VHS Generator – take 1 – Creative Experimentation

I feel like this assignment breaks down into roughly 3 parts:

[1] Make a generator

[2] Feed it a data set

[3] Make things

Making a generator feels pretty easy, so the interesting part to me is choosing a data set. There are lots online and it would be easy to code something up that taps into an existing API and returns a random *whatever*. I’ve already written a Processing script that interacts with Twitter before, so dredging up a random tweet feels perfectly achievable. But how boring! I started digging for data ideas and what I hit on was the Craig Anderson VHS library. Over 10,000 tapes, the majority of which are rare, catalogued by genre and, most importantly, it’s in my house.

This is not even half of it.

So, the idea is to define a way to select a tape and a minute of footage to watch from it and then bundle that up into a random device.

Before creating a device to access it I thought I’d test ways of accessing the data.

Attempt 1:

A Processing sketch that returns a Genre, a Tape Number and a Minute.
[Processing sketches are dull in the long run, but for the moment allow me to quickly test the kind of data that gets returned via the VHS]

Result 1

Thriller – Tape 413 – Minute 81

Southern Comfort
Some National Guard-type dudes go out into the Louisiana swaps and are terrorised by Cajun hillbillies. I don’t wanna be some kind of victim blamer here, especially as I haven’t watched the film, but really? Maybe fuck off, National Guard. What the hell use are you in a swamp anyways?

Preconceptions aside here’s the footage filmed from my phone. Feel the quality!

https://vimeo.com/312474111

I do love the noise at the end.

Result 2

Comedy – Tape 741 – Minute 74

Now I screwed this one up to start with an found some late 70s ‘teen romp’ called “Lunch Wagon” and immediately wanted to die of embarrassment. So I went back and double checked the numbers and was SO THANKFUL to find out I’d counted wrong. It wasn’t some cheesy, sexist, shameful American teen flick I’d found, oh no, it was the disgustingly washed out English equivalent. BEHOLD: