Videokalos Video Synthesizer
The Videokalos Colour Synthesiser
The Videokalos Colour Synthesiser (VCS) is a video synthesizer designed and built in 1975/6 in the UK by artist Peter Donebauer in collaboration with engineering expert Richard Monkhouse. The name derives from a mix of Latin video, “to see” and Greek kalos, “beauty”.
The VCS is an analogue image processing device designed as a real time performance instrument allowing colour synthesis and complex manipulation of multiple monochrome or colour video images. Its “studio in a box” design freed performers from the existing constraints of using expensive TV studios. And it allowed the exploration of colour imagery in a time and country dominated by fairly basic monochrome video production, editing and recording equipment.
Donebauer was a pioneering video artist in the UK – he had the first video commissioned for national broadcast in the UK, ENTERING for BBC2 in 1974 – and envisaged a portable instrument that would allow the live production of complex colour imagery. His own work was unedited, non-representational and created live in performance with musicians, and later dancers. Having built such a device for his own use he went on to build and sell several commercially in Europe.
In 1978 he created the performing group VAMP – Video And Music Performers – around the potential of the VCS. This group were the first Europeans to tour a live performance video and music event – the VCS allowed visual imagery to be created at the same speed and with the same mutual feedback and interactions as musicians playing together.
Function or Module Types
Sync Pulse Generator
5 camera inputs – monochrome or RGB colour
5 channels of RGB colour synthesis
3 channels of multiple keying of any RGB signal or its parts into any other RGB signal or parts via a 22x22 mini patchboard
Wipe Generator
Four-bank, eight-channel vision mixer
Colour encoder outputs for PAL or NTSC and RGB outputs for higher un-encoded visual quality
References: Chris Meigh-Andrews, "A History of Video Art: The Development of Form and Function", Berg, Oxford and New York, 2006.
"Peter Donebauer, Richard Monkhouse and the Development of the EMS Spectron and the Videokalos Image Processor", Chris Meigh-Andrews, Leonardo Vol. 40, Issue 5 (2007)
Video, Art and Technical Innovation by Peter Donebauer, Educational Broadcasting International, September 1980, available on web at www.donebauer.net/manifestations/movingimages/broadband/writing/videoart/videoart.htm
http://www.donebauer.net/manifestations/movingimages/broadband/videokalos/videokalos.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/musicperform/7149.htm