2 or 8 seconds … Theoriginal SSTV systems were based on ex-government radar screens andcathode ray tubes with very long persistence (‘P7’) phosphors. This allowedan image to be painted on the screen over a period of a few seconds.” Themodulation technique often transmits defective images, evident in trapezoiddistortions in the image caused by time synchronization problems.

SSTV may suggest a parallel TV universe, one that developed during an erain which television monopolies were consolidating their hold over massmedia culture. But it also shows similarities to current streaming andnetcasting technologies, in whose use personal flair and taste determine therange of images broadcast. Texts and pictures refer to the location of thesender and his or her identifier. Self-referential features dominate. Guy Clarkwrites: “What kinds of pictures are sent? Reviewing pictures saved duringthe last few weeks, I found: hams in their shacks, lots of pet dogs, a frog, akangaroo, astronauts in the space shuttle (SSTV has been transmitted fromsome missions!!!), bridges, birds, Elvis Presley, rock formations, an old-fashioned microphone, antique cars, flowers, children, Jupiter, a cow,someone playing bagpipes, a UFO, many colorful butterflies, boats, andcartoon characters with personalized messages. Even the Russian spacestation Mir has been transmitting SSTV pictures recently!”

VSSTV uses broadcasts from this historic public-domain television system –available at any time over freely accessible frequencies – and regular bubblewrap to construct an analogous system in which the packing material

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GEBHARD SENGMÜLLER• Very Slow Scan

Television •

functions as the aperture mask. Just as a cathode ray tube mixes the threeprimary colors to create various hues, VSSTV utilizes a plotter-like machineto fill each individual bubble with one of the three primary CRT colors (red,green, and blue), turning them into pixels on the VSSTV “screen.” Observedfrom a distance, the clusters of pixels/bubbles merge into the transmittedimage. Large television images are the result: images that take the idea ofslow scan to the extreme. The SSTV format transmits at the rate of up to oneframe every eight seconds; in our process, the frame rate decreases to oneper day. An observer can witness the extremely slow transformation of the“blank” bubble wrap into an image over the course of 10 hours.

BitmirrorTobias Grewenig

ASCII is one of the oldest and most elegant stylistic devices in computergraphics. The letters stand for American Standard Code for InformationInterchange. Computers can only understand numbers, so an ASCII code isthe numerical representation of a character such as “v,” “V” or “?” or anaction of some sort. Seven bits are used for each ASCII character. Bitmirroruses ASCII to graphically represent facial expressions and physical interac-

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TOBIAS GREWENIG• Bitmirror •

tions between people. The installation animates visitors’ movements inabstract form and reproduces them in a sound synthesis. When the visitorenters the Bitmirror space, she sees herself reflected on a big projectionscreen. A webcam and microphones register movement and sound in thespace. A special Image-To-ASCII generator subsequently renders these datain ASCII form. According to algorithms derived from the laws of nature(gravity, wave motions), the graphic representation on the projection screenis animated into flowing images constructed from letters, digits and punc-tuation marks. The installation forms a graphic and acoustic shadow worldin which abstract particles and signs swarm over the screen.

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ROMAN KIRSCHNER• Ohrwurmbeschleuniger •

ALEXEI SHULGINVICTOR LASKIN

• WIMP •

OhrwurmbeschleunigerRoman Kirschner

Earwigs are small insects which are said to crawl into people’s ears and tobe impossible to get out. In German, the word for “earwig,” “Ohrwurm,” isalso a term for a melody that sticks in the mind all day. The Ohrwurm allowsone to create such a tune oneself. The installation functions as a musicalparticle accelerator, in which two melodies are mixed at the level of theirelementary components into a new tune, a new “earwig” that will stick inone’s head.

The machine is operated as a microwave oven is, but instead of food beingplaced into it, musical micro-particles are accelerated in a tube. First, usingthe special earwig pipette, one listens to the available melodies and selectstwo. One then chooses a cooking program, with which the melodies’ digitalingredients are accelerated in the tube. The choice of program determinesthe speed at which the tube spins and the intensity of the microwaves sentthrough it. In “thaw” position, the oven creates a relatively weak microwavefield, and a different tune will arise than would have at full power.

A sensor in the oven continuously monitors the microwaves’ intensity andmovement. During the cooking process the musical particles collide and

regroup according to the pattern of microwaves measured by the sensor. Thelonger the melodies are cooked, they more they melt together at the musi-cal structural level. The final result – the new “earwig” – can be listened tothrough the earwig pipette and is saved so that it can be mixed later ifdesired.

WIMPAlexei Shulgin and Victor Laskin

WIMP (the Windows Interface Manipulation Program, or the Windows,Icons, Menus and Pointing device) is a program that creates animatedimages with sound, based on the Windows graphical user interface (GUI).Interface elements such as applications, windows, icons, images and pop-upmenus are processed using VJ effects. According to its creator, WIMP can beutilized for various purposes: “The versatile nature of WIMP allows it to beused as a VJ tool, a screensaver, a cool grafix generator or as a piece of con-ceptual art.”

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Perpetual Self Dis-Infecting Machine0100101110101101.org

You people are pathetic fools. Do you truly believe that a virus is art?Innovative, perhaps. Interesting, maybe. But art? No. I’m not even sayingwhat you’re doing is dangerous. It’s stupid and petty. Find yourself a realmedium to work with or get a real job. ‘Cause this ain’t art.

The artists of the collective 0100101110101101.org received this email inresponse to the virus they had “exhibited” (read: spread) during the VeniceBiennale. The project caused much commotion and irritation, as the abovereaction shows. The artists’ collective sought to show with the (harmless)virus the degree to which computer viruses are mediatized: “We are notinterested in damaging a computer, but more on the media effect viruseshave.” At the moment a new virus appears on the net, a veritable hysteriaensues and thousands of warning emails are sent out into the world.0100101110101101.org sought to profit from the media attention every virusreceives, to promote it as a work of art. With their work the artists demys-tify the workings of the computer virus, by allowing people to come intocontact with it at close range.