One of the things I used to enjoy doing with my old Sinclair Spectrum computer was stitching together short pieces of graphics-generating BASIC code in order to create a much longer compilation of the same, a visual mix comprised of the Spectrum’s crude logarithmic spirals, nested polygons and blinking squares. From the looks of it, Dazzle (1993) is a similar process applied to slightly more sophisticated computer graphics (made with an Amiga?), and with additional help from a vision mixer.
The graphics were created to accompany 45 minutes of electronic music by Jonn Serrie, so this is essentially a video album although it also looks like another of those Laserdisc releases targeted at psychedelic voyagers. As I’ve noted before, the Internet Archive now has a lot of this stuff, none of which seems likely to ever be reissued so it may as well be archived there. Dazzle is simpler than the tripping discs but its formal qualities place it closer to abstract cinema than all those reels of dated 3D renderings.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive
Golden Oldie … https://www.rudyrucker.com/capow/
https://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2017/03/10/still-seeking-the-gnarl/
Cool, thanks, I like those cellular automata things. There’s a Todd Rundgren Laserdisc with the horrible name Grokgazer that goes similar places:
https://archive.org/details/grokgazer-laserdisc
Based on the name and the top-left of the second screenshot I thought this might have something to do with the Cromemco Dazzler, but that was from the 70s, so probably just a coincidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco_Dazzler
The Kaleidoscope program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tDbn1N8EWI
There’s a great story about the Dazzler that the Kaleidoscope program was so unique at the time it caused a traffic jam in New York City as people stopped to look at the thing. Pretty good for 128 bytes! The source code is online too.
Ha, that program is like some of the things I used to spend time typing into my 48k machine! Nearly always someone else’s code, it was easier to copy things than try and work out the maths variables yourself.