Einstine

Eric Siegel, a child prodigy in electronics, built his first TV set out of scrap parts at the age of 14. He developed his first video synthesizer, the Processing Chrominance Synthesizer, in 1968-69; it was used to generate the installation Psychedelevision in Color for the seminal TV as a Creative Medium exhibition held at the Howard Wise Gallery in 1969. Because the early version of the machine was unable to record the images it generated, Einstine was re-created by Siegel after the exhibition. The tape uses colorized video feedback to generate its psychedelic effects, as a picture of Albert Einstein dissolves into a shimmering play of light. Besides the reflection of a countercultural sensibility, the tape romanticizes science through its coupling of Albert Einstein's image with the heraldic strains of Rimsky-Korsakov.

This title is only available on Surveying the First Decade: Volume 2.