Digital Art Museum
 
Laurence GARTEL    
 

Early Works

In 1975 I met a fellow at Buffalo State University who invited me to come and work at Media Study/Buffalo. This was an entire floor in an office building filled with lots of wires and apparatus. Two of the machines were called Rutt-Etra Synthesizer, and Paik-Abe Colorizer. These two pieces of equipment were the beginning components of an entire global electronic transition. The Synthesizer produced the very first special effects, bending images on x, y, and z axis. The Colorizer stripped the image into various gray values thus allowing B&W pictures to become color along with transferring back and forth from positive to negative. In order to capture the image created, a camera on a tripod was set-up to photograph the screen. Two years later a second Media Center appeared in the region of upstate New York, called the Experimental Television Center (ETC) founded by Suny Binghamton Dept. of Cinema Chairperson, Mr. Ralph Hocking.

Similar to the Buffalo facility, ETC had equipment such as a Jones Keyer, Jones Colorizer, Paik-Abe Colorizer and Wobulator (bent images on sin, cosine and triangular wave forms) and the first digital computer called a Cromemco Z-2. (This piece of equipment utilized a 12 inch floppy disk that held 2K of memory!!) Several years later the Center added a Commodore Amiga.

 

   
Kevin Cubed   Banana and Wine

Kevin Cubed
1979
Dye Sublimation Print
12" x 18"

 

Banana and Wine
1978
Dye Sublimation Print
8 1/2" x 11"

 
Fruit Skull   Rolling Eyes

Fruit Skull
1979
Dye Sublimation Print
12" x 18"

 

Rolling Eyes
1982
Dye Sublimation Print
12" x 18"