Brill Gallery at Eclipse Mill August 2025

Phil Edelstein, Woburn, MA, as of August 5, 2025

Sound Visions

Preface

I put this together to organize thoughts about structuring elements for a showing of mini-retrospective of Tom Ditto’s and some my and works of other at the Brill Gallery at Eclipse Mill, North Adams MA August 1-31, 2025. This also a starting point for program notes and inputs from others for the installation. Please take this as a way point and work in progress rather than something complete and definitive.

Given the extensive use of references to web based materials, and some thoughts about printout and display versions, you will see use of QRCodes at various points.

As this evolves, we will include further materials on contributions from Greg Anthon and the other that helped in the shape of this including Ralph Brill, Maude Baum, Brian Lau , Ivars Villum and others.

For instance, this page may be used for posting as program notes on a wall in the gallery at some point and these QRCodes are meant then to encourage visitors to follow links on their own devices while visiting the gallery and as take-away. See Links here for list of URL’s for consideration.

See https://www.3dewitt.com/2/PDF/Dittopix.pdf for a point of time vitae for Tom that bears additional updates where that leaves off. This can be used also as point of reference to various of Tom’s patents and scientific talks with video explanations of his various inventions and discoveries. Other material surfaced here are of his earlier creative work in film and video.

Note: there are an number of external page references below that may take few seconds to populate depending on the speed of your internet connection.

Eclipse Gallery Event – August 16th

Please note, we are planning a general reception for Saturday August 16th.

For Tom and Us – August 23 Get Together

We are organizing a get together for Saturday August 23 at the Gallery. This gathering is to share and reflect on the inspiration and fascinations from and out work with Tom.

We should have more specifics on this event by mid-July. We plan both in person and a zoom session for remote visitations for anyone who won’t be able to attend in person. This will include a round table of sorts.

On the Nature of the Work

There is a deep connection in our creative work based in scientific and technical principles as a source of inspiration and structure. In my view, the vibrancy here comes with the union of art and science. We hope that curiosity will lead to inspiration. There is a curatorial bias to provide context as an aid to visitors. Given circumstances and resource, this is understood to be short of explanation. Another bias, much of the focus is to make available that which we find compelling as more essential than what could be merely interesting.

A Bit of Background and Introduction

Tom Ditto introduced my long term collaborator John Driscoll and I to Ralph Brill February 2024 during John’s and my one week residency at EMPAC at RPI. John and I were in Troy to work with students for a realization of Rainforest IV as part of a series of events with the central theme of transducers as creative tools and media. Ralph invited us to stop by the Eclipse Mill in North Adams on our way back to Massachusetts. During that visit, Ralph invited us to show work in the gallery there during the last week in July 2024.

Tom and I then in July 2024 put together a collection of various of his video and sketches of mine to show for a brief week then. Tom showed Calypso Cameo and the 3D Rolling Stones music video. I took this as an opportunity show work in progress of recent things I had been working. Tom had this idea we should do something Pulfrich’ish which resulted in this bit of a mashup.

I had this iron wheel that I thought would be perfect for the shadow though didn’t at the time have a good solution of slowly rotating this ~25lb object. Instead I took my parts from my childhood Erector set, various Arduino’s, LED’s and DMX moving head lights from work with John and a computer graphic sound sketch I had been playing with.

Coming out of the week in July 2024, Ralph graciously offered the gallery for the full month of August in 2025 that served as a catalyst for this outline.

On one thread – Tom, Ivars Villum and I then went off from Sept 2024 to Jan 2025 with visions of realizing a new work coupling C02 filled weather balloon acting as an acoustic lens and projection surface, a chroma3d generated dot field spinning of ideas of spatially focused sonic images and Shakespeare’s whispered soliloquies.

With the shock of Tom’s sudden death at the end of February, we quickly came to the realization that the realization of the new work would not be practically achievable in the available time frame.

I proposed instead proceeding with the idea to show a mini-retrospective of what we could of Tom’s creative life along with the evolution of the sketches for my evolving meanders along with the contributions of others as might be available.

Ralph and I have the idea that we will have and initial set of materials for showing at the beginning of August and will then at various points during the month highlight areas of focus.

Working with Bev Ditto and a cohort of Tom’s friends and collaborators, we had at our disposal digital artifacts from Tom from such as:

the http://3dewitt.com website (QRCode above) with record of much of his scientific work,
various of video material from Vimeo (QRCode here->), YouTube and other sources.
our private digital libraries
other web based sources for additional context

Bev has been making arrangements for at Tom remembrance for July at the Ancram Opera House. The cohort at WGXC Thingularity radio (http://wgxc.org) scheduled the May 1st broadcast as a chance to us to get together on Tom remembrances and various inspirations that was a step along the way in this formulation.

A partial list of Tom’s video that are on YouTube here. This has for example: Pantomation, Aquarelles, Off/On, Koan, Voyage, Tempest and other early video.

I take on here a daunting challenge with the help and encouragement of Bev, Greg and Ralph to bring forward for August what might be possible of a fitting view of Tom’s intertwined expressive creative and scientific life.

As apparent from those of us that knew Tom, there is an amazing depth and breadth from his early films from 1964-1971, the video works when I met and started working with Tom through the early 80’s and then the scientific work in optics, astronomy and along with the documentation of his patents that was his major professinal area of focus from then on.

Here then is a bit of a snapshot on work and progress, context, motivation, scope and intent for August Eclipse.

I have also been gathering together a folio of sketches of my work separately under cover of Sketches of Limited Time as point of reference of materials that may be of use.

From Greg Anthon

Greg contributes from his varied work from electron microscopy to pinhole cameras. In his work, he seeks to slow down time, and to simplify an image to bare essentials: a gesture, a palette of color, a gestalt. The effects in these images are achieved entirely in-camera with the use of long shutter speeds even in bright sun. More at greganthon.com.

Vignettes

Tom and I – the short version – more background

I first met Tom in the early 1970’s when he started working at the electronic music studio at the Performing Art Center at the University of Albany. We became the closest of life long friends. He was a never ending source of inspiration and encouragement, intellectual challenge and amazement. The path led from the early video pieces, the Design Device, Pantomation and EBA (previously Electronic Body Arts http://www.ebaarts.org), the WNET-TV Lab residencies and projects, up through the patents starting with the Diffraction Range Finding. Tom and I connected on so many different levels. We shared common familiarity with the nature of visual music, vector synthesis, of parallel interests in creative work based in scientific and technical principles, laser deflection systems. I am eternally grateful for this intellectual and emotional support.

While I was generally aware, I was less intimate with understanding the holography and astronomy. In his passing, I have found solace in connection to several of his friends and collaborators that I knew of and now part of the contributions here that need to be included.

Ralph and I expect that the material in the gallery will evolve over this month including and adapting to contributions as available.

By May, we have a good collection of video materials and I have a working prototype of a semi-interactive webcrawler and collection of video that we can show.

As Is

There are various artifacts found in digital media that form points of reference as shaped by circumstances as much as intent.

A Video Gallery

We will setup several screens with presentation of Tom’s video including the art work and recordings of talks, demonstrations and presentations. This spans for instance the Pantomation demo up and his wonderful talk “On the Shoulders of Giants“.

Over the years, Tom collected various bits and pieces on Vimeo starting with Last Year with Bad Marian from 1964. See underneath that link a number of other of Tom’s video postings.

Various work surfaces on youtube such as Aquarelles…

Aquarelles

Click for Youtube (via embed)

(check whether PDF will include this embed from the “Detail” block for booklet. The Youtube embeds don’t seem to be rendering in the PDF export)

There are 3 of his 16mm films to be found here https://film-makerscoop.com/catalogue/tom-dewitt-fall). These were digitized and included in the August Eclipse showing. Tom had managed to have On/Off digitized but not The Fall https://film-makerscoop.com/catalogue/tom-dewitt-fall and AtMosFear and The Leap. See also his work acquired by MoMA and the American Film Institute quarterly from Spring 1972 and Canyon Cinema links.

Fall (1971)
Leap, The (1968)
Atmos Fear (1966)

We hope to have these digitized and available for showing for August.

I have also these video files included for showing …

Cathode Ray Theatre

running time 44m51s

This is a compendium of works from the EBA and WNET-TV Lab period such as Philarmonia, Studies for Philharmonia, War Mimes, Pantomation, various appearances of Zierot the Fool and other mime, and various gems.

This is TV America

running time 28m59s

This is a collage and bit of social commentary contrasting broadcast TV an alternative video including vignette with Max Nathan (Randy Cohen). When I first started at the electronic music studio SUNY Albany, Randy was Joel Chadabe’s studio assistant. Randy later on wrote for David Letterman and as the NYTimes Ethicist.

VTR CRT

running time 28m18s

This collection includes an excerpt from Gullibles Travels, Multiple Identity Marathon with EBA, more of the video mime work. This was produced at WNET-TV Lab, WMHT TV Schenectady, Synapse at Syracuse University, Media Studies Inc. Buffalo, SUNY at Albany, Earthscore Foundation.

As Was

Upon deeper reflection, of thinking fast and slow (all due respects to Khaneman and Tworsky), there are points of reference that are revealed driving decisions on what can be shown for August. Practically, this is incomplete and subjective and at best a window, a narrow slot, a view port. On a personal note, I am inflicted or affected by being better at points of departure rather than arrivals that in no small parts shaping what can happen here.

There are points of individual and common points of reference and departure.

EBA, SUNYA Coordinated Electronic Music Studio (CEMS)

As had been gestating with me for some time and now brought hard to the surface was the period from 1971-1977 framed by the community at an intersection of electronic music studio at the University of Albany and Electronic Body Arts. I’ve covered this in separate page here https://composers-inside-electronics.net/cie-wp20/eclipse-2025/eclipse-2025-eba/ and offer first person perspective.

RPI Video Lab

An important inflection point was the RPI Video Synthesis Lab. Including the PDP-8L for Pantomation, Hearn and Rutt-Etra synthesizers. What I know of this is more indirect and what I am aware as this is second and third hand involving digging into archives and following various linkages. This is a key connection point for Tom’s evolution as creative scientist and researcher.

Composers Inside Electronics (CIE)

I was part of a group that coalesced in the period of 1973-1976 that then shaped and permeated to date every aspect of what ever I have of a creative life. Largely through circumstances, interests and personalities, while there is much in common, this never functioned overtly as collaborative projects for the two of us or with others of that cohort though, posthumously, in the aftermath, there is this binding that is so compelling in shaping and what is to be shown.

I have no doubt that the shadow of CIE is one of the gravitational fields implicit, pervasive and active in this formulation.

The Web Crawler for Eclipse Gallery 2025

I turned to rummaging around the web to better understand more broadly Tom’s world beyond what was familiar to me. From that, I have implemented an automated web crawler that will semi-interactively present that publicly available material.

This will serve to help frame content of further interest and hopefully inspire other sources and connections.

One anchor and key to the holography was through his friendship with Rudie Berkhout (https://holowiki.org/wiki/Rudie_Berkhout)

What I would like to Show

From discussions with Ralph, along with the above mini-retrospective of Tom’s creative life, I would hope to be able to show the evolution of the sketches that I have been working on many of which shaped by my interactions with Tom. My thought is to surface a collection (or mashup) of the creative meanders and exploration. The invitation from Ralph is a special opportunity for me to show current manifestations that unabashedly combine my own perspectives intertwined with impacts and how my creative endeavors have been shaped. To borrow Tom’s Isaac Newton quote on the shoulders of giants (link), I have been very fortunate in my life altering experience from the like of Tom, David Tudor and the Composer Inside Electronics (CIE) cohort. There is a rich complex braid of common and divergent interests, collaborations and collaborators to channel here. I have from John Driscoll curatorship of materials from his development of ultrasonic instruments and our recent hacking of DMX commodity devices as a contribution here. With what comes with age, this all has me in a bit of an autobiographical mode. I have in recent years felt the need to pay respects to the circumstances and people that were key points in those early transformative years along with Tom such as Joel Chadabe and Maude Baum that surface here.

Most of what I do is variations on the possibilities found in the construction of expressive systems – the boundary between person and automata in a microcosm, as parable, of follies, of how software shapes environment, experience, the nature of mixed electronic media.

This is a chance for me to do another iteration of the nurb generator, to re-do a Pulfrich, to work on the networked orchestra and choreopraphy for future works, to provide a glimpse of the Philharmonia revisited studies, latest refinements on feedback loops and my thoughts on adding Bayesian to the variation of electronic, video and acoustic feedback.

I have been looking for ways of exposing my interest in software more explicitly. I have long had the understanding of software as an essential expressive media. Here, I have an opportunity to take elements, networked and bound and defined by software as substance in contrast to the more physical things That virtual object are not second class shadows of the real and is the materiality of the world as I understand.

There is a wealth of information, research papers on http://3dewitt.com on his endeavors in Astronomy, NASA, SPIE and the 3d Ring for example the demo at Consumer Electronics Show(CES).

I turned to a growing number of web pages to help fill in the blanks to more fully appreciate what I was looking at. From that, for the Eclipse Gallery for August, I have a semi-interactive web crawler that scrolls through a list of website that I feel may help provide context that should prove useful ireference and insights and points of inspiration. Many of these pages are from 3dewitt.com, wikipedia, and various people and passages.

Web Crawler Max Patch

As a starting point, the crawler selects from the website list and after pause, starts scrolling through the page allowing a visitor to pause and follow links on the page. A QRCODE is show for each page A viewer can then use their smartphone to capture URL’s of interest as a take-away. I have an initial list of pages from 3dewitt.com and pages from others like Rudie Berhkout that surface in the narrative.

The web crawler was implemented using the MAX Jweb object based on the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). This is intended to run on computer I’ll supply and requires a live internet connection for operation. This will allow extending in various ways to be covered in future updates. Features include user selection of scroll rate, Next, Shuffle, Pause and Scroll buttons.

This is imperfect in many ways though should serve as an means to find useful breadcrumbs. For instance, the embedded video in the page above isn’t properly rendered in CEF. An interested visitor to the gallery will be able to grab the QRcode as a takeway.

While not a bad starting point, there are a number of refinements likely needed here. Some improvements for ease of use and customization for the gallery usage (e.g. pulldown list is just URL rather than page titles). Users can use mouse (or possibly track ball or other human interface device) for scrolling and following links. There a configurable timer (~2 minutes) that would return to the automated scrolling.

A couple of quick chatgpt queries gave me the autoscroll and QR generator javascript snippets. One key is the “executejavascript” function that allows the injection of the autoscroll code into website.

There are some notable differences between how CEF works and other browsers such as Chrome, Safari and Opera. For example:

Video from Google drive and other source isn’t supported for playback (for instance as found on this page)
CEF as found in JWEB supports injection of javascript such as the autoscroll control and rate and easy means of integration with other components.

Click here for more detail on the web crawler implementation

Mostly as an aid to memory for myself and breadcrumb, here is snapshot of the MAX patch web crawler in edit mode.

And More

Shakespeare’s Whispers

Only in the recent years did I come to appreciate Tom’s passion and understanding of the works of William Shakespeare. My awareness of this started a few years back with his describing a production of Hamlet using holograms the manifestation of the ghost. This became more clear in a co-joined idea for presenting the whispered soliloquies using acoustic focusing techniques based in the common nature of wave physics of light ant sound.

Maquettes, Models and Demonstrations, a Tom Celebration and coming together

While there is limited time and resources, it would be quite delightful to show some of the physical things such as:

the 3d Ring
a small interactive motion capture interactive demo based on Pantomation readily avalable starting with open source software such as OpenCV
Laser Deflection
Chroma 3d – a demonstration of viewing a 3d image using chroma depth glasses
A Tom Celebration Event at Eclipse – probably aroudn August 22-24. This would be a chance for a showing of his video, to visit together both virtual and physical, a light show in the evening on the river and garden by the Eclipse Mill.

What’s Next

During July, the contributions and materials to be shown in August coalesced. Our interest in this as an evolving living and forwarding looking point of departure.

I’d look forward to being able to add specifics of the contributions of others that have been part of these remembrances and Tom’s inspirations going forward.

I hope that we’ll also have additional photographic and pdf’s that can be integrated here as well.

Let’s also see if we can raise interest from a wiki contributor to start a Tom DeWitt Dito page.

Video Inventory

Here is an rough inventory of video files to show (thanks to Ivars Villum and to be used with permission Bev Ditto).

DICER presentation-NIAC Symposium – 2023-09-20 12-51-11.mkv
DICER presentation.m4v
Dittoscope-tutorial-fragment.mp4
Forevermore.mp4
Holo Lab Tour-Tom.mp4
Hudson Talbot Book Signing – Tom.mp4
Jimi Hendrix – Little Wing – Tom.mp4
OffOn.mp4
RollingStones-Tom.mp4
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants – Herzog lecture 4-1-2022-reedited.mp4
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants – HerzogLecture-TomDitto-live-4-1-2022.mp4
The Present is the Future of the Past.mp4
There Is No Planet B.mp4
TomDittoFilmArchive.zip
Voyage.mp4
War Mime Excerpt – Tom.mp4
calypso_cameo_1 (540p).mp4
eclipso_cameo_5 (1080p).mp4
fragment_jitsi-2022-02-23 17-05-42.mkv
last year with bad marian.mp4
pantomation_demonstration (540p)-voiceover edit.mp4
pantomation_demonstration (540p).mp4

Additional files as found on Vimeo

3d_capture (360p).mp4
3d_gui (480p).mp4
3dewitt_smart_ring (720p).mp4
a_luminate_minute (720p).mp4
ambient_spectrum (360p).mp4
blinkm_ring_edit (480p).mp4
ces_2013 (720p).mp4
discovering_earth_analog_candidates_in_the_near-uv (1080p).mp4
ditto_symposium_video_v_8 (1080p).mp4
eba_50_rough_cut (1080p).mp4
eba_50th_celebration_for_your_consideration (1080p).mp4
excerpt_from__war_mime__(1974) (540p).mp4
hand_&_hologram (360p).mp4
moly (480p).mp4
multiple_identity (540p).mp4
pen_light_pantomation_1986 (540p).mp4
rgb2xyz (480p).mp4
simulation_-_3d_maus_with_led_ring (360p).mp4
simulation_-_ambient_tracking (360p).mp4
untitled – rudie berkhout (480p).mp4

I had these (probably that I digitized from VHS) as well …

Cathode Ray Theatre 1974.mp4
ThisIsTVAmerica.mp4
VTR-CRT 1976.mp4

I would like to show also a folder with my recordings of the Philharmonia Revisited studies. This is from an interpretation of the algorithm from Philharmonia and Studies for Philharmonia using Cycling 74 Max software and the Jitter video extensions.

Links

I’ve accumulated this initial set of links that I’ve found helpful so far for testing the web crawler. Some of these need somewhat different treatment due to pop-ups and other factors.

The youtube links probably best all moved to page above with with html embed’s.

I’ve given a quick look at automated means of extracting links from 3dewitt.com to include all the PDF’s and “href” html links. Looks like that will take additional work. Please send any additional links to add or changes.

Pending Tom Video

There are a few more of Tom’s video on DVD and older media to be surfaced.

Dancing On Lakes Unknown
Gullibles Travels

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