Synchronator by Gert-Jan Prins + Bas van Koolwijk :: December 20, 2010; 7:30 - 10:00 pm :: Nivell Zero, Fundació Suñol. Rosselló, 240, Barcelona.

Since the early years of video art, works have been made which do not actually produce a standard TV signal waveform and therefore cannot be directly recorded. To overcome this problem Bas van Koolwijk and Gert-Jan Prins have created their own hardware to get non-video signals accepted by regular video equipment.

Aided by current digital and analogue means and drawing from the tradition of experimental video pioneers such as Nam June Paik and Woody and Steina Vasulka, Koolwijk and Prins shared their technical know-how and with their Synchronator project set out to tackle the difficulties concerning the recording of complicated, merged and distorted video and audio signals. Their live audiovisual performance features two simultaneous projections and is the direct result of their mutual interest in converting image into sound and vice versa, making use of the methods they have developed to have analog, and sometimes disturbed audio and video signals accepted by today’s equipment.

Gert-Jan Prins (Ijmuiden, 1961) mainly works with own-built equipment based on radio technique (sender / receiver) to create and manipulate electronic signals by means of feedback and frequency modulation. The various parts of his equipment are linked together and influence each other in this way. Prins started in 1984 as an improvising percussionist. In this context, he played with many musicians from the Dutch and European free improvisation scene. He performs regularly in Europe and North America. In 1996, he began his current activities with self-designed electronics, which over time would replace the drums. Gert-Jan Prins is an autodidact who focuses on the sonic and musical qualities of electronic noise. In his work, Prins makes connections with modern electronic club culture, occupying a radical position with his investigation of electronic sound and its relationship to the visual. He also creates links with the performance art and machine art of the 1980s, which reshaped the legacy of industrial society to produce threatening, yet sometimes also sublime, encounters with technology. Prins has built various analogue- and digital electronic systems that create signals within the listenable audio domain. Besides his solo-project, current projects include MIMEO, Synchronator and The Flirts (with Cor Fuhler). He has also collaborated with Pita, Thomas Lehn, Lee Ranaldo, Anne la Berge, Fennesz, The Vacuum Boys, Peter van Bergen, Marcus Schmickler, Raed Yassin, Koen Nutters, Norbert Moslang, Tomas Korber, Thomas Ankersmit, Giuseppe Ielasi, Carlos Giffoni, Luc Houtkamp and Misha Mengelberg, among many others.

Video and audio artist Bas van Koolwijk analyses the disturbances produced by video, transforming them into numeric code, in order to produce a visual and acoustic sequence in which sounds and images vigorously interact. His video works can be seen as an aggressive attack on the illusion of video itself. Through a rigorous and formalistic approach, van Koolwijk exposes the face of the machine which lives behind the often-placating veil of the televised image.