Slit Scan

I discovered something called a Slit Scan which is essentially a process/synthesizer/effect that makes things distort on camera. According to youtube comments, this was a very popular effect used in the 80s to make the graphics on screen seem very high end. There are modern applications that can replicate the process now with ease but back in the day it was a step by step process that was very meticulous and involved angling a camera at a specific position to make the light look like a slit.
Also, it was frame by frame. So you had to do the process over and over again until you got an animation. So essentially it was stop motion with photography and special effects.

Here is a Chrome Experiments one that you can use in your browser: Slit Scan Camera


Some Slit Scan examples:

Slit Scan Camera

 

Slit Scan Carnival

Slit Scan Selfies

So in relation to the Slit Scan, back in the 70s/80s - today there is a company that used to use the Slit Scan in their title animations. Klein&Animation is a design studio that makes both 3D and 2D animations for commercials and titles. They were big in the 80s specifically because the things they were creating were highly influential in the Motion Graphics world. (Since 3D was starting to become a big thing for a few amount of people who were learning how to use the technology for commercial use)

Here are a few of Klein&Animation's demo reels from the 80s.

Klein&Animation Demo Reel 1979

Klein&Animation Demo Reel 1982

So, after looking at these, it gives me a better insight to why video synthesizers and this technology was so popular in the 80s. I think Ms.Stratford understands that these machines once had very specific uses, and now with her own work they are given purpose again but with less limitations. There are elements that look like Slit Scan, and directly are Slit Scan effects in those videos, and understanding that these were used to make typography dynamic is interesting, because now they are used to distort people and images.