prostheticknowledge:

Circuit Bending The SEGA Saturn 

Many of those interested in glitch aesthetics are familiar with the act of circuit bending - while running an electronic device (such as an old games console), apply contact to the circuitry to affect the data output (which could be audio or visual).

This has usually been experimented with old 8-bit / 16-bit gaming consoles such as the NES and the Sega Megadrive / Genesis, but up to this point it is hard to think of an example with the following generations of gaming hardware which were designed for 3D graphics. Due to the limitations of the earlier machines, the output was with 2D graphics and unsophisticated sound.

Big Pauper (Panzah Zandahz) of circuitbentvideo.com found an old SEGA Saturn, one of the first consoles to specialize in 3D gaming and sophisticated audio. With this, he started experimenting and documented the results:

Had no plans of getting in to the gaming mods.  I figured it was a pretty well charted and explored field.  It wasn’t until I found my beloved model one Sega Saturn in grannie’s attic that I thought, “my old friend, i wonder what secrets you keep.”  A little internet research (not the end all be all, I know) led me to realize that there isn’t much next generation gaming bends being explored out there.  If there is then people aren’t posting it.  Even the Playstation, seen in Goodwill stacks the world over, seems to have eluded the recent wave of electronic curiosity.

Upon opening the Saturn I found out why.  It’s a very complex machine with very tiny components.  One would need tweezers and a microscope to get anywhere with this thing (sound familiar? hehe).  That’s the problem with modern circuitry, it’s all so goddamn mini.  Mini, yes, but I would argue that it’s mythic there has been an increase in stability.  Electronics that generate graphics will freak the f**k out if you hit ‘em just right regardless of whether they are from 2011 or 1991.

There are some great audio and video examples - here is my favourite, a glitchy Virtua Fighters example with crazy Ganz Graf-like reactive and unpredicatble polygons:

Also, here is another which is like a crazy polygon collage:

There is more to examine - you can find out more about this little project at the circuitbentvideo website here.

(via gamefreaksnz)

(Source: pusheen)