The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

Access Grid resonance and selenite filtering


For us at AG, an exciting group of videos/images!

This has been a dream: to bounce a video signal repeatedly around the
world, creating video feedback as the signal resonates with itself. On a
laptop, my video camera received an image from the West Virginia
University Access Grid that bounced from the Asia Pacific Access Grid
Lobby in Queensland. My camera sent the image back to the APAG Lobby where
it was transmitted and picked up by a camera on the WVU Access Grid. The
camera transmitted the image to the Asia Pacific Access Grid node,
whereupon it bounced back to my laptop, where it was received ...

A similar looping was created using the Argonne National Laboratory Access
Grid Lobby in Chicago. Another looping used two cameras and transmissions
from the WVU Access Grid across to Argonne and / or the APAG; the looping
was picked up by the laptop which sent the image back through the Lobby to
WVU where it was inserted (medium against large) into one of the WVU
images ....

I wanted a sense of the distances covered. We did ping and traceroute and
found that while Argonne came back around 38 ms and Queensland hit some-
where around 152 ms, the looping through the latter seemed considerably
faster.

The first of the files below is a series of stills from the whole process.

The second is video feedback with the usual tilted camera and infinite
regress circling the planet.

The third is a somewhat steady-state blob of light, oddly breast-shaped,
that pulsed and sometimes disappeared on the screen; again, this was built
up through / by planetary circulation.

The fourth is Azure Carter singing with room and Access Grid resonance
through Argonne; she's locally on four different cameras, and the reson-
ances bounce through the WVU AG room and across the network.

Finally the fifth video explores an odd quality of a selenite crystal
which produces a series of rings for 'fuzzed' sources of light and color.
One might think of this as a simulacrum of resonance as well.

http://www.alansondheim.org/agresonance.mov (series of stills)

http://www.alansondheim.org/agasiapacific.mp4 (series of video
sections with the usual feedback infinite regress circling the planet)

http://www.alansondheim.org/agpascreen.mp4 (video of breast-shaped
almost steady-state light partially filling the screen, regress
circling the world)

http://www.alansondheim.org/azuresong.mp4 (azure carter singing with
access grid sending voice to argonne national laboratory and back with
additional local room resonance)

http://www.alansondheim.org/seleniterings.mp4 (imaging through selenite
crystal)