Electronic Linguistics

In 1977 Gary Hill founded the Open Studio Video Project Barrytown, NY, and in the following years created numerous experimental videos that analyze sound and image as abstract variables of the medium.

The video »Electronic Linguistics« ocuses on the electronic visualization of sounds in the form of small geometric formations that move across the screen in different rhythms, underpinned by soundscapes. The intensely pulsating structures fill the screen. As soon as a bright still image fills the screen, high-frequency sounds change to lower ones. Finally, black and white formations flash stroboscopically, culminating in a still image without sound and accompanied by an increasingly rapid rhythmic sound.

This video work is an important example of Gary Hill’s early body of work in which he worked with video synthesizers and explored artistically the technical possibilities of the tool.