Distorted Areas~0.1
The material was created with the aid of a realtime program. Both the programming of the textures and parameters and scanning with the camera took place in the border areas of software and electronics. This resulted in a large amount of distortion, interference and alterations of the originally 3D effects. The sound, on the other hand, is based on analog noise (input/no input) created by the sound of reel-to-reel tape recorders.
Randomness plays a role, just as in my earlier works.
(Manuel Knapp)
The video image of distorted areas~ proceeds from an aesthetic which runs counter to the logic of having a specific purpose, disturbing it at the most. In other words, this logic involves the usefulness of information-technology tools, in this case a software module used for implementing certain rendering effects in 3D computer graphics. It is intentionally used in a way opposite its intended function, putting the "meaningful" graphic 3D image into a completely irregular, dislocated black or white plane with "meaninglessly" oscillating lines and patterns. The sound is similar: Noises produced by feedback and an effector are interwoven with the image formations in a disordered and asignificant manner. The video is the product of perverted circumstances of representation, but what we see and hear, what "are" sound and picture, is distortion as such. This could also be regarded as beauty produced by decay.
Such a video is difficult to describe - or remember. A description implies order created from systems and narratives. In this case, however, the purpose of the software module as a system is disrupted and the potential of its narrative representation is abolished. Image and sound can be characterized only as what they have taken from their subversive vitality: an event. But also a lesson in the evocation of pure forms that celebrate their rapid appearance and disappearance between animation and randomness.
(Marc Ries)
Manuel Knapp´s four-minute long video portrays moving patterns of black & white graphics. Made using realtime editing technologies, Distorted Areas~0.1´s video image is a result of manipulated magnifications showing the contortions, disturbances and alienations of the original 3-D source effects. The processes of the programming of the textures and parameters, as well as the camera-scanning, take place within the boundaries between software and electronics. Principles of coincedence govern the montage of digital images, while the sound is from analog disturbances created by feedback and effects.
(transmediale.de)
distorted areas~ / texte française
L'image vidéo de distorted areas~ procède d'une esthétique qui déjoue la logique de l'adéquation au but visé, c'est-à-dire l'utilité d'outils d'information technique, et s'efforce même de leur nuire au maximum. Ici, c'est un module de logiciel permettant de réaliser des renders en C.A.O. en 3D qui est mis en échec. Son utilisation va délibérément à l'encontre de ce que prévoit sa fonction, si bien que l'image graphique en 3D est transformée en une surface totalement désordonnée, où le noir et le blanc se désagrègent et où lignes et motifs oscillent "sans raison". Le son agit de la même façon : à l'aide de feedbacks et d'une machine à effets, les bruits s'imbriquent avec les formations visuelles sans orientation ni signification. Cette vidéo est le résultat de rapports de représentation pervertis. Mais ce que l'on voit et ce que l'on entend, ce qui constitue l'image et le son, c'est la distorsion en soi. Ce que l'on pourrait considérer comme la beauté née de la désagrégation.
Difficile de décrire et de mémoriser une telle uvre vidéo. Décrire implique un ordonnancement issu de systèmes et de narrations. Or ici, la vocation du module de logiciel en tant que système est contrecarrée, tout comme est abolie la potentialité de sa représentation narrative. L'image et le son ne peuvent plus être caractérisés que par ce qu'en fait leur vitalité subversive : un événement. Mais aussi une leçon d'évocation des formes pures qui, entre animation et hasard, célèbrent leur brusque apparition-disparition. (Marc Ries)
Traduction: Françoise Guiguet
Distorted Areas~0.1
2008
Austria
4 min 34 sec