Karl in the studio. Spring 2011.
In spring of 2011, while in Amsterdam on the Beyond Our Means tour, I was fortunate enough to visit with a personal hero of mine, Dutch visual artist Karl Klomp. In the early to mid two thousands circuit bent video was pretty much uncharted territory. People were modifying casio keyboards, furby brains and noise-makers ad naseum, but few dared (or thought, rather) to open up old video mixers, character generators & cable descramblers. Enter Karl Klomp. In the pursuit of an aesthetic that best told his story Karl had the foresight, curiosity & skill to crack open a wide array of video gear & straight run that shit. As an artist and a VJ Karl has incorporated his glitch video production tools in to multiple installation works, photo stills & live a/v performances. Karl's modifications helped unleash a predominately new (old) school of ghosts on the general public. Not to say that nobody else had been exploring corrupted visuals over the years (Pipilotti Rist in the eighties jumps to mind), but Karl made his mark by presenting his creations in a well-documented fairly open-source online format that encouraged experimentation. His online presence became a guiding light for budding electronic experimentalists and anybody remotely interested in scrambled porn.
An Interview with Karl Klomp (Amsterdam, CL) from Big Pauper on Vimeo.
Not only is Karl the definitive source on modified video circuitry but he is also one of the nicest guys in all the Netherlands (right up there with Milo Depri & Sebastiaan Dijkstra, hehe). Klomp was kind enough to invite us in to his home and show us around a bit. We get to see some first hand demonstrations and pick his brain for the latter half of what was a lovely day in Amsterdam. It should go noted that due to a hard drive failure and countless hours of data recovery this interview comes to you in a most tardy of fashions fashioned out of 5/8's of the original footage. Most unfortunate.
Karl & Kontroller. Spring 2011.
Karl currently works with the Theatergroup of Amsterdam and Carrot Video (which makes an awesome looking HD mixer/scaler). For more regarding Karl visit his home base, karlklomp.nl. Karl was also a contributing artist to what looked like an amazing exhibition, Refunct media, in Dublin Ireland a year or so ago. I suggest you download the event's handbill as it features a number of great essays on glitch theory & philosophy.
Handsome handsome men. Spring 2011.
A big thank you goes out to Karl Klomp, Milo, Sebastiaan, Brad Hamers, Toktek, & Tom Filepp.
