© Gebhard Sengmüller

Very Slow Scan Television (VSSTV) is a new television format that is developed building upon Slow Scan Television (SSTV), an image transmission system used by Ham Radio amateurs. VSSTV uses broadcasts from this historic public domain television system and regular bubble wrap to construct an analogous system. Just as a Cathode Ray Tube mixes the three primary colors to create various hues, VSSTV utilizes a plotter-like machine to fill the individual bubbles with one of the three primary CRT colors, turning them into pixels on the VSSTV “screen”. Large television images with a frame rate of one per day are the result, images that take the idea of slow scan to the extreme.

VSSTV shows a parallel TV universe, dating back to an era of television monopolies and a historic predecessor to current streaming and netcasting technologies.

Since 1992 Gebhard Sengmüller has been developing projects and installations focusing on the history of electronic media; creating alternative ordering systems for media content, alternative transmission principles and constructing autogenerative networks.