Nam June Paik's 'Wobbulator' Is The Crown Jewel Of Analog Circuitbending
Posted by Joshua_Kopstein on Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010
It wouldn’t be considered “circuitbending” technically, but Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe’s 1970 ‘Raster Manipulation Unit’ (aka ‘The Wobbulator’) was the first analog TV to have its cathode ray picture tube hacked. By manipulating the electron beam emitted by the tube using metal yokes, the Wobbulator distorts the image as it is drawn onto the screen allowing incoming signals to be shaped and controlled with the turn of a knob.
The effect is probably something similar to when Boris Rosing, a Russian scientist, successfully displayed shapes on a CRT in 1908 by feeding it a video signal, effectively creating the very first television. Paik and Abe’s Wobbulator takes this experiment further, allowing oscillating audio frequencies to further bend the TV’s signal into bizarre and mesmerizing patterns. Even stranger, these visual displays seem faintly reminiscent of the screensaver-esque computer graphics that would be created by members of the demoscene, nearly a decade later.
Could Paik and Abe have created the very first analog demo?
Perhaps you can find out yourself after building your own Wobbulator, using these detailed instructions.
See our documentary on Reed Ghazala, the man who invented Circuitbending, and check out more DIY tech.
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Electronic musician and computer culture journalist. Contact: josh ◢at◣ motherboard ◐dot◑ tv
