Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Scanimate: One element on black, stretched from far to near
- Type
- Set in Scanimate's manner (Heavy single letters lit from inside their own outline), and let Video Synthesis's lettering (Distort letters as signal, moving between legible and collapsed) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Scanimate's material (Scanlines and rainbow bleed, with color fringing left on the edges); bring in exactly one thing from Video Synthesis (Color from oscillator waveforms, layers from camera and monitor recursion).
- Colour
- Build on #f5f0ff, #ff3ea5, #06060e and admit one accent from #15eed0, #289b9c, #050608.
Where they fight
- Scanimate and Video Synthesis are techniques rather than looks. Decide which one runs last in the process, because that is the one that will show.
Caution
- Scanimate Layering glow and scanlines on top while the undulation itself still moves with the smooth interpolation of today's tools.
- Video Synthesis Stopping the moment feedback throws up a pretty accident, then stringing accidents together without learning which control produces which image.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Scanimate (technique, 1969–1980s) and their accent from Video Synthesis (technique, 1969–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Scanimate exists for: rebuilding the air of 1970s and 80s television as a deliberate effect, or giving a logo the unstable glow and stretch that digital tools lack. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Scanimate - Glowing outlines - Electronic undulation - Rainbow glow - Scanline texture Composition: One element on black, stretched from far to near. Type and lettering: Heavy single letters lit from inside their own outline. ## Accent comes from Video Synthesis, used sparingly - Modulated signal - Feedback vortices - Waveforms made visible - Television sets repurposed Let one material quality come from it: Color from oscillator waveforms, layers from camera and monitor recursion. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #f5f0ff, carry the structure in #ff3ea5 and #06060e, and let a single accent come from #289b9c. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: technique, nostalgia, exhilaration, rebellion, play. ## Where they fight - Scanimate and Video Synthesis are techniques rather than looks. Decide which one runs last in the process, because that is the one that will show. ## What goes wrong - Scanimate: Layering glow and scanlines on top while the undulation itself still moves with the smooth interpolation of today's tools. - Video Synthesis: Stopping the moment feedback throws up a pretty accident, then stringing accidents together without learning which control produces which image. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Scanimate 1969–1980s / Technique / Broadcast Design
An analog video synthesizer that distorted images on a CRT electrically and in real time. It is the true source of the glowing, flying, undulating logos of 1970s and 80s television, and it carried the motion industry before digital.
- Video Synthesis 1969– / Technique / Experimental Film
Generating and modulating the video signal itself like an instrument. Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe's synthesizer turned the television from receiver into raw material, opening video art's technical ground.
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