Bill Etra
Occupation / Title:Date of birth:03/27/1947
Date of death:08/26/2016
Birthplace:Manhattan, New York
Biography
The featured link of the month is dedicated to the recently deceased Bill Etra, a pioneer in the field of video art and a co-inventer of the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer system. Etra helped make the videotape an expressive artistic medium, creating a device that could mold images in real time.
Etra’s New York Times obituary hails him as the inventor who put video art on the map, the co-creator alongside his partner of the Rutt/Etra video synthesizer, an analogue device that permitted the sculpting of 3-D space in real time. Using knobs and dials that would warp the screen image, artists like Nam June Paik, Woody and Steina Vasulka used Mr. Etra’s ‘visual piano’ to compose their works.
Born in Manhattan and growing up in Lawrence, New York, Etra studied film at New York University, working as a cameraman before later inventing his synthesizer, later teaching experimental television as well as working as a consultant for companies like Warner-Atari and LucasFilms. He holds several patents in the field of 3-D television and video editing through text instead of code.