This video was realised in the Royal College of Art broadcast colour television studio, but was the first produced there to utilise my own image-processing synthesiser, Videokalos, developed over the previous three years. The degree of complex real-time control available over the colours and forms was therefore hugely enhanced beyond that possible with the already stretched studio controls, and this tape showcases the full range of visual techniques I developed during the middle and late Seventies.

Many viewers have suggested this piece as one of the most remarkable pieces of contemporary image making; particularly as it was recorded live in real time with no subsequent editing. ((The recording seen is the best “take” of several made towards the end of a three-day studio session.)

Merging-Emerging also extended the performance situation to include five participants and was my first tape to include representational imagery. All participants had visual and aural feedback of each other’s transforming contributions as they affected the piece in real time and thus in turn their own continuing contributions.

The work relates male and female energies to the larger cosmic energies of which they are a part, and so develops the energetic and cosmic themes of earlier pieces.

I feel that Merging-Emerging owes a particular homage to the English 19th century painter Turner who struggled to paint light itself with the physical medium of paint – I am sure he would have loved to paint directly with light as video now allows!