Binary Bit Patterns

Binary Bit patterns from the 1960s; abstract patterns shown with background music. By Michael Whitney, and musical help by Charles Villiers. Subliminal ‘peace signs’ within patterns.
Digital computer-generated imagery, printed onto microfilm, then optically treated.

Soundtrack: a guitar-tape composition by Whitney and Charles Villiers

Print source: private collection

Binary Bit Patterns ―was made on a PFR-3 programmable film recorder manufactured by

Information International, Inc., in Santa Monica, California. The PFR-3 is a specialized visual subsystem

driven by the Digital Equipment Corporation's small PDP-9 computer. It is a hybridized microfilm

plotting system built specifically for reading film into the computer or recording information on motionpicture film. There are 16,000 possible X/Y coordinate points on the three inch face of the PFR-3's

cathode-ray tube. [It was] produced with a program developed by one of the firm's employees…‖

(Youngblood, Expanded Cinema.)

Michael Whitney is one of three sons of John Whitney Sr., the legendary pioneer of computer assisted filmmaking. Along with his brother John Jr., he created a number of influential multi-screen

projection events, as well as some of the first digital computer animation ever made in the world.