Creating “Slow Scan” for the Dolby Art Series
The Dolby Art Series is a collaboration with international artists and design studios that are given a simple design concept to make their own statement and interpretation. Each artist is provided a wireframe in square format (60×60 inches) of two symmetrical half spheres, inspired by the Dolby logo mark. The identical template will allow these individual works to be pieced together into an overall narrative. The work is exhibited in Dolby offices worldwide.
The series started in 2017 with Mucho organizing and curating the first round of 22 artists, including Experimental Jetset, Field, GMUNK, ManvsMachine, Eddie Opara — Pentagram, Supermundane, VolvoxLabs et al.
In late August 2017, we received an e-mail from Dolby, asking if we were interested in participating in the project. Yes, we were.
The concept
Throughout its 50-year history, Dolby Laboratories has been a leader in innovation, developing groundbreaking technologies for both sound and image production. From Dolby 301 up to Dolby Vision — the aim has always been to give more power to artistic expression.
We wanted to explore the interaction between sound and vision in the most direct possible way, using iconic Dolby technology. Some of us are old enough to remember the days of cassette decks with Dolby Noise Reduction. So we asked ourselves, can analogue recording could be used for the artwork? Or more precisely — is there a way to record images onto tape?
After a quick google search we had found our answer. Say hi to Slow-scan television, a method for transmitting and receiving static pictures via radio, used mainly by amateur radio operators (and early space missions). We were instantly intrigued by the possibilty to repurpose technologies of yesterday to create fresh artistic expression.
A search for “SSTV software” brought up MMSSTV — a freeware program for radio amateurs, developed by Makoto Mori. It was installed on a Mac running Windows and we were good to go. The basic idea was to convert an image to sound using MMSSTV, record it to cassette tape with Dolby C noise reduction system applied, and turn it back to image keeping all the visual artifacts.
Next step — find a working tape deck. This proved to be the hardest task so far, but thanks to the kind help of Rein at HiFi Classic we were soon decked out with a Nakamichi BX-125E.
The process
After the first quick tests it was clear that the system was working. It was also clear that we had run into some problems. MMSSTV can convert images with a maximum resolution of 640x496. Given the size of the final artwork we realised that the original image needed to be broken up into 130 parts, processed individually, and then pieced together.
There was also the question of which artwork to run through the system.
Having tested several options, we finally decided on a simple gradient-based solution as it allowed the conversion artifacts to take center stage.
The conversion, recording, playback and tiling was a fully manual process taking a total of 24 hours to complete. It also resulted in giving up total artistic control and embracing the imperfect nature of the end result.
