John Whitney - Arabesque (1975) early computer graphics

[Phavonic]

Whitney's videos are powerfully spiritual. It's like Carl Jung and Jacob Boehme proscribed of the mandala and circle.

I can't get anything from new age vibration bollocks, but this is doing something for me.

[marcorock93]

Excellent piece of graphical art for that times...it's very fascinating and magical despite of its embrional technique

[AerialTheShamen]

The morphing effects look unusual, like oscilloscope pictures copied together into symmetrical patterns. The way the lines split apart and then rejoin looks sometimes a bit broken compared with 1980th and newer computer graphics demos. But so they also do unexpected things. I never saw this combination of run away oscilloscope curves and kaleidoscope before. (Modern morphing keeps corners connected.) But when all was rendered non-realtime, it was certainly hard to control.

[vapourmile]

This is the kind of thing that would have had me transfixed when I was a kid. It's as if computer graphics is in my DNA, and it's because of this sort of brilliant work that it made such an impact on me.

[videotater]

Very cool to see this again. I remember watching John et al film this (or at least, some portion of it, or a conceptual test) on the IBM 370 Model 145 in the computer lab at CalTech. Yes, I was there! It was really amazing to watch history being made. It was drawn in stop-frame style, on a vector display IIRC. Incredible to think how far we have come. The computer you are using to view these comments is more powerful than the multi-million dollar mainframe used to create this video 36 yrs ago.

[VinylLad]

John Whitney is an amazing animator, I can't believe one would do this with such primitive digital equipment. The music is nice too, Mr. Whitney has introduced me to such wonderful musicians as well such as Terry Riley.

[lawrencewraith]

thank you

[BitFace1]

this is one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen

[TomMinderson]

I thought 1961's "Catalog" was better, at least esthetically.

[vapourmile]

I've had a yen for computer graphics for years and its work which fuels my fascination with it because it makes you go "How did he do that?"

[SandChannelDrainage]

Someone asked about John Whitney - He was/is? a very sweet person who was also the person who created the slit scan effect in the movie "2001" (1968 movie). The last time I saw him was around 1982 - he taught a class at UCLA in computer graphics. This WAS before Wavefront (Now Maya), Alias, SoftImage, Lightwave, 3D Studio MAX, or any other digital computer graphics. He was an inspiration to our own Synopsis Video video synthesizer.

Denise Gallant - Synopsis Video - Video 4

[unmedication]

Most of us wouldn't be able to do the same with their computers. We are ignorants with computers...

[tall32guy]

This seems lame to us today, but you have to keep in mind that it was created in the mid 70's with the technology they had at the time. Still is it interesting. :)

[raposofan]

Please tell me John Whitney became a millionaire from all of this genius.

Please.

[GMRDUI]

That's some serious sin wave action ;3

[o0monox0o]

this was shown in our art classes and i loved it!!

A W E S O M E ! ! !

[hoofer1]

Was this shown on public tv stations in the 70's? I remember this...

[tamales458]

son of the LSD

[jbum]

Contrary to the caption, this was not Whitney's first digital computer film. He produced a number of films in conjunction with IBM in the late 60s which were produced on a computer, such as "Permutations".

[binary132]

brilliant! it's like each line is showing a part of the song O_O

[goodluckpeace44]

THIS GUY IS ONE HELL OF A GENIOUS

[uuaschbaer]

The coolness of this work stretches far beyond any screensaver I have ever had.

[DCEmoinabox]

any ideas as to who made the music in this video?

[postingoldtapes]

I have the musician's name in the text right at the start of the video.

[DCEmoinabox]

I never noticed the name, I'm a bit thick it seems =__= sorry.

[postingoldtapes]

No problem.

[jcdenton7]

I don't know what to think about this. I have no idea what could be making these strange animations without some sort of computer technology. Could he be using something similar to an oscilloscope?

[jbum]

Whitney produced this by rendering each frame on a computer monitor, and then photographing the screen, one frame at a time. More info in his 1980 book, "Digital Harmony".

[jcdenton7]

Oh, wow. That sounds like a lot of work!

[jbum]

Early computer graphics was indeed a lot of work. The process of photographing each frame was not as bad as it sounds - Whitney used a mechanism to automatically trigger the camera shutter, so it could be left running for long periods with the occasional check to see that everything was still going.

[goodluckpeace44]

actualy i think he used certain cathode rays, and sin functions. you can play around sin functions in a graphing program and get crazy images, so AC curent produces a sin curve and you change the parameters for wiered images.

[nirvana2187]

terrible quality. Abstract films like this need to be seen in the best visual way possible. I've seen a decent quality DVD of this on a average size TV screen and it was great. i'd love to see a good film print projected on a big screen.

[postingoldtapes]

Sorry about the quality. I've never seen a DVD of any of Whitney's work. This was from a Japanese LaserDisc called "Visual Pathfinders" copied to VHS years ago. Also, I put this up quite a while ago before YouTube started accepting better quality video posts.

On the other hand, if you have access to a DVD of this, why don't you go to the trouble of digitizing it and posting it instead of just knocking others?

[jovansystem]

@postingoldtapes I have the DVD and unfortunately, the image quality is not better. Alas.

[postingoldtapes]

@jovansystem Oh man, that is a crying shame. Are any of his pure film works transferred properly, or did they use a low-res source for the whole thing? I've seen that happen, where the expected number of sales doesn't justify doing a proper transfer from the film elements and they just use a 3/4" tape of an old transfer.

[RTpanzertime]

Simply amazing. That would work very well as the background of a title sequence for a movie (I'm thinking a Japanese movie).

[overclockeador]

Yes, it's amazing.... tnx for the history lesson...

[overclockeador]

This was made whit sprites or poligons?

[postingoldtapes]

This was 1975, and I believe it was before the invention of either sprites or any polygon drawing techniques. Dick Shoup built the first framebubber in 1974, Evans & Sutherland didn't make a commercial one until 1975. Frambuffers didn't have the power to draw like this for another decade. That's why I believe this was drawn on a vector display, which was filmed. The Star Wars animations (in Episode IV) were done in that way at the University of Chicago.

[postingoldtapes]

The vector display (see old Asteroids and Tempest arcade machines) was probably monochrome, and color was added with various filters. And overlapping graphics of different colors were done by rolling the film back and double-exposing it. All of which makes Whitney's work even more amazing.

[fatherwkd]

Thanks for posting this VID.!

[guimbadriver]

hey theres a movie called WESTWORLD is a movie from 1973 theres a take in a control room that a color computer screem shows a multicolor 3D triangles flying in the screem, its was the first computer graphics sample..

[postingoldtapes]

I'm not sure is John Whitney had anything to do with that, but his work predated 1973. He actually built clockworks to draw with light directly on film, then mechanical analog computers...digital computers only appeared fairly late in his career.

[Yehan44surreal]

are those mathematics equations plot in a graph? or how else are they done?

thanks

good luck

peace

[postingoldtapes]

I'm not sure exactly how Whitney accomplished what he did at the time. I'd love to read a book about him. I do that some of his early stuff was made by combining Lissajous patterns with shutters to cut up the forms as they were being traced on the film. The Wikipedia page on him has links to several books, but no real information.

[Meteotrance]

the potential of analogue electronic is endless if use some controler like that on a digital technologie we can do more than a simple photorealistic digital image, especialy for morphing technique, im a synth musician and as the analogue moog synth we can do very imprevesible sound or image if we make an anlogue computer image.

[woreno]

interesting work. not a supercomputer. seems that the animation are a set of overlays of representations of waves generated by electronic oscilloscopes controlled by trigger, frequency divs, et all.

[eyepoo]

Truly amazing. It makes you re-think what people are capable of.

[manensol]

This is also a great meditation video.

[ninja9578]

Wow, that's pre Apple. He did that on a mainframe?

[postingoldtapes]

Some of Whitney's stuff was on a mainframe, but he actually predated digital computers. Some of his earliest stuff was on analog computers, and before that he built clockwork mechanisms to create his work.

[RhythmDroid]

beautiful!

[JackLipnick]

this is so good i can't even blame whitney for jar jar. thanks for posting!

[max0nOz]

Would love to see it, but it doesn't work for some reason..!?

[postingoldtapes]

It works for me from several computers. All I can figure is something on your system. Sorry.

[keram81]

great, please post more!

[sadalite]

Looks like scanimate. The scanimate is famous for many early CGI (computer Generated Imagery) "The Electric Company" used it for the same effect when the swirling words and letters would appear and begin to fragment. That was all done with the Scanimate computer, and looks very similar in this video from John. By the way, Mr. Whitney is very well known for his 2001: A Space Odyssey segment when Bowman is flying to the other Universe and Space becomes a multicolored kaleidoscope.

[sinkirk]

Check out Wikipedia for some basic information as to how the works were created. Just search for ''John Whitney animator''

[pvx]

Actually, John Whitney didn't use the Scanimate. IIRC, he did most of his work using a animation stand he built himself, controlled by a surplus military analog gun control computer, which was used to move & control the camera & stand. It was very similar to the Oxberry animation stands made later (one which was used to animate the "starfield sequence" of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, IIRC.

[Awsomeaton]

It's actually "stargate" not "starfield".

[JumpCheckProductions]

The stargate sequence in 2001 was done by Douglas Trumbull and was done with slit-scan photograpy.

[panoptikos]

beautifull. altough i was borned in 1977, it reminds me my childhood.

thanks

[postingoldtapes]

I'll be posting a few more Whitney animations in a few weeks.

[fromexile]

Please do ; does anyone have "Yantra" by chance?

[goddollars]

wow, i really love this

im awaiting your other ones

i posted a video response with the stuff i do, its kinda similar, but i use real lights/lasers and film it, then later edit

cant wait to see the otherss

[pvx]

Awesome, thank you for doing such! Just curious, would one of them happen to be "Catalog"?

[postingoldtapes]

I do have "Catalog". These are from a VHS copy made from a LaserDisc called "Visual Pathfinders: John Whitney". I wish I owned the LD, but no such luck. The same tape also has a collection of the work of Oskar Fischinger.