Stephen Beck was the perfect NCET resident-a capricious artist with the meticulous nature of an engineer. While at the Center, he produced a group of groundbreaking works and built the device needed to make them. By plumbing the chaos of random voltages, the Beck Direct Video Synthesizer (1971) could compose intricately plotted geometries, hues, and patterns that sinuously unfold in time. As a result, Beck's synthesized videoworks are graceful compositions, confidently abstract and rhythmically musical. An early work, Cosmic Portal (1971, excerpt from 31:15 mins) melds organic globules and angular forms in molten fields of saturated color. Like Mondrians in motion, Methods (1972, 13 mins) employs color blocks and surprising fragmentation in a work of elegant symmetries. Part of a five-part series, Illuminated Music #1 (1972, 7:18 mins) disperses undulating shapes in startling sequence, cadenced to the music of Yusef Lateef. One of the last works made at the NCET, Video Ecotopia (1975, 6:45 mins) charts the evolution of man ascending toward post-industrial enlightenment.-Steve Seid