The Radical Art of the Sandin Image Processor
Lee Blalock, 5t4t35 of 4lt, 2025. Courtesy of the artist
In 1973, Chicago artist and scientist Dan Sandin debuted the Sandin Image Processor, a groundbreaking analog computer that enabled users to manipulate video imagery in real time with astonishing results. By encouraging other artists to "copy-it-right," he paved the way for the production of dozens of image processors across the United States, making the machine one of the most influential tools for video experimentation and performance of its era. More than 50 years later, the Sandin Image Processor continues to inspire, connecting artists, hardware developers, and computer programmers across generations. To mark this anniversary, this program brings together a range of works created with the Sandin Image Processor over the years, including two new commissions by artists Lee Blalock and Jon Satrom. Additionally, real-time artist James Connolly will present a rare live public demonstration and performance on one of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s own Sandin Image Processors, echoing Sandin’s legacy of education, improvisation, and artistic experimentation.
Presented in partnership with Video Data Bank and Media Burn Archive.
1973–2025, USA
Format: Digital; live performance
In English
80 minutes followed by a conversation with Dan Sandin, Lee Blalock, Jon Satrom, and James Connolly. Audience members will also have an opportunity to engage directly with the Sandin Image Processor in the theater.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Lee Blalock is a Chicago-based artist, 80D1punk, and educator. Interested in how technologies support the idea of impossible anatomies, behaviors, and performances, her work is an exercise in body modification by way of amplified behavior or "change-of-state." Blalock’s interests include embodied cognition, anatomy and biomechanics, bionics, mechatronics, human/non-human entanglement, and computational abstraction. She has presented work domestically, internationally, and virtually at many institutions including Feral File; Ars Electronica; the wrong biennale; NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery; Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; 205 Hudson Gallery, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. Blalock is an associate professor in the Art & Technology / Sound Practices Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and practices various forms of embodiment as an everyday athlete.
James Connolly is a Chicago-based artist, educator, museum worker, and archivist. His videos, open-source tools, and real-time audio/video performances undermine the interfaces and break through the algorithms of digital and analog systems, examining hidden power structures and liberating latent aesthetic materialities in cathartic and captivating compositions. He has presented work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Intermediale's Videosyntezy3 in Legnica, Poland; Bideodromo International Experimental Film and Video Festival in Bilbao, Spain; South by Southwest in Austin; the GLI.TC/H Festivals in Chicago; and the Vancouver New Music Festival, among others. He is an adjunct associate professor in the departments of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation and Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the collection manager of the Roger Brown Study Collection.
Dan Sandin is an internationally recognized pioneer of electronic art and visualization. He is director emeritus of the Electronic Visualization Lab and a professor emeritus in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. As an artist, he has exhibited worldwide and received grants in support of his work from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His video animation Spiral PTL is in the inaugural collection of video art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1969, Sandin developed a computer-controlled light and sound environment called Glow Flow at the Smithsonian Institution. By 1973, he had developed the Sandin Image Processor. He then worked with Tom DeFanti to combine the Image Processor with real-time computer graphics and performed visual concerts, the Electronic Visualization Events, with synthesized musical accompaniment in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1991, Sandin and DeFanti conceived and developed, in collaboration with graduate students, the CAVE virtual reality (VR) theater at UIC. In recent years, Sandin has been concentrating on the development of auto stereo VR displays (i.e., free viewing, no glasses), and, on the creation of network-based tele-collaborative, VR art works. He is continuing his professional activities with Tom DeFanti at Calit2, University of California San Diego.
Jon Satrom is an artist, educator, and organizer who problematizes old and new media structures, interfaces, and conventions. By day, he fixes things, interviews folks, and creates digital tools at studiothread. By night, he breaks things in search of the unique blips inherent to the systems we use. Satrom performs real-time audio/video noise and new-media (with XTAL FSCK, I HEART PRESETS, and Magic Missile), develops artware (in partnership with PoxParty), and has co-programed and co-curated programs, platforms, and series. He has performed, workshopped, and lectured across spaceship earth, including STEIM, Amsterdam; musicacoustica, Beijing; transmediale, Berlin; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Centro Multimedia, Mexico City; and South by Southwest Interactive, Austin). His works have been experienced and featured within white cubes and glowing rectangles like 65GRAND, Chicago; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder; MU Eindhoven; NUMA, Paris; Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul; and SUDLAB, Naples; and in publications like GLI.TC/H READE[R0R]; Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking; Interface Cultures: Artistic Aspects of Interaction; Mobile Digital Art: Using the iPad and iPhone as Creative Tools, and The Art and Science of Interface and Interaction Design.
ACCESSIBILITY
Conversations at the Edge events have live captions (CART). The Gene Siskel Film Center is fully ADA accessible and its theaters are equipped with hearing loops. For other accessibility requests, please visit saic.edu/access or write cate@saic.edu
TICKETS
$13 General public
$8 Students & seniors
$6.50 Film Center members
$5 SAIC staff & faculty & AIC staff
FREE for SAIC students with a valid ID
All CATE programs are free for SAIC students. Unless otherwise noted, SAIC student tickets are released five days prior to showtime. Tickets must be picked up in person from the Gene Siskel Film Center box office. A student ID is required.
RESOURCE GUIDES
Conversations at the Edge’s resource guides contain articles, interviews, and other material related to upcoming artists and events. Available here.