CRT Burn-In Portraits

Due to limited access to time-based media artworks that have significant physical components, I supplemented my internship and fellowship training with replication exercises to become familiar with technologies such as CRTs. Inspired by Carolina Esparragoza's Memorias series of cathode ray tubes (CRTs) featuring burnt-in images of cartoons [and to distract monotony of quarantine] I created my own CRT burn-in portrait. Burn-in is an undesirable and permanent condition issue caused by a static image projected onto the phosphor screen of a CRT. A ghost image of a static projection will remain “burnt” into the phosphors of a CRT and is most noticeable when the television is off. Depending on the severity of the burn-in, it can be visible while the television is on. This is commonly seen in closed-circuit security feeds that display a single scene for months and years; it is also seen in the corners of CRTs that display the same news channel for months and years.

For time-based media conservators, burn-in may be unavoidable in CRT installations, but managed by reducing the brightness of the monitors. As this condition issue is permanent and its effects are cumulative, the only treatment is CRT replacement.

For Esparragoza’s Memorias, I used their concept of burn-in to great my own. I discovered these charming portraits at Museo Jumex during their exhibition Realidad Programada. Not knowing the artist’s process, I reverse engineered a burn-in process by converting a digital video still to an analog signal. I took a still from my favorite episode of the animated series, Scooby Doo and inverted the color so that the burnt-in image would appear similar to the source image. I configured a Raspberry Pi Zero micro controller as my video player and digital to analog converter. I purchased a 4” CRT viewfinder, which was used in high end studio video camera sets off eBay. I consulted the viewfinder’s manual to find the video pins to send the converted signal to the CRT and identified the pin supplying power with a multimeter. I used a variable power supply to gently provide power to the CRT, as it has not been used in several years.

Once I successfully identified the video and power pins, the converted signal appeared on the illuminated CRT and I left the CRT on for 4 weeks to properly burn the image in. The final product resulted in a burnt-in image of a skeleton.

Note: I left the viewfinder housing intact rather than exposing the cathode ray tube because the flyback transformer contains high voltage and is extremely dangerous to handle without knowing how to properly discharge it.