Culture
Watch Mind-Melting Visuals Created By An '80s Video Synthesizer
Denise Gallant’s modular video synth has created tripped-out visuals for the likes of Tangerine Dream and Devo.
Some of modern music’s weirdest and most daring sounds have been created at the hands of modular synthesizers. But for nearly as long, principles of voltage control have been used to create avant-garde visuals, easily as weird and groundbreaking as its musical counterparts.
One of the art’s earliest practitioners and pioneers was Denise Gallant. The visual artist developed her own visual modular synth, the Synopsis, in the early ’70s in San Francisco. Her creation went on to color the San Franciscan avant-garde and punk scenes, and provided the visuals for cult groups like The Residents and Devo. Later, her visual synth work would even become the saturated and luminescent backdrop for Tangerine Dream.
Below, you can watch the Synopsis in action. The first video is a 1980 video for band Suburban Lawns. The second is an extensive look into the machine itself, and how the synth came to influence a whole new practice in electronic arts. You can read more about Gallant’s remarkable artistic career here.
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Read more: This trippy video makes landscapes from 8-bit synth music
