| Video Feedback Overview |
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Video feedback is the process of pointing a camera at the screen displaying the camera's output. This creates a feedback loop of images infinitely repeating onto and over themselves creating interesting patterns. An initial curious result has become a studied phenomena that relates to other sciences such as cellular automata, reaction diffusion and non-linear dynamics.
This page has information about real and simulated video feedback. |
| Video Feedback Setup |
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All you need is a camera and a monitor or TV capable of displaying the camera's output.
Any camera and monitor/TV combination will usually work. Different quality cameras and screens will all lead to unique results.  |
| Video Feedback Tips |
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If you want to experiment with video feedback, here are a few tips for getting interesting video feedback results;
1. Try experimenting in a darkened room. Excess light tends to cause "white outs". 2. Play with all the controls the camera and screen have (brightness, contrast, invert, solarise, zoom etc). 3. Make changes to settings slowly as large changes can quickly lose a nice setup. 4. Try rotating the camera 180 degrees (upside down) in relation to the screen. 5. Set the zoom so it is close to the sweet spot of not zooming in or out too quickly. That way patterns tend to slowly grow and shrink. 6. If you have a video mixer with effects put that in the loop between the camera and screen or screen and camera. 7. A tripod will help keep the camera steady when a good pattern is found and allow small adjustments to angle. 8. Make sure you have some way of recording to capture interesting results. 9. If you lose a nice feedback setup to the screen going black a quick flick on/off the lights to seed the screen can get it going again. |
| Examples of real video feedback |
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Firstly, James Cruitchfield's results from back in 1984 ...
... and some other examples I found on YouTube ... |
| Video Feedback related links |
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Joel Cadman - Spinning Lights
Jose Maria Castelo - Video Feedback Explorations Anja Franz - Oil paintings of video feedback Chaim Goodman-Strauss - Fractal Feedback Tom Holroyd - Dr Tom's Video Feedback Gallery Peter Henry King - Video Feedback Fractal Genesis Lari Lucien - Images of video feedback and video feedback using analog image mixers Paul Prudence - Talysis. Wikipedia - Optical feedback |
| Simulating video feedback |
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The following movie is a sample of some results from attempting to simulate video feedback.
Created with Visions Of Chaos. See SimulatingVideoFeedback.pdf for more details. |
| More video feedback simulation |
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Years after the above simulation attempts I was inspired again to try new methods of simulation.
The following movie is a full HD 1080p ten minute example of what the new simulation produces. This really needs to be watched full screen at the full HD resolution. |
| Even more video feedback simulation |
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| Other attempts at simulating video feedback |
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Dimitre Lima - Feedback Synthesizer
Jose Maria Castelo - Morphogen Alex - Web based video feedback results Gene Shuman - Epimorphism. More here, here and here. |
| Scientific papers relating to video feedback |
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In depth and mathematical, but will be of interest to people who want a much more detailed description of video feedback.
Space-Time Dynamics in Video Feedback 1984, James P. Crutchfield Spatio-Temporal Complexity in Nonlinear Image Processing 1988, James P. Crutchfield Spatiotemporal Chaos 1994, M. C. Cross, P. C. Hohenberg Pattern formation in nonequilibrium physics 1999, J. P. Gollub, J. S. Langer Nonlinear Dynamics of Video Feedback Timothy Burt and Michael G. Lagoudakis Farey sequences of spatiotemporal patterns in video feedback 2000, Essevaz-Roulet, P. Petitjeans, M. Rosen, and J. E. Wesfreid |
| Did I miss anything? |
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| If you know of any other websites or papers related to video feedback contact me |