Audiovisual synthesisers: Tasos Stamou

Thursday 17th of May 2012, 7pm. Tasos Stamou will present his work on audiovisual synthesisers.

Tasos Stamou, an electroacoustic composer, free improviser and instrument maker will present some of his latest designs. The devices -100% recycled in materials and sounds- combine circuit bent toy-instruments with analogue modular synthesizer utilities and audiovisual synchronizations.

The text below is from Tasos’s website: http://tasosstamou.com/projects.html

VHSynth is an audiovisual project that incorporates analog video signals and handmade synthesizers. It is a result of a fully recycled found-in-trash vintage VHS equipment that has been modified so as to become part of a DIY modular synthesizer setup suitable for live performance and improvisation. Video tapes provide video/audio signal, cassette cases enclosure DIY and bent circuits and a handheld video editor was hacked so as to react as a video synthesizer synching with sound. Taking advantage of the medium’s imperfections (hiss, signal errors and damaged tape) the resulting aesthetics of the project tributes to the low budget cult video productions and home movies of the past decades.


Views from the usual “VHSynth” setup and devices and a detail of the modified handheld video editor from “datavideo”.

Extracts from live performance with the “VHSynth”. No post effects processing applied, just raw A/V signal capture.

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