Vector Synthesis is an audiovisual, computational art project using sound synthesis and vector graphics display techniques to investigate the direct relationship between sound and image. It draws on the historical work of artists such as Mary Ellen Bute, John Whitney, Nam June Paik, Ben Laposky, and Steina & Woody Vasulka among many others, as well as on ideas of media archaeology and the creative re-use of obsolete technologies. Audio waveforms control the vertical and horizontal movements as well as the brightness of a single beam of light, tracing shapes, points and curves within the tube of an analog vector monitor with a direct relationship between sound and image. It is an exploration of a once-current and now discarded technology linked with specific utopias and dystopias from another era.

Derek Holzer is an American instrument builder and sound artist based in Helsinki and Berlin, whose current interests include DIY analog electronics, the relationship between sound and space, media archaeology and the meeting points of electroacoustic, noise, improv and extreme music. He has performed live, taught workshops and created scores of unique instruments and installations since 2002 across Europe, North and South America, and New Zealand.