Severed Heads visuals @ Dorkbot

So for part two of our wrap on this month’s dorkbot, we were treated to a great presentation by stephen jones on the video synths he created in the 70s and 80s - including the kit that severed heads used on tour.

Some great footage of severed heads was played - including a track from 1982 that would have been quite at home as a new release today. Spooky how cyclical music is (or how far ahead of their time severed were).

Stephen was also very vocal about the merits of hardware over soft synths. “The problem with a laptop is you can’t get in there and get your teeth into it,” he said, referring to the lack of tactile control as a hindrance to on-stage creativity. “The essence [of the synths we used with severed heads] was that I could get up on stage and play it like a keyboard.”

Sadly, Stephen lost basically all his computing related video synth work in a burglary in 1999 - although, in saying that, the only way he could replicate the early synths he showed is to reverse engineer them, as no circuit diagrams or other plans were ever created.

As an aside, one thing that did capture our imagination here at furtivity is that stephen has apparently just finished writing a book on early electronic art in Australia - and is shopping for a publisher. We’re pretty keen to see it - and can only hope that it eventually sees the light of day.

~ by furtivity on October 25, 2007.