Video History Project

People

C-Men

Julian van Aalderen (1976) and Sjors Trimbach (1974) have both graduated from the Academy of Arts and Industry in Enschede at the Media-art department. They are working as animator/illustrator/graphic-designers and video artists. Since 1999 they are operational as the C-men veejays. They re-invented the whole 16-bit style and brought it to a higher level. They are one of the reasons this "retro-80'-videogame-hype" is going on.

Every time you see a person in an Atari T-shirt, you know these 2 boys started it. It was not a coincidence that the "Game on" exhibit in London was held at the same time they played in London. And while everyone and his mother is running behind the latest fad, they will still be rocking that low-res style. Their computers can't do any better. All their work is homemade and played on 2 Amiga 1200 computers. With the aid of the MNU2/3 VJ-tool, they can alter their low-res animations on the fly.

Cite this record

"C-Men." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/c-men.

Download RIS citation
Summary

Julian van Aalderen (1976) and Sjors Trimbach (1974) graduated from the Academy of Arts and Industry in Enschede at the Media-art department and work as animator/illustrator/graphic-designers and video artists; since 1999 they have performed as the C-men veejays. They re-invented a 16-bit style and are described here as contributing to a retro-80'-videogame-hype; they played in London concurrent with the Game on exhibit. All their work is homemade and played on two Amiga 1200 computers and they alter low-res animations live with the MNU2/3 VJ-tool.

Submit a change or correction

If unchecked, this will appear as a public note on the site immediately. Spam filters may delay publication, but all submissions are reviewed by staff.

Changes will be reviewed and integrated as time permits. For major changes, feel free to email [email protected].

Last modified 17 June 2011

Related records

  • ETC History 1979-81

    1979–80 equipment at the Center included a Z-2 8-bit computer with an S-100 bus, dual floppy drives and a CAT digital frame buffer; a Z-80 was also interfaced to an analog box and software development for video uses began. Artists in residence during 1979–81 included Alan Powell, Connie Coleman, Charles Atlas, Victor Velt, Jud Yalkut, Ren Weidenaar, Dan Reeves, Jon Hilton, Celia Shapiro and Peter D'Agostino; The Electronic Workshop series was presented to 17 organizations around New York State and the Center moved to Owego; in 1980–81 David Jones developed the Print Program for disk-captured videographic still frames with variable gray-level printing and additional software was produced by graduate interns under Paul Davis and Ralph Hocking.

  • G.R.I.D. - Works Bibliography

    Ralph Hocking outlines his move from pottery and sculpture to photography, video and computer-based image work; he acquired a Paik/Abe synthesizer in 1972 and, with Sherleen Miller, produced multi-camera pieces (1971–1978) using mixing, reversal, rate switching and voltage control. With David Jones he developed a twenty-six-command program to manipulate frames and produce 256×256 black-and-white dot-matrix prints. He taught video art at SUNY Binghamton for thirteen years and founded and directed the Experimental Television Center Ltd. in Owego; entry appears in the Generic Real-time Interactive Digital catalog, Arnot Art Museum, July 12–September 28, 1986, curated by Peter Chamberlain.

  • SAID (Spatial and Intensity Digitizer) Tools

    The Spatial and Intensity Digitizer (SAID) was developed for the Experimental Television Center in Binghamton, New York, arising in 1976 from an effort to create a low-cost, video-speed analog-to-digital converter; the project implemented a 6 bit A/D and a companion 6 bit D/A, supported interactive-compositional and automatic-production modes, and produced posterize and mosaic effects in real time. Donald E. McArthur (b.1938; Ph.D. Theoretical Physics, University of Nebraska, 1967) designed SAID and later co-developed the McArthur/Schier Digital Image Generator with Jeff Schier for the Vasulkas; Walter Wright wrote the first program and Ralph Hocking and Jeff Schier participated in hardware arrangements.

  • ETC History 1981-83

    History 1981–82 lists studio artists Frank Dietrich, Thierry Kuntzel, Alex Roshuk and Matt Schlanger and notes Residency Program work exhibited at Siggraph, the Donnell Library, Global Village, the 7th Annual Ithaca Video Projects Festival and the San Francisco International Video Festival. History 1983–84 records NYSCA funding for a General Purpose Interface Board to link analog imaging equipment with an 8 bit computer, enabling remembered knob settings; David Jones and Peer Bode began initial research on a real-time frame buffer digitizing analog video at 256x256 with 16 shades of gray. The Pattern Program was developed as an internship project by Master’s candidates at SUNY to draw, store and deploy patterns or textures as movable matts or windows; artists listed include Nancy Buchanan, Amy Greenfield, George Stoney, Barbara Sykes and Ann Wooster.

  • An Interview with Peer Bode Interview

    Peer Bode began producing video around 1971 with an early black-and-white portapak while an undergraduate at SUNY Binghamton; he worked with filmmakers Larry Gottheim and Ken Jacobs and used the Experimental TV Center's keyers, mixers and colorizers. Remaining in Binghamton through the mid-1970s, he collaborated with the American Dance Asylum and with engineers and artists Ralph Hocking, Nam June Paik, Shuya Abe, David Jones and Walter Wright on tools such as the Paik-Abe Colorizer/Synthesizer, SEGs, Scan-A-Mate, a Spatial and Intensity Digitizer and an Elf II computer.

  • Computer Animation Primer Bibliography

    uses of computers in film and television industry; theory and applications of coomputer animation; emphasis on Atari Computers