“This “didactic” tape finds Steina and Woody working in 1978 with former student and tool designer Jeffrey Schier building and exploring his Digital Image Processor, an early, non-commercial digital tool. Steina explains what new controls this device introduces as it is shown to digitize an analog video signal, divide a white sphere into 16 luminance values that can be independently manipulated, and perform a frame grab.” Their delight is demonstrated as Steina, Woody and Jeffrey take turns exploring the capabilities and playing with this new tool that introduced digital possibilities.

“This tape is about the struggle to define the basis for computer control of a digital image device, for a descriptive language and necessary programming languages. The device was designed to be low resolution/high speed field by field operating tool. Its microprocessor based architecture is a concept which can achieve transformations between two images at video field rate, pixel by pixel (pixel= picture element). The tape contains sequences ranging from the first artifacts of the machine to more program-demanding image transformations….”