Dr. Blume a.k.a. Stefan Heusler, aims his video camera at a television screen and films it. The video signal from the camera is passed directly through a cable and into the TV. This simple set-up can create beautiful, almost psychedelic looking images that are constantly changing. In the show the images are accompanied by live music and projected on a large screen with a video projector.
How does it work?
This arrangement is called a feedback loop. The camera captures the images from the television, but something is changed such as rotating the camera or the colour settings, and the changed images are then also captured. Through the feedback loop chaotic shapes and even fractals emerge.
A well-known example of feedback is the loud high pitched whistling of microphones when they are not properly adjusted. Here the acoustic signal is recorded and played back, and the played back sound is then recorded and played back again, and so on…
