Video History Project

People

Eric Siegel

Eric Siegel was born in 1944 in NYC. At the age of 15 while a student at Samuel Gompers Vocational and Technical High School, Siegel won Second Prize in the NYC Science Fair of 1960 for his homemade closed circuit television, which he built himself from scavenged parts. In 1961 he won an Honorable Award from the NYC Science Fair for "Color through Black and White TV". After graduating from school, he worked in the field of closed circuit television and at the University of London in the Educational Television Department. He later designed and built special effects components for use by artists in live and tapes works, and is known for the conception and execution of the Siegel Colorizer.

Cite this record

"Eric Siegel." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/eric-siegel.

Download RIS citation
Summary

Eric Siegel, born 1944 in New York City, won Second Prize in the 1960 NYC Science Fair for a homemade closed circuit television and an Honorable Award in 1961 for Color through Black and White TV while a student at Samuel Gompers Vocational and Technical High School; after graduating he worked in closed circuit television and at the University of London Educational Television Department. He later designed and built special effects components for artists and is credited with conceiving and executing the Siegel Colorizer.

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 18 June 2011

Related records

  • Electronic Zen: The Alternative Video Generation Jud Yalkut Interviews Eric Siegel Television Is The Last Communication Link We Have To Change This Country Interview

    Eric Siegel (b.1944), interviewed in 1970, built his first TV camera at fifteen and won New York City Science Fair awards for home-made closed-circuit television projects; he worked in closed-circuit television and in 1966 in the Educational TV Department at the University of London. In 1968 he produced the videotape program PSYCHEDELEVISION for the Channel One closed-circuit theatre, designed special-effects components for TELEVANILLA at the Martinique Theatre, exhibited at the Howard Wise Gallery and Brandeis University (VISION AND TELEVISION, 1970), repaired a two-inch Ampex helical-scan recorder, developed a colorizer and planned a video synthesizer while discussing technology, distribution and television's social role.

  • Notes Toward a History of Image-Processed Video; Eric Siegel, Stephen Beck, Dan Sandin, Steve Rutt, Bill and Louise Etra Bibliography

    Survey of the emergence of image-processing video as a genre situates its origins in the late 1960s alternative television movement and the pages of Radical Software; it describes tool types (raster manipulators, colorizers/mixers, synthesizers) and cites the Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer, the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor, Beck's Direct Video Synthesizer, Sandin's Image Processor, and Siegel's colorizer and prototype synthesizer. The article profiles Eric Siegel (built colorizers, prototype synthesizer, sold ~10 colorizers, later formed Siegel Electronics), Stephen Beck (NCET residency, completed synthesizer 1971, BeckTech), Dan Sandin (Image Processor finished by 1973, gave plans away, ~$3,000 Illinois Arts Council grant), and Bill and Louise Etra with Steve Rutt (built raster-scan device, WNET TV Lab support, ~20 machines produced; legal settlement ended marketing).

  • Eric Siegel Chronology

    Eric Siegel builds Electronic Video Synthesizer with financial assistance from Howard Wise, New York

  • Eric Siegel Chronology

    February 10, 1971. Eric Siegel announces the Electronic Video Synthesizer. Information available through Howard Wise Gallery.

  • Ed Mellnik People

    Ed Mellnik is a video artist and owner of EMA Video Productions in Portland, Oregon; from 1970 he produced installations and live video performances including A Boob in a Tube/A Nixon Video Ride (SUNY Buffalo, 1970), Emit-Non-Time (SUNY Buffalo, 1974, with Allen Pierce), and Vertical Hold (SW Oregon Museum of Science, 1977). He exhibited work at the US Embassy in Mexico City (1975), Open Gallery Eugene (1979) and NW Artists Workshop Portland (1980), received an Oregon Arts Commission Fellow Grant (1980) and presented at the Portland Art Museum (1983). In 1983–84 he co-created the Chromatizer colorizer with engineer Arlie Conner (seven units built), and in 2002 Oregon Public Broadcasting aired a scenic shot and edited in high definition by Mellnik.

  • Expanded Cinema Bibliography

    Intermedia artist and filmmaker Aldo Tambellini produced synaesthetic videotapes, videographic films and closed-circuit teledynamic environments centered on the theme of black; his 16mm film Black TV (1964–68, 9½ min.) compiles television news and experimental videotapes and was re-edited over a four-year period. He began working with videotape in 1966–67 and received a New York State Council on the Arts grant in spring 1969 to develop artist–engineer relationships, working with technologists at five educational TV stations in New York; he participated in WGBH-TV Boston's 1969 PBL program The Medium Is the Medium, producing the videotape Black. Black Video Two (1968) was exhibited at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York in 1967; Wise later commissioned Black Spiral with engineers from Bell Telephone Laboratories.