Simultaneous Opposites #47: Clouds are Lights
Robert’s Simultaneous Opposites program loads a video file and initial parameters for loop length, center frame # of loop, and frames per second. The program uses these parameters to play through the loop away from and back toward the center, one frame at a time, simultaneously in opposite directions. The opposing movements through the video file fit together like a zipper.
The center frame between the two ends of the simultaneous opposites loop becomes a temporal focal plane, with the length of the loop a temporal depth of field. The flow of the original images is shaken down, and the surfaces and tendencies are brought forward as subject. Depending on how objects appear and move in the frames, one finds both new ways of noticing, and new contexts to explain how we notice.
Against the looping algorithm Robert deflects the automation with commands from a Fender MIDI Stratocaster. Audio is from the original video frames, as well as audio triggered and modulated by the Strat, during the Simultaneous Opposites’ Engine’s traversal of the source videos.
Click here for a behind-the-scenes look at Simultaneous Opposites on Modulate This! by Mark Moser