Dan Sandin

Electronic visual synthesis performance.

Spiral 5 is in the inaugural collection of Video Art at MOMA [Museum of Modern Art] in New York. It was the fifth in a series of performances of a piece called Spiral. Most of the Spirals were performed live in front of audiences by people controlling digital computers and playing on the analog image processor (IP), with musicians jamming along. The GRASS digital system combined with the IP formed the digital visual instrument used in the performance. Spiral 5 was performed in front of a studio audience and the music was re-recorded later. It is an abstract, mathematical animation based on the linear spiral, in something you might call the visual music tradition.

In Sister's Bay Christmas Morning, Sandin transforms natural landscapes, merging image-processed material with unaltered images of snowfall. In Wandawega Waters, a kinetic ode to nature, Sandin processes images of the surface of a lake until they are transformed into an abstracted study of light and movement.

Short video art piece.

“This 60 minute electronic fantasy featuring computer animation can control and change your moods of elation and tranquility. To change or enhance your mood, simply play a musical selection that accompanies your present feeling - its mesmerising! The abstract colorised computer animated visuals are artfully paced with their complimentary sound track. Images explode with colour while sooting with flowing shapes and rhythms, Great for parties or individual contemplation.”

Solo work by Dan Sandin acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 2021.

Early abstract digital painting.

In this elegant demonstration, Sandin explains the mistake of using common language concepts and spatial relations to describe what actually can happen on the video screen. The images generated in the tape act according to specific parameters set by the artist. Sandin has stated "The analog Image Processor was programmed to implement the logic equations; if square, if triangle and circle show circle." In this tape, Sandin is in effect arguing for a distinct video vocabulary that replaces the classical concept of perspective. This tape was produced at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Phil Morton's General Motors was created in 1976. Then based in Chicago, the late Phil Morton created this project as a playful and critical video response in conversation with a local General Motors dealership from whom he had purchased a van. Segments 'Colorful Colorado' and 'RYRAL' begin after the video-complaints cease. Produced at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where Morton founded the Video Area), this work includes Dan Sandin and Tom DeFanti who collaboratively developed the early Video Art scene in Chicago.

is an informal, offbeat lesson in the electronics and mechanics of television. Sandin demonstrates basic video procedures, including use of the camera and editing decks, and explains the transmission of the television signal.

A joint effort by numerous video artists of the time, starring dancer Rylin Harris.

phil morton + dan sandin

In this segment, Dan Sandin demonstrates the routing of a camera signal through several basic modules of an Information Processor (IP), producing a "primitive" vocabulary of the effects specific to video.