Head to head this week in the war on terror, EVIL vs clip-art heroine, animated gif surrealist & all-round San Franciscan adventuress, 1 x Katie Bush. Print media cannot do justice to the twin blows she strikes for freedom at the stroboscopic browser batterers: destroyevil.com & lovekatie.com.

What’s evil about Katie?
There is nothing evil about katie! Evil creatures (such as evil women) act out of an insidious lack of compassion (especially with their vagina or their genitals). They do this for fun and for evil sport, or out of a vaginal duty to some evil deity or heinous master. It is sick and it is terrifying and it must be destroyed! Katie doesn’t participate in this type of naughty! Katie is the way, the truth and the life. On top of that… To be evil, you must be headquartered in the torrid caverns of red hell. My anonymous hotmail email address PROVES that I am not headquartered in that area. If you had done a little research before contacting me, you would know that geographical experts have produced a textbook that indicates that the earth’s INTERIOR consists of evil, non-righteous hell-fire … I live on the EXTERIOR of the earth and therefore have nothing to do with this!

What’s evil about webpages?
A website is a collection of information-like documents or ‘pages’ that can be viewed by handsome men and/or pretty ladies using calculation boxes known as ‘computers’. These calculation boxes are able to perform tasks (such as ‘sorting’ or ‘correlating’) typically associated with female office secretaries, but at FRIGHTENINGLY INHUMAN SPEEDS. Many researchers have proven that where there is frighteningly inhuman speed: there is evil! to prove this terrifying point, I took the liberty of lowering a penis-like device, known as a ‘microphone’ into the grotesque internals of my calculation box. Needless to say, Ii was shocked! Nothing I can do, nothing I can say, will ever erase the horror of audio-evil-hell I heard. it sent chills screaming through my soul. If evil is not real, then i am the most deceived lady in all the land.

Evil in Australia?
From what I can ascertain, the only thing evil about Australia is the Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, his wife Terri Rains and their crocodile baby Bindi Sue.

Can you make an Australian reader piss their pants?
There is a bridge here in San Francisco. It is funny.

What per centage of Californians have RSI?
I don’t think I know what that is. But I am frightened. And I am pretty sure I have it. It itches all the time and when/IF I look at my vagina… I only see the RSI and I know that something is horribly, horribly wrong. (So I don’t look at it and I do not tell ANY of my sexual partners).

How’s California become a better place since Arnie got elected?
In every way a bronzed lady (such as myself) can imagine. Thank god Arnold Schwarzenegger was ‘elected’ to one of the most powerful positions in the world and innocent multi-national corporations like Enron can now go about their business in peace! Plus, it’z neat that he was in the movies! What would this patriarchal world have come to, if George Bush’s baseball buddies hadn’t been allowed to pillage.. I mean .. conduct unregulated laundering.. I mean business in the sunny state. As a consumer of things (go malls!), I was delighted that that silly-willy $9 BILLION lawsuit (brought on by the former/ousted Governor of California) against Enron and other oil-lovin’ businessmen was dropped the second Arnold was elected! On top of that.. it’z neat, ‘cause he’s in movies! Hopefully those incriminating Enron memos between Kenneth Lay and the Terminator (awesome movie!) will stay in the dark where they belong! (www.ConsumerWatchdog.org) If a little Austrian boy can eventually make his way across an ocean to star in ‘Twins’ (Danny DeVito was initially reluctant to talk that role! what was he thinking!)…. he is surely qualified to run the world’s fifth largest economy.

If Animated Gifs were a super-hero, what’d their secret weapon be?
Animated Gifs ARE super-heros. I am not supposed to talk about it, but the only way you can tell if an animated Gif is a boy super-hero or a girl super-hero is by suddenly turning it upside down and looking at its 2-dimensional genitalia(s). (**WARNING***! They are normally reluctuant to SHOW YOU.. so you have to take them to a disgusting bar and use small doses of computerized horse tranquilizer). If the .gif file contains an animated penis: its secret weapon is quite often a frighteningly large ejaculatory pixel wand. If the .gif file contains a tube-like opening that extends from the labia minora to the uterus and is elastic enough to allow passage of an animated fetus: it is a girl super-hero and her secret weapon is that she can receive a penis during coitus.

Your 5 year GOAL for Destroying Evil?
To consume All/consumers.

>When websites have epitaphs, what’ll yours be?
destroyevil.com

Evil Quizzer Of The Week:
Q. What’s the difference between liberating the people of Iraq, and say Sudan or Rwanda?
A. Neither Sudan where thousands are currently being killed every week and up to 1 million people have been drive from their homes, or Rwanda where 800,000 people were killed in 1994 – have enough oilpipes feeding Uncle Sam’s engine.

Jurassic 5, Tortoise, Thievery Corporation, X-ecutioners, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry or Danger Mouse aren’t down with that, and if you buy the “Genocide in Sudan” charity CD they feature on, you’ll be helping Sudanese people : http://waxploitation.com/html/sudan_news.html

“Mp3 is the new radio.”

– Chuck D, still an Enemy of the Public after all these years.

Funny to see the rifle cross-hairs lining up on a piece of software, lines of code, but the record companies made sure they were deadly accurate when it came to Napster, the original data gangster, that came to symbolise file-sharing online. Being centrally organised meant that a target was even possible, but what to do with this next generation of decentralised file-sharing apps – where there are no central servers for record executives to close down?

Next Gen P2P
There’s a veritable army of apps out there vying for attention – each with their pros & cons – best be reading up about them to what suits your needs best. There’s also a wide array of p2p news and advocacy sites. These are some of the best:

www.slyck.com – Nothing to do with pizza, but includes a great range of Slyck guides for a range of apps like KaZaA, eDonkey, SoulSeek, Morpheus & a stack of others, as well as how to share files in Newsgroups and irc chat channels.

www.netweed.com/filesharing, www.zeropaid.com and http://p2pnet.net/index.php both offer a very extensive range of file-sharing links, articles and related news snippets.

www.xfactor.cc – is one of the better mac p2p apps, and www.mac-p2p.com gives a good overview of mac p2p possibilities – including a very helpful “History of P2P” article.

Bit Torrent
This app is interesting, and worth looking at all by it’s purty lil self – unlike traditional file sharing systems, its primary intention is to provide an efficient way to distribute the same file to a large group of people by having everybody that downloads a file also upload it to others. Which means it is great for downloading really large files. This is a quick n easy guide to bit torrent downloading (available on most platforms ).

Part 1 – get bit torrent:
http://wiki.etree.org/index.php?page=BitTorrent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent
http://sarwat.net/bittorrent/
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html

Part 2
Download torrent files from places such as:
www.suprnova.org
www.Isohunt.com
www.Filesoup.com
www.Torrentreactor.com

Part 3
Leave your torrent file running a while after your download is complete – until the size of your download has also been uploaded elsewhere. This way the whole network benefits from sharing bandwidth / download speed from u a little.

Part 4
Make a torrent ‘seed file’ about one your files, and send that to the network, so the network can share your creative juices / booty. ( see www.torrentaid.com )

buon appetito~!

Miscellaneous P2P Tips

“It’s just like the internet – except it’s real…”

– the guy behind me @ Dizzee Rascal, Prince of Wales, Melbourne, Jul 22, 2004, in response to the ‘on-stage talent’ during Dizzee’s ‘shake it’ competition for ‘all tha fine Australian ladies in the house’.

Yes indeed, our online habits continually creep into our ‘real-world’ perceptions and experiences. All the more reason to avoid bad online habits, such as attracting the odd virus here and there. Regular P2P users would be well advised to read up on security and privacy matters, as many of the peer to peer apps are notorious for allowing various kinds of unauthorised access to your computer. Google is your friend, and while there, grab yourself a ‘download manager’ which will improve your web downloading and allow you to resume downloads even after that browser has crashed for the 7th time.

Aye, the Melbourne International Film Festival’d be on again, hapnin from Jul 21- Aug 8 2004 (see www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au ), wiff another plethora of fine feelums. Could-be-standouts include a new Lars Von Trier piece, Breaking News(Hong Kong), a doco on the Yes Men, A Page of Madness (Japan) featuring live score performed by In The Nursery (UK), Coffee & Cigarettes by Jim Jarmusch, The Adventures of Iron Pussy (Thailand),a Gibhli studio animation showcase (Japan) and Haack : The King Of Techno – a spirited doco about Bruce Haack, the prolific composer behind a huge span of wildy creative, emotive electronic music from electronic childrens songs to satanic music, as well as being an inventor of weird musical instruments ( full list-o-weirdness at www.brucehaack.com ). Philip Anagnos shot, directed, edited, animated & produced the doco, and was happy to yak from LA about his labour of love:

How’d you get so hooked up into the world of Bruce Haack?
I did a lot of partying in the rave scene, and got really turned onto electronic musichaack.jpg… at some point I was looking to take it to the next level and started investigating the culture’s history – which is where I found Bruce Haack’s work.. there was something totally unique and intriguing about it – children’s music made electronically… I found it resonated a lot with what I liked about rave music – pushing boundaries and being made in a really fun way. A DJ friend at a moog conference in Los Angeles played me a whole album – Electric Lucifer – and I was hooked.

That was a concept album about heaven and hell wasn’t it?
Yeah and it was his most successful album, the only album to really get radio airplay. That was actually part 1 of 3, part 2 was released in 2001 and we’re remastering part 3 now for release at an appropriate time. It’s such amazing music. I’ve been doing DJing sets of rare and unreleased work of Bruces after film screenings – would love to do that in Australia if possible.

An artist with such a prolific output, yet so little visual record must’ve presented some doco_challenges?
Yeah – I tried to round up all the footage I could find, and tried to really milk everything, I used just about every image I could find from all the friends in his network, and his two appearances on classic early American TV shows, but in the end I had to rely a lot on the interviews and animations I made from his songbook. The documentary only shows a limited story of Bruce – there are some extremely dark and melancholy aspects of Bruce that I couldn’t cover with the documentary – it was too dark – so I feel almost responsible to tell the full story – so I’m writing a screenplay to turn it into a feature.

What was so dark about him?
When you hear the music you can tell straight away this in an intriguing person, and must have an intriguing story behind them… Half-way into the research for it I began to uncover and realise his darkness wasn’t going to be appropriate for the doco … and so I started treating the doco as a first step towards getting a feature made about his life and music. He had an intense life from birth on… claimed he could hear folk music in his head, he took peyote at the age of 12 on an indian reservation, then eventually ended in New York and entering the entertainment world which he grew to despise… eventually turning to harder and harder drugs to cope. The screenplay has been mapped out, and now we’re just looking at people to attach to it. In an ideal world I’d love Philip Seymour Hoffmann to play Bruce, I think he’d be great… and Sofia Coppola’s people have shown some interest in the project, but we’ll see.

There’s an impressive list artists contributing covers or being interviewed in the film – Beck, Money Mark, Mouse on Mars, Anubian Lights, Tipsy, Dj Me Dj You. Were they tough to nail, or all keen to be involved?
As a first time director it was tough to get some of the bigger names, but they were mostly very willing once you got through to them in person. I was disappointed I didn’t get a chance to interview Beck, although I hope he might appear on the DVD.

And you did the animation yourself as well?
Yeah, 98% of the animations in the movie are from his songbook which he never published – only gave to friends… it’s a cut n paste collage thing he made with pictures for every song…. so I’ve taken lots of these and animated them to his music. It actually helped because I didn’t know where to start with his mammoth musical output, so I ended up using whatever music had pictures in his songbook.

MIFF 2006 Review
MIFF 2005 Review
MIFF 2003 Review

“Be still my dog of war. I understand your pain. We’ve all lost someone we love. But we do it my way! We do it my way. Fear is our ally. The gasoline will be ours.”

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior’ resonates eerily today, not so much because of characters like the hockey mask wearing leatherboy ‘Humungus’ who spoke these lines, but for it’s emphasis on battles for oil. Nevertheless, even a brute cartoonish villain like ‘Humungus’ would have little trouble adapting to contemporary graphics tablets. If ‘Humungus’ was a graphics boy, a tablet would speed up his processes considerably.

Hand Eye Co-Ordination
Quake and Counter-strike advocates are quick to point out to critics, the benefits of long hours before the screen. And perhaps our generation may indeed enjoy ‘improved hand-eye co-ordination’, but even hardened mouse and joystick users will still require a little getting used to a pen and graphics tablet. The Intuos 2 is mapped out in such a way that the tablet represents the entire screen. Move your pen over particular section of the tablet, and the cursor will appear over the equivalent section of the screen. Simple enough, and you get used to it quickly, but still a little strange at first. The model I tried was the Intuos2 6”x8”(inches), which means the area you can move your pen over is roughly ‘A5’, or half an ‘A4’ page.

Features
The tablet & pen work straight away in true plug n’ play form, but kick in better performance when you load the latest drivers from www.wacom.com, offering more refined control. The pen itself has a twin button on its side which can be modified to become often used key commands, or clicks / double clicks. The end of the pen is an eraser, and both it and the ‘ink’ end of the pen are highly adjustable. The pen features 1024 levels of tip and eraser pressure, tilt, angle and direction – meaning you can squeeze out a high degree of variable lines when drawing.

For the illustration challenged, the tablet also allows very easy tracing of images – it works by detecting the pen’s location when it is half an inch above the tablet, which means u can tape a piece of paper to the tablet and actually trace a picture outline and then see this image recreated on the screen. And built into the device is a durable transparent overlay so that you can easily slide photos and art under the overlay for tracing. Each Intuos2 tablet also features menu strip buttons above the active area of the tablet for easy access to your favorite shortcuts, just set each button to whatever you want and click on it for immediate access.

Included Software: PainterClassic, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, ComicStudio mini

What Else Can Tablets Do?
Graphics tablets are potentially useufl input devices in many ways. Because the tablet very effectively mimics the screenspace, they can make very effective Controller devices for audio and video – where you can have quick and accurate access to the X & Y co-ordinates of the screen and control parameters within an audio or video program. Unlike a mouse though – when you lift your pen and lower it elsewhere on the tablet, the cursor doesn’t drag along to the point, it jumps to it – allowing for different ways to approach FX.

Within video programs such as After Effects 6 and its Vector Paint function, tablets can be used to record your drawing as video – for creating moving handwritten names as titles, or creating graffiti shapes that unfold as you watch. For vector based art fans – there’s now a free download available of Expression, a great vector/bitmap program – which has supposedly “the best tablet support of any of the graphics apps.” www.microsoft.com/products/expression

System Requirements for Intuos 2 tablet (USB Version)

• PC - Windows XP, ME, 98 or 2000 (95 not supported); USB port, CD-ROM drive and color monitor
• Mac – OS 8.5, 8.6, 9.X, 10.x or later; USB port, CD-ROM drive and color monitor

Where?
The Intuos 2 Tablet & pen are distro-ed in Oz through : www.videobytes.com.au – rrp: $419

This week’s Technoscape Theme song:
Bastard pop remix of ‘Star Wars’ & ‘US forces’ by Peter Garrett. Australia & the US have just signed a pact to develop a controversial missile defence shield. Stay tuned for the next Fridge Magnet terror awareness pack.

TWT Theme Movie: Spiderman 2 in Lego..

You skate like a monkey, your ollies are wak. Think you’re underground – try skatin round Vice City sometimes, see how long u last?

Guerilla News Network
Something like an adbusters for the music video world, GNN produce a whole range of clips for socio-politcal provocation and maintain a fascinating collection of online clips and links. A tad on the conspiratorial tip at times, though there’s plenty to chew on here. Of late, even hip-hop has come under their radar – with 3 interesting clips. ‘When the Smoke Clears’ is a ‘scathing indictment of the current state of Hip Hop by one of the most political voices to hit the mic since Chuck D and KRS-1’, featuring some of Hip-Hop’s most memorable video clips dug from the crates of the 80s and 90s. ‘White Amerika’ is another GNN production, an animated clip aiming to “place the viewer in the body of Eminem as he moves through the media-drenched environment that is the subject for his critique of American society.” And even ‘Fitty Sent’ gets a workover – but sayeth the GNNers – “The only problem was that the track, HEAT, is basically a spray of threats levelled against 50 Cent’s enemies. As soon as we got a first look at the chorus of the track, we knew that it was going to be a trick to turn the message around and say something political.”

Instead of trying to downplay the violent posturing of 50’s cut, GNN used it to comment on the culture of violence that is the foundation of modern rap and video game genres and to profile the relatively unknown history of US government involvement in inciting black-on-black violence through its covert CoIntelPro operation – which was designed to “neutralize political dissidents”, such as the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King Jr. In more recent history, it has been alleged that CoIntelPro still operates, only now it has rap music and the celebrities who dominate it as targets.

Urbandictionary.com
Curious about the quality of milkshake Kelis serves up? Overhear people on public transport sayin sheeet like ‘fo shizzle ma nizzle?’ Pop this one in yer bookmarks then. Interesting thing about this site is that anybody can upload their own definitions of phrases, so you can see many different perspectives on what something might mean, but also invent / propogate / upload – your own in-joke / in-bred / weird-assed phrases and bent Australiana rhyming slang ( see http://ausslang.tripod.com ) etc ‘fo’ shizzle my nizzle’?
1. affirmative; For sure, ma nigga.
2. A modernized and extended version of the infamous Shakespearean Hamlet line, “To be … or not to be?” “Fo’ shizzle … o’ no’ fo’ shizzle? Dat be the quizzle, my south-central British nizzle.”
3. Homie#1 “Yo, dogg, let’s score some wizzle and smoke us a jizzle.”
Homie#2 “Fo’ shizzle my nizzle.”

Gold Teef Fangaz
http://www.goldteethusa.com/caps.php
Think I pimped this URL already some time ago, but I still can’t get over finding a magazine in a friend’s Tasmanian house that offered the chance to buy the ‘finest in quality of gold and platinum teeth caps’. “Our gold teeth are unique and custom made. Each gold tooth is made to fit your teeth individually to the shape of your teeth. They are not one size fits all product that looks fake. Our caps are guaranteed to fit your teeth like a glove.” Remember all the fun you had last time you had a glove in your mouth?

Samplerism
Ze cats at illegal-art.org have made available for free download, two fine albums of controversial audio. First up : Dj Danger Mouse’s ‘Grey Album, which combines the Beatles ‘White Album’ & Jay Z’s ‘Black Album’ to great effect. Click again and you getz 1x historical compilation featuring a who’s who of sonic violators from recent years. Check out the original Negativland track that got U2 on their legal ass, enjoy collage supremo Steinski, cult Djs Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Wobbly, People Like Us, John OSwald, The Evolution Control Committee, Del La Soul, The Tape Beatles, The Beastie Boys, Dummy Run & many more crazed sampling fiends, as well as a huge range of related reading materials, controversial videos, links to other samplin fiend archives.

Keepin It For Wheel(s)
What a difference one ‘S’ can make. For example, if your name looked just like that of a celebrity, with just one extra letter tailing it – inevitably you’d be gettin’ yrself used to a lot of mistaken identity. When that celebrity is the most famous skateboarder in the world, and you have a website – http://tony-hawks.com – then, it’s kinda predictable that you’ll end up getting the occasional request for grip-tape autographs, playstation trick tips and maximum respect duuuuude ( maaaan, that ollie spiral staircase sequence was sikkkk++ ) etc. Click on his skatemail button to browse the 15 pages of emails and replies Tony Hawks, a 40 year old British folk musician lives with from day to day.

This week’s mission, should you choose to accept it, is to transfer soma_da colours from behind your eyelids – to the splendid autumn canvas that is Melbourne ( free transport & accomodation below ). Ready to cream those caffeinated cobblestone alleys? Your time starts ….

Make Your Own Paint
When you first wake, leave your eyes closed, what do you see? Nobody else knows, and what a wonderful experience to externalise that imagery, to invite others behind your eyelids. Practice safe eyeballing as a priority though, taking heed from the abundance of eyeballers out there who’ve mapped their techniques for others to share.

Step 1: Avoid commercial paint, which is full of toxins such as cadmium, mercury, phenols, chlorine, sulphur, formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds.
Step 2: Google ‘make your own paint’, and choose a recipe from the dozens available. (eg www.ata.org.au/articles/64paint.htm )
Step 3: Collect the simple non-toxic ingredients such as builder’s lime, skim milk, plaster of paris & pigment.
Step 4: Combine and experiment – paint your fridge, stereo, bicycle, ceiling, your battered car and your neighbours.
Step 5: Hone your techniques – in your local streets, on train rides to suburbs you don’t often visit, in places people’d never suspect to wander across such shapes, such splashes of colour.

Photoshop Yr Funny Bone
Step 1: Visit the top 3 photoshoppery contest sites. Check out the constant challenges thrown out to image warping demons. Piss yourself at the galleries of submitted pieces:
www.somethingawful.com, www.fark.com and http://b3ta.com/challenge/dvdextras
Step 2: Crank out a couple of gems.
Step 3: Upload images to your favourite site.
Step 4: Upload images to www.peripheralvision.net.au for outdoor projection in Melb_alleyways during the Next Wave festival.
Step 5: Email us the URL ( not the image), so we can print ‘em here too.
Step 6: Consider image as stencil, print & cut-out. ( Homework: www.toysatellite.org/leigh/stencils )

Beam Your Own Ascii Video South
Step 1: Goto http://dynebolic.org and download the free 612mb Dyne:bolic Linux CD.
Step 2: Copy this free multimedia enhanced software operating system onto a CD.
Step 3: Restart your windows machine with this CD inserted ( choose start/boot from CD).
Step 4: Wear your best Linux grin – you are now using a free operating system ( it’s really that easy).
Step 5: Read up about the extensive free audio and video software included, such as the free video input to ascii converter. ( Think matrix – video as scrolling numbers and text icons).
Step 6: Run this very easy to use software and you are now streaming an ascii video stream to the web.
Step 7: Let some Melb_kids know about it.
Step 8: Drop a line to da wonderful rastafarian coder behind all this, Jaromil from http://rastasoft.org, & click .

Come On Down
Step 1: Visit the massive www.nextwave.org.au program from May 18-30 to check the best dates for your journey. eg Ladies Skipping League Tour of Booty: May ?? @ Fed Square.
Step 2: Scope some of the still dripping Melb-stencil & graf hotspots at cleansurface.org & www.stencilrevolution.com &
www.theemptyshow.org.
Step 3: Check the extensive next wave gallery/exhibit/theatre/etc launches for good spots to meet drunken Melbourne artists with spare rooms, or spare pillows.
Step 4: Consider the next wave night program for good venues to snooze at the back of.
Step 5: Get yr hitching thumbs ready, or snare a lift thru hitching sites @ google.
Step 6: Arrive, deposit sediment from behind eyelids, marvel at the colours.

A well favoured strategy for coping with the modern world is to remix it. For example, if sick of the viagra spam clogging your inbox, why not compose song lyrics with it and perform to rnb backing tracks while wearing a ‘strap-on dildo-AV controller’, like Brisbane artist Thea Baumann? Or check the remix strategies below –
Cold Cutz Collaborative Feature Length Film
www.nowthemovie.com
“The kind of motion picture I am interested in will be like creating the modern LP record. It will be mixed into ways of thinking rather than cut linearly,” sez Francis Ford Coppola. And if non-linear cutz do it for you, then your pants may already be wet at the prospect of a Cold Cut feature on the big screen, dialogue free along the lines of Baraka or the Qaatsi films, but utilising the latest in Ninja beat-splicing and AV tricknology, and helped by a supporting crew that includes BBC documentary editors. Ze website ( www.nowthemovie.com) explains how anybody can contribute files and samples to the mix, discuss themes and editing decisions on a message board and even share in the profits of the final film.

“This will be a film in which aesthetics of vjing are used quite strongly to make it different – but we’ll have to wait and see – it’s an experiment which’ll be driven by what footage people contribute, ” enthuses Matt, who apart from this, running the label and launching a recent DVD retrospective of ninja_clips (Zen-tv) – is still finding time for another album.
“The next Cold Cut album will be released in spring 2005, and will feature ‘Cooking with Cold-Cut’, which is an av cut-up about genetically engineered food – we’ll probably release it next time Monsanto fuck something up…”

DIY MIDI Controllers
http://www.audiomulch.com/midipic/

Aside from authoring the well-respected audiomulch software, Ross Bencina has been busy performing with VR gloves as part of his laptop performance trio, Simulus. Kind chap that he is, he has also published online the fruits of his research into building custom MIDI devices for controlling software. Sample Snip:

“By combining a PIC microcontroller or Basic Stamp II with a few passive components it is not difficult to construct your own knob box, trigger box, or other MIDI input device. A knowledge of electronics may be required for interfacing to some sensors. Both the Stamp and PIC provide an economical (under US$100) entry point into the world of alternative MIDI controllers.”

Bounty on Kofi Annan’s Head
CNN Breaking News… Osama Bin Laden has placed a BOUNTY on Kofi Annan’s head. Kofi, the former UN chief who recently admitted he and the international community could and should have done more to stop the 1994 Rwandan genocide where 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda were slaughtered in the biggest massacre since the holocaust in world war II, as you can clearly see, is not impressed.

Next Wave Festival in Melb
Check the massive www.nextwave.org.au program for highlights such as these:
Harvey Pekar speaks – yes the cack-yourself-tastic comic artist that American Splendour was modelled around, which should be a real treat in person eh? May 24th
Ladies Skipping League Tour of Booty & The Kingpins – May 29 @ Fed Square.
Launch of the www.undergrowth.org ?? ‘digizine’ with live av & thea_trickle performances – May 26@ Festival Club
Launch of www.neopoetry.org DVD – also May 26
Salam Pax speaks – about his hugely popular Blog from Baghdad – May 25
New Pollutants, Music VS Physics, Curse of Dialect, Dsico etc – May 29-30 @ Festival Club
Critical Culture series of forums, with great speakers, 5 sessions a day – may 24-30
A zillion other launches, exhibitions & pah_tayz…

With over 100 VJ programs now downloadable, exploration of live and real-time video is booming. As VJ software continues to mature, its feature lists are appealing to more than just vjs. Jean Poole profiles the cream of the crop.

Despite the relative youth of the fledgling VJ software industry, VJ coders are managing to provide many innovative solutions for real-time video, exploiting glitches and utilising clever lateral processes that are leaving some of the video rendering giants flat. With ongoing research and development matched by new hardware, new operating systems, new protocols, plug-ins and community feedback from artists – VJ software is in a state of constant evolution. Most VJ software now comes with live camera input, keying, mixing & layering abilities, easy MIDI & controller integration, audio responsiveness, BPM tempo sync, as well as a variety of live FX - all of which happens in real-time, no waiting, no rendering.

For motion designers, animators, film-makers and graphic designers, this real-time ability to test or sketch out ideas can be incredibly productive and more conducive to creativity than tweaking an editing timeline. Many VJ programs also have unique and desirable FX and processes, great for creating unusual raw material for later remixing within a traditional editor. The downside is that much of this software works with 320×240 resolution video clips – far short of broadcast standards. Increasingly though, VJ applications allow recording of real-time actions, for later rendering slowly at full-resolution. For the Vjs and installation artists wishing to control digital media in a live context however, the sacrifice of resolution is well worth the gain of real-time access to complex and powerful toolkits.

Arkaos

The pioneering commercial video sampler for a home computer was Arkaos, and having refined itself for many years, it boasts one of the most instrument like ‘feels’ of all vj software. Originally released to work with simple still images, Arkaos 3.02 can now handle many clips at once, has live camera input & BPM detection, features high quality photoshop style ‘transfer mode’ layering of video clips ( eg add, multiply ), has dozens of live-FX (eg movie to ascii) with FX parameters controllable by midi or mouse x/y values and includes various time-based playback variations.

“Arkaos is a versatile tool for mixing and editing alike. Being able to play visuals like music on a keyboard is amazing,” says Denny aka VJ CoresNFX, a Queenslander who now spends her time videomixing at events in the UK. This attraction to Arkaos for many VJs is because of it’s very intuitive and easy to use interface. Clips and FX are attached to an on-screen keyboard, and are then launched whenever these keys are pressed. With enough preparation and parameter tweaking, sophisticated yet simple to use preset keyboards can be developed for live use.
“The way I use arkaos when I’m VJing is to trigger my still images, clips and streamed live camera with transitions and effects. I then treat this as one real-time source for mixing against pre-edited dvd’s and vhs.”

Future plans for arkaos include a sequencing environment, more effects, further automation and playback controls. Arkaos have also announced a new Australian distributor – see http://www.elfa.com.au.

www.arkaos.net
Cost: $US 335
Platform: mac & PC

ISADORA
Honed from a decade of working with live video and dance performers, Isadoraepijlogic0.9.jpg is a ‘graphic programming environment’ for building your own applications to control digital media in real-time. Isadora’s learning curve is understandably steep, though less tortuous than the comparable ‘max/msp/jitter/nato’ & ‘Pure Data’ video building environments. Being able to connect different ‘building blocks’ together to customise applications, offers rich rewards for artists seeking to process video or create interactive installations. Example customisations include ‘Epij:logic’ by Austrian VJ Epij, and an installation based application by Thomas Heijman used to sequence video in response to lovers arguing across two screens.

“The core idea behind epij:logic is to make the VJing process more ‘feelable’. I don’t use any beat detections or audioanalysis, it’s all done by playing with oscillating generators and a midi controller as a quick and handy and quick interface while performing,” explains Epij. On the other hand, Heijman for his SXNDRX video project uses Isadora as a video sequencer – triggering specific movies at specific moments, jumping from one patch to the other when needed. He also makes music, and uses Isadora to midi sequence video in sync with his music.

“Certain sounds are programmed to trigger certain video fragments. I’m also developing standalone installations using Isadora in combination with sensors. Isadora features loads of modules to use, inclusing abstract calculation stuff, communication through a network, midi, external video input – but it’s not as abstract as Max/Jitter. It’s a very intuitive piece of software which doesn’t require a lot of programming knowledge from first time users, but is flexible enough to develop complex and diverse patches,” enthuses Thomas.

Isadora also features output recording to quicktime, importing of 3DMax objects, a very extensive manual and great online support. Coming soon: native YUV processing ( instead of rgb ) which brings significant speed increases, and Open Sound Control support which allows communication with a number of real-time media processing applications.

www.troikatronix.com
Cost: $US350
Platform: mac & PC (soon)

Motion Dive 4 ( mac & PC )


Not a culture to be left behind with tech fetishes, the gadget obsessed Japanese have an impressive array of sophisticated VJ tools available, although few with English manuals. Motion Dive is probably the most popular of these, winning over many users with its easy to use and futuristic interface, BPM tempo sync, stylised transitions, effects and mask layers. VJ Pixylight from Colorado in the States, likes Motion Dive so much he uses it on two separate computers with a video mixer between them.

“Motion Dive’s ability to record A/V clips at animation codec (nice and lossless / uncompressed) means big files, but they look great,” says VJ Pixylight, from the stateside mountains of Colorado, “MotionDive also has a great way of integrating audio and video, especially in MDTokyo, and I’d rank Motion Dive 3 as one of the best apps for graphic design, with it’s text/flash based editor (great for motion graphics). Over 30,000 copies of MD3 sold in Japan alone must merit it as something..”

www.digitalstage.net/en
http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vjprgpix/MD4/md4.htm
Cost: $US 349
Platform: mac & PC

Pilgrim

Gaming technology such as souped up graphics cards and game engines like the Unreal Tournament Pilgrim-edit_mode.jpgengine have much to offer real-time video coders. The makers of Pilgrim understand this well, taking great advantage of DirectX graphics card effects. And well sold on Pilgrim’s code and real-time 3D abilities is VJ Technolust from Oregon in the States.

“A lot of Pilgrim’s graphics processing has been moved onto the graphics card, freeing up CPU processing. The result is exceptionally smooth visuals even when layering together three or more high-resolution videos, and even when simultaneously rendering three or more 3D scenes,” explains VJ Technolust, “.. and thanks to off-loading 3D processing to the 3D DirectX video card, 3D scenes can be processed in real-time, which allows the VJ to interact with 3D scenes and models on the fly, or have them react to audio. Apparently the Pilgrim Pro version is so good with 3D objects and scenes that architectural firms are interested in using it to show their 3D models of their buildings/cars/whatever.”

www.pilgrim-visuals.com
Cost: 139 Euro // Pilgrim Pro 399 Euro
Platform: PC

VDMXX
The coders at vidvox.net ‘write software so you don’t have to’ – GRID
– their simple but fast and effective sample triggering software ( version 2 out now, Grid Pro out soon ), and VDMXX – a much more complex beast, meshing together time-based controls, oscillators, FX parameters and automated processes. Combining these features in VDMXX allow an impressive diversity of approaches for processing video signals, and it zips along too, considering the complexity of its tasks. Most processes can be mapped to keys or MIDI, but not individual clips unfortunately which sometimes limits it’s instrument-like usage.

“When performing I use a number of theme-based folders of short QuickTime movies. These are loaded into the VDMXX interface, combined and affected. I like to have an audio input to control effect parameters where possible, and I assign as many functions as possible to keystrokes so that I can control the program from the keyboard,” says Layla Vardo, a video artist from Melbourne, “.. I particularly like using audio to control effect parameters for VJing – it’s fun and integrates sound and vision in ways not possible with traditional hardware mixers. It’s colorizer and contrast functions also kick arse over any hardware mixer I’ve used including Panasonic mx50, Videonics MX1 and Edirol V4.”

“Unfortunately for the sake of smooth playback (even on a 1 GHZ G4 powerbook) I must use 320×240 clips. On a dual processor machine it may be possible to run full size movies and maintain smooth playback, which’d make VDMXX very useful as an alternative processing studio to Final Cut Pro – I’ve managed to achieve some great results combining and effecting images in VDMXX that I haven’t been able to replicate in Final Cut Pro.”

www.vidvox.net
Cost: $US250
Platform: mac

Visual Jockey

VisualJockey pitches itself as ‘real-time animation software for studio producers or VJs’, and like Isadora, offers the capacity to custom design your own effects and processes. This structural flexibility alongside advanced animation tools, audio-synchronisation, alpha-blending, live camera processing, and a wide platform of extensions and commercial plug-ins, have attracted a large community of PC users, many of whom share their custom FX with each other. Sample jockey fiend? Nick Ritar, one half of Melbourne video-performance duo Cicada.

“Visual Jockey is just about the only software I’ve used that allows me walk up with a visual idea and create it without having to compromise the initial concept. It’s like After Effects for live video. You can chain an unlimited number of effect together, it’s got a great range of mixing abilities, has complete midi control, live video input, video buffering and delays and it’s really fast,” says Nick, currently on an artist’s residency in Seoul,” With a nice machine you can put any basic effect on 1024×768 video without dropping frames, or build a whole chain of stuff for use at 640×480. And it’s ability to render out at all sorts of res is great for when your PC starts to chug.”

“VJo has two modes, editing mode and show mode. You really have to prepare a show before hand, it doesn’t have the flexibility in show mode for you to go searching for new bits of video or to build new patches. We mostly use VJo for larger shows that have a budget for us to put in the work beforehand like theatre and dance productions, the more immersive environments that we do, as well as larger touring acts.”

www.visualjockey.com
Cost: $US199
Platform: PC

Jean Poole is a Melbourne based writer & video producer, who regularly Vjs and & performs live AV with Future Eater & Spoole.

Artist URLS:
Epji, Vienna, Austrian VJ
http://visuals.epij.org/epijlogic

www.mediawar.com/sxndrx
Thomas Heijman

Vj Pixylight
www.spacedub.org
www.vjmud.com/Pixy/Showreels

VJ Technolust
http://vjtechnolust.home.comcast.net

Cicada
www.cicada.tv // screenshot: http://www.cicada.tv/images/temp/vjo.jpg

Other VJ Related URLS

VJ Portals Online
www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vjprgpix/nato/nato.htm
www.vjcentral.com

Other Notable VJ Apps
Union *new & serious vj contender, released since writing * – www.lividinstruments.com
Resolume – popular PC software – www.resolume.com
Flowmotion – www.robotfunk.com/flowmotion
Vjamm – one of the best real-time audio & video apps – www.ninjatune.net – Midivid – now completely rewritten to take full advantage of today’s graphics cards, leveraging their power to perform real-time effects at high resolutions with quality not possible in CPU-based software. – http://midivid.jasondorie.com/
Vtrack, artmatic, videodelic – unusual video generators & sequencers – www.uisoftware.com
Freeframe – free real-time plug-ins for Vj tools – www.freeframe.org
Unreal tournament engine – lots of potential here – http://udn.epicgames.com/Engine/WebHome

Beyond off-the-shelf software…
Max & Jitter – very powerful building tools for audio & video – www.cycling74.com/products/jitter.html
Nato – Built on top of Max – http://bootsquad.com/nato/
Soft VNS - To run on top of Max – http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/softVNS.html
Auvi – To run on top of Max – http://www.auv-i.de/
Vegas – excellent AV loop composer (non-real-time) by makers of ACID - www.sonicfoundry.com
Touch Designer – powerful real-time graphics – www.derivativeinc.com/Tools/touchdesigner.asp
Posted by jpoole at July 14, 2004.

**
Aside from updates to all the above software, what else to add in 2008?
Modul8 – Swiss precision real-time video mixer and compositor, mac only.
Processing – open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions.
VVVV – visual programming interface for real time video synthesis. It is designed to facilitate the handling of large media environments with physical interfaces, real-time motion graphics, audio and video that can interact with many users simultaneously.
Quartz Composer – node based visual programming language in os x ( tiger or leopard ).

Anything else, throw it in the comments, and it’ll get added in..