Analog Ghosts

A new series of analog glitch art

This image is an analog ghost.

A fleeting moment of pure information – broken, reformed, and reshaped – expressed as an analog signal. Gone in an instant, never to exist in the same form again.

It’s almost midnight. I’m sitting on my kitchen floor. The only light in the room is coming from an old CRT television, vivid shades of green and red fill the walls around me. I am staring at the screen of a digital camera, pointed at an old television screen.

What am I looking for? The split second where the colours and patterns cycling chaotically in front of me collapse into a visually compelling composition. If I’m quick enough I can capture the analog ghost in digital form, proof that it existed for one brief moment.

It is a video signal played from VHS tape, sent through an analog glitch box and then presented on an old CRT television with a slightly dying tube. It then enters the digital realm via a digital camera fitted with a macro lens - pointed at the television.

I took around 250 photos over 2 hours – then curated that collection down to the most interesting compositions which gave me around 20 images. Some slight adjustments are made in photoshop but mostly just to ensure all the detail in each photo is clear. The goal is to keep the capture as raw as possible.

I really enjoy this process. Working hands on with analog gear and circuits is a welcome change. I am fascinated with generative sound and visual design and I really connect with the unexpected results that take shape when systems are left to run amok.

I’ll share some more explorations each week as this project unfolds. Let me know what you think about Analog Ghosts.

“Creative inspiration is something already present in the world—like a signal waiting to be received. The creator’s role isn’t to strain for ideas but to attune themselves to this frequency and let it flow through them.”

- Rick Rubin, The Creative Act