About

Fermata Positronics is a practise in electronic Kintsugi. The devices upon which I work were originally designed to bring crystal clarity to soft analog video. Within this perfect clarity are hidden buds in stasis, waiting to unfurl into blossoms of great beauty.

In their unmodified state, the circuitry within these devices varies in depth and complexity—some designs are simple and elegant, while others are exceptionally intricate, bordering on magick. Their original designers and engineers had only the aforementioned crystal clarity in mind, but within their work they left behind trails to secret beauty.

When these perfectly balanced rivers of electricity are perturbed and diverted, the original analog video signal’s waveform is distorted and contorted. The newly manipulated waveform is then interpreted by the receiving device (e.g., a CRT monitor), and unintended textures, colours, and patterns reveal themselves.

In this manner, the form and function of the original device is broken. However, a new, shimmering amalgam of energy and light fills the rifts. The once-hidden paths begin to whisper their secrets, and the buds begin to open, revealing themselves in cosmic splendour.

When a prism receives a beam of coherent white light, it refracts the beam, fanning it out into a spectrum of colours—colours previously obscured by the perfect coherence of the original beam. In this sense, these video devices—once modified—perform an alchemical transformation upon the original electric river that flows within them, unravelling it into its component parts in a manner that is both surprising and unpredictable.

Though each Fermata device has been given its own name, this is why I refer to each one as a Video Prism.

While this is a practise in the art of imperfection, it is also a practise that intends to honour the unchanged form and function of the original devices. While transforming them—rather than completely imposing my creative will upon them—I allow the original designs to guide and inform me as to what new forms they would like to take.

There is something particularly wonderful about the austere face and body of video equipment that was designed in the 1980s, and I find it immensely inspiring. Though on the surface they may seem slightly cold and severe, I always detect a certain warmth and love within the original designs, and that warmer—lighter—aspect is what I seek to bring to the surface.