With the introduction of the video camera in the late 1960s, a radically new medium emerged. The Sony Portapak, the first battery-powered camera, facilitated live playback: it was suddenly possible to film on the street and view the recordings immediately. Artists soon explored the possibilities of this technology, incorporating it into all manner of creative experiments. Some built their own synthesisers to manipulate image and sound. Others explored the relationship between image and sound – because an electronic signal recorded on videotape contains both. This work by Trevor Batten (1945–2023) marks one of his early investigations into the interaction between image- and sound-generating equipment. The work manipulates existing video footage with a sound track to create new, abstract images. 

Artwork: Trevor Batten, Audio-Visual III, 1978, video, 5’38’’