[ Above, Craftwife @ Horse Bazaar, Melbourne, Wed Jul 28, 2010. ]

How do you describe your show?
It’s an audio-visual performance and it looks like a techno pop music live. But I combine many elements in a show with many thoughts. So I’m very happy if audiences can see my performance in different, various way.

Kraftwerk liked machines playing notes, claiming it freed them up for composition… What have Craftwife been freed up to do?
Making music with computer is something special for me. I found many musicians are still following the traditional way, i.e imitating a physical phenomena with machine. I’m not interested in it, I’ve been trying to find the new way to play music with computer programming and technology. I really don’t like keep on doing a same thing, “Practice”. So that I’m happy I don’t need any sweaty practice to perform as Craftwife.

How does a circuit bent Pikachu fit into your show?
I have a project called “Craftwife + Kaseo + “. Kaseo (is the author of Pikarumin – bent Pikachu) plays powerful and loud noise music. The style of our music is very different, but we have common thoughts about the sound and music. And visually, you may find some Japanese “Kawaii” or “character” culture. Also I love the contrast of my “clean” programming, software and his messy, physical hardwares.

What has been your favourite / ( or would be your ideal?)  place to play a Craftwife gig?
Craftwife plays everywhere if audiences are waiting for us. I had played in different places such as a small cafe to a nice club or fashion museum  even at an academic conference. I cannot choose which was the best, we’re going to have a show in planetarium of my small town in this September and I’m really looking forward it. Hopefully, it must be fantastic if we can play with my favourite German band someday.

What do you enjoy about super collider?
It’s difficulty. Memo: sometimes people are used….. to be used by technologies. bababa .. too sleepy…..

[ Above, Craftwife + Super Collider + custom software + iphone + bonus Kristin... ]

[ Side-note: First discovered Craftwife via a blog post by David Lublin, one of the VDMX head-coders. Popped off an email to see if Takeko would like to do an interview. As well as agreeing to one, Takeko mentioned she was touring Australia soon. Which later turned out to include Melbourne. On my birthday. Thereby continuing the weird sensation that VDMX pulses somewhere near the centre of a cult universe, an electromagnetic conduit for a small but growing band of dispersed pixel gypsies.]

3DTV
Wheeeeee! For those with 3DTV sets, SBS and some broadcasters from other countries beamed out select games on a 3D channel. That’s all fine and well, but the mammoth production needs of 3D meant the World Cup was both a test and a serious step up in live 3D production. Broadcast Engineering summarises the technical achievements well ( for both on-ground filming and MPEG4 compression and beaming to each country), and notes that each game uses 8 cameras ( Sony HDC-1500 ), mounted on Quasar 3D rigs from Element Technica ( for mobility, and built in motors that allow for remote focus/iris/zoom control.), and are fitted with Canon HJ22ex7.6B lenses ( 7.6mm to 336mm with 2X Extender, f1.8 ). Pro-tip: After some quick googling, better keep aside $30K for the lense, $67K for the Quasar rig and $90K for the camera when budgeting for this kit.. )

3D Cameras Under $200
Available for pre-order through Amazon : the Aiptek 3D HD (720P) camcorder for $199. $199. USB, SD card, HDMI connect to HD-3DTV – and “additional software for the camcorder should allow you to upload the stereoscopic 3D videos you made directly to YouTube 3D. And you’ll also be able to watch the recorded content on your PC with the help of anaglyph red-cyan glasses coming with the device even if you don’t have a better solution like 3D Vision, 3D TV or anything else that is better.”

3D on YouTube
Apparently this has been available for a year, the fruits of Pete Bradshaw’s spare “20%” time at Google. Stereoscopic 3D clips can be uploaded to Youtube, which will mix in real-time in your browser, and which allows a 3D pull-down menu to choose 3D options ( eg red/cyan glasses / mirror split etc ) Tag your video with yt3d:enable=true to enable the pulldown menu of 3D-viewing options. Example clips?

360 Degree Cameras
Available since January, and a weirdly named competitor to the portable Flip cameras, SONY’s ‘Bloggie’ camera comes with a 360 degree view attachment, and software which translates this into an extremely wide panoramic video.

3D or Not 3D?
As Brazil prepares for hosting the World Cup in 2014, they may do well to heed Mark Pesce’s advice: “Keep doing that and you’ll go blind“, where he notes that humanoid depth perception requires 10 different cues, and that the slightly different imagery in each eye ( parallax vision ) is just one cue. Watching 3D means we eventually ‘turn off’ these other depth cues while watching, and with lots of 3D viewing, this can cause serious problems ( known as binocular dystopia ). Watch those banana kicks!

Buzzkill
Audio nerds the world over must love soccer, because there’s been a huge outpouring online of ways to filter out the drone. Create Digital Music have done a pretty great round-up of these, tackling everything from EQing with onscreen TV controls ( get rid of 233, 466, 932 and 1864 HZ if you can), free VST plug-ins for mac and pc, acoustic engineers explaining the science of why vuvzelas are annoying ( I actually enjoy the medieval carnival / sacrifice kinda vibe they add ), vuvuzela orchestra ( yes, really ), vuvuzela radio ( uhuh ), and how to re-route audio signals using JACK or Soundflower into another application that has better audio filtering and VST capacities.

Audio Re-Routing
Wormhole2 – allows routing of audio between machines on a network. Now you can make use of all the processing power in your studio. For example; set aside a machine for complex instruments or effects, route audio out to it, then back into your favorite DAW. Or route audio between your PCs and Macs to get the best of both worlds. Or share audio between laptops on stage.

Soundflower is a Mac OS X (10.2 and later) system extension that allows applications to pass audio to other applications. Soundflower is easy to use, it simply presents itself as an audio device, allowing any audio application to send and receive audio with no other support needed. Soundflower is free, open-source, and runs on Mac Intel and PPC computers. IS often used for podcasting to combine tow different audi streams, or to combine skip interview voices etc.

Jack (the Jack Audio Connection Kit ) is a low-latency audio server, written originally for the GNU/Linux operating system, and now with Mac OS X support. It can connect any number of different applications to a single hardware audio device; it also allows applications to send and receive audio to and from each other. Jack is different from other audio server efforts in that it has been designed from the ground up to be suitable for professional audio work. This means that it focuses on two key areas: synchronous execution of all clients, and low latency operation.

Video Re-Routing?
But let’s say you want to send a video signal from one program into another program – how to do that? No such re-routing software currently exists, but there is at least a work around through Vade’s excellent ( and free ) Screen Capture utility. This is a Quartz Composer patch ( and therefore mac only) which allows a portion of the screen to be selected, then sent into another compatible program. This can mean web browsing / web-flash games / computer games etc can all be displayed in one corner of a screen, and then accepted within VJ software such as VDMX and used as a live signal, and filtered, mixed or processed to your heart’s content. ( Be warned : Removing plastic horns visually is likely a bit trickier… )

But Wait, There’s More..
Vade has more in the pipeline, a video re-router that will work fast, and on the graphics card rather than CPU. Tests so far allow easy re-routing between Max MSP / Jitter / Quartz and VDMX. Bookmark his site for announcements to come. And in other news the Auvi Objects have been updated for Max 5, which will please live visualists who remember it.. )

“Auvi was designed with an attitude of sympathy towards beginners. Even now, Auvi can be a lot of fun for those who are less technically advanced — for example, those who don’t want to mess about with shaders and GL. I like to think of Max as a haven for artists whose needs aren’t met by standard software. Auvi was my attempt to increase the fun-factor for these newcomers.” Kurt Ralkse

Soccer Video Remixing
Because you need something to do with all those pipes, right? Recommendo : the 1981 Escape to Victory starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine + Pele in a German prisoner of war camp. Or maybe? Pele’s viagara campaign, where he offers these last smiling words to the camera:
“Talk to your doctor, I would..”
An amusingly careful phrasing, which allows Pele to retain all suggestion of athletic virility, but let anyone else know – Pele says it’s ‘ok’.

To DSLR or not to DSLR?
The benefits of digital image recording ( cost / workflow etc ) combined with the advanced light controls of a SLR camera – make DSLR cameras great for photographers, and now that they’re often capable of good quality video, DSLRs are lluring in a lot of film-makers too. It’s not all win though – videomakers expecting DSLRs to have the same ease of shooting will be disappointed. Weighing it up for those interested in video, David Torcivia has summarised the pros and cons over at Poetzerofilm.com:

Nay
Ergonomics – too light / small / awkward screen and controls
Moire and Aliasing – skipped lines in video, during process to shrink large image down to video size
Shutter Rolling – fast moving objects can be in different places in the same frame
Resolution – they don’t actually shoot as well as advertised
Compression – Canon records to lossy H264 format ( which needs processing before editing )
Audio – terrible on DSLR, need to record externally ( eg with Zoom H4n) + sync (pro-tip: Plural Eyes! )

Yay
Ergonomics – The small size can also mean shooting easily in cramped spaces, and more discreet filming.
Depth of Field – Hey look, it’s blurry in the background! Beautiful, but as the web fills with it, David helpfully notes:
“Don’t wear out the effectiveness of a shallow shot by making an entire “test” film filled with nothing but micro DoF. Shallow depth of field is just another tool in the cinematographer’s box to better tell a story. It is not a crutch or a gimmick to sell a shot or a product, an idea which cheapens the art.”
Low light – Zowie! For the price, DSLRs can shoot in hearts of darkness that video cameras cannot even see. Believe.
Price – Fantastic quality and value.
Photos – Oh yeah, do they do those too – 10 stops of dynamic range, full RAW files, 18 or 21 Megapixels – all great for timelapse .
Lenses – The variety of glass available for DSLRs vastly outweighs that possible for video cameras ( hello eBay, or hello rent-a-lense for important occasions )
Media – Tapeless workflows. Drag n drop, rather than slowly capturing footage.

Plunging In…
So in the end – disregarding all the science and numbers, you’ve found yourself swooning over luscious, colour-ripe non-grainy video shot by someone in such low light conditions that you’d packed away your video camera an hour ago. THAT’S OKAY, you’re with friends.

And if being the new owner of a DSLR finds you bewildered by the array of options available – Wikipedia’s photography page is incredibly useful for getting up to speed with photographic terms and principles, and pointing to a huge range of future learning. For starters you’ll be needing to understand :
Aperture – the lens opening, measured as the f-number ( eg f2.8 ), which controls the amount of light passing through the lense.
Shutter speed – time the imaging medium is exposed to light for each
ISO speed – The higher the ISO, the greater the sensitivity to light.

There’s plenty more, and plenty more starting points too..

Which Lenses To Get?
If you need, you can actually mount cinema lenses to a DSLR, using add-ons from hotrodcameras.com. For most people though, the existing range of photography lenses will be a vast enough jump in quality from handheld video. Things to note? Lenses with lower f-numbers are preferable ( and more expensive ). Aside from lenses specific to your camera, there are also a wide range of cheap adaptors that can be fitted to any DLSR, which will enable lenses from other manufacturers to be used ( functions like auto-focussing can be lost with some of these though ). And one more complication – the Canon 7D doesn’t have a full frame sensor, and it’s smaller proportion of a frame means you have to multiply the below numbers by 1.6. In other words, a 50mm lense on the Canon 7D is the equivalent of a 80mm lense (50 x 1.6), and the perspective it brings.

50mm - The classic lense. A lense this size renders perspective in a way similar to a scene is perceived by the human eye.
Wide Angle Lenses ( Below 35mm ) – allow you to fit more in frame from closer range ( think fish eye), but exaggerate distance between objects and can distort.
Telephoto Zoom Lenses (Above 70mm ) – allow magnification of distant objects / skateboarders / small furry animals etc ( though tends to compress distance between objects ).

Macro lenses – Want to shoot close-ups? These are the lense for you – or – seek out extension tubes or adjustable bellows ( both which are placed between another lense and the camera, changing the dynamics so that close-up is possible ), or get an auxiliary close-up lense to attach to the front of a lense, or get a reversing ring ( an adaptor that allows the lense to be attached to the camera backwards, which creates extreme close-up vision ). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography

( See also Tamron’s guide to lenses, and Cambridge in Colour about lense focal lengths, zooms vs primes etc )

A range of trick filters which can be added onto existing lenses for various effects ( find out what diameter your lense is ( eg 72mm), to find appropriately fitting add-ons ). And then there’s the tilt-shift lenses ( see also lensbaby ), and other trick lenses… ( on it goes.. ).

Time Lapse?
The image quality is significantly higher quality for photos in DSLRs, than it is for video. Correspondingly, animating a series of high quality photos in sequence for timelapse bumps the ‘video’ quality up even higher. Strangely the Canon 7D doesn’t have an automated sequencing function built in, and needs an external ‘intervalometer’ to do this. Canon sells one for around $200. Hong Kong vendors on Ebay sell adequate imitators for $30. There’s also an iPhone app for remote triggering / viewing of photos – but it requires the camera to be attached to a computer ( not great for out and about shots.. )

Stability… Later…
Someone walking around with a handheld video camera, will produce jerky footage, no matter the camera… but especially so with a small camera like a DSLR,, and then there’s the additional desire to avoid troubles like the Jelly Vision mentioned above. The image quality is good enough though, that a whole industry has spawned in providing ways to minimise trouble. And so…

Next DSLR Update : Stabilisation, active filming + Steadicam Systems ( from pro to DIY )

Massive Attack @ Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne
Enhancing Massive Attack’s recent sublime musical performances during their Australian Tour, was a very elegantly integrated lighting show designed by United Visual Artists. The kind of gorgeous, restrained and stylised light show you’d hope to see while visiting Blade Runner Town. The lighting set-up was deceptively simple – over the course of the evening, every one of the limited parameters available was gradually tweaked, revealing further variation where it seemed all avenues had been explored. Pulsing dots, became horizontal lines, and then combinations of dots and horizontal lines. From the palette of mostly white, red was sporadically and only very occasionally introduced, and very effectively. Occasional smoke bursts and white lights to reveal on stage depth behind the main plane of pulsing lights. And gradually, the dots are clustered closer, so we can approach something like ascii video playing through the spread out LED wall. Cycling through ascii characters, cleverly varying font sizes and cycling methods to effect the overall image. And again, occasionally using red as individual spotlights. While lighting rigs and lighting pre-visualisation and sequencing tools are getting increasingly sophisticated ( ie crazy ), this show worked because of the restraint shown, its thoughtful choreography and pacing over the evening, and because of its tight integration with the music ( they nearly became inseparable at some points ).

Chris Cunningham’s new Audiovisual Show
This is an exciting prospect. News that one of the most acclaimed music video directors of the last decade, is working on a 75 minute live audiovisual show certainly presses buttons.

“It’s a work in progress really. It’s three giant screens, lasers and a soundtrack that will be like a big mixtape. It’s the closest I can get to what I want to do: the visceral sound of a live show but with massive screens like a cinema,” he explained in the Guardian recently, arguing, “what I do is more experimental and the visuals usually come first. That’s why the live performance is exciting. It’s not film, it’s not a gig, it’s not an installation, but it has elements of all three.”

While it’s undoubtedly an impressive show ( what a great body of work to play with! ), unfortunately the comments on the Guardian article suggest that the performance seems far from live, a sidestage witness suggesting there wasn’t much meaningful being done by Cunningham on stage, others suggesting it seemed like a linear showreel. On the one hand thats fine, the show is a stepping stone, on the other – it’s a reminder that visual technologies tend to lag behind audio in terms of power ( it’s necessarily more computer intensive to manipulate 1 minute of video than audio ). And no doubt, given that the music world has decades more behind it with manipulating loops sequences and processes, it is likely also advanced more conceptually for dealing with time based media in performances. Looking at how someone like Autechre (touring Australia shortly, and themselves with a fine Cunningham video) approach time and samples, might illuminate other approaches to video than ‘jukebox compilation’.

[[ UPDATE ]] This review sounds a bit more promising. And an amusing anecdote from William Gibson about Chris potentially directing a version of Neuromancer:
“Chris is my own 100 per cent personal choice…My only choice. The only person I’ve met who I thought might have a hope in hell of doing it right. I went back to see him in London just after he’d finished the Bjork video, and I sat on a couch beside this dead sex little Bjork robot, except it was wearing Aphex Twin’s head. We talked.”

Weimar in The House
Max Neupert explores great and granular audiovisual compositions using the free software pure data, and now runs ‘Breaking The Timeline‘, a great course at the Bauhaus University of Weimar, which is dedicated to exploring ‘performative audiovisual artworks and experiments’.

“The third dimension of the moving image is time. Manipulation of the timeline means taking control over the creative potential of this dimension. Editing film or video transforms footage into a movie, thus film and video aren’t necessarily linear, but stay static in their determined timeline. Video made analog real-time effects popular but todays graphics processors in computers make it possible to fully explore the real-time potential of digital image and sound.”

Max also makes available patches which demonstrate audiovisual programming techniques in Pure Data and the Gem library.

And let’s not confuse Max with Max for Live – another exciting Audiovisual prospect – complicated max patches ( including jitter video parameters ), controllable from inside Ableton Live and it’s sophisticated sequencing possibilities.

Actually Making Stuff From Within Your Browser
How about that! Again, just a convenience in some ways, and not meant to replace your more powerful desktop tools, but sometimes there’s more than enough power right there in your browser.

aviary.com – First shout out must go to Aviary – where from within the browser you can use a variety of their software to do – Photo-editing, adjust vector logos, play with web templates, filters, color palettes, screen captures, edit audio files and more.

looplabs.com – An online music mixing application with an impressive list of features in the sidebar.
online jamming : ninjam.com + jam2jam.com

soundcloud.com – Increasingly popular hosting service, which notably allows comments on specific parts of audio timelines, has convenient dropboxes for easy file sharing, and has many more musician-friendly features. (See intro video for more )

skype.com – Screensharing options for comparing software production notes / techniques / debugging. Voice chat, audio recording.

xtranormal.com – your text + their audio + button to publish = auto generated and published animated movie

pixton.com/uk – Templates for generating online comics.

slideshare.net – Easy development and publishing of slideshows with accompanying audio.

Need Files to Play With?
The popularity of Creative Commons has meant a continued growth of sites legally offering media files for creative re-use :

ccmixter.org – Huge collection of mostly musical sounds, including song parts, and full tracks by the likes of Chuck D and the Beastie Boys, DJ Vadim etc etc.
freesound.org – Giant library of atmospheric, FX and musical sounds.

flickr.com/creativecommons – Flickr’s creative commons collection is ginormous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_image_resources – Also ginormous.

archive.org – Noble San Fran cats with an abundance, an overload of audio and video work available for re-use. Lots of high quality and unusual vintage material, as well as contemporary netlabels etc.

And What To Do With It All?
Maybe something like this? starwarsuncut.com – where Star Wars is being remade by fans, in 15 second chunks – there are still a few scenes left – sign up and make yours, to be part of the final edit!

Get some print on demand books happening via lulu.com – upload a PDF and no-one pays a cent until a book is ordered online, then it’s printed and delivered to them, money put into your account, and all why you lie in your hammock.

Upload your work to bandcamp.com – and have them offer a variety of free to expensive downloads and even VINYL options!

Make $19,000 in ten hours on Twitter. ( Yes, this may work easier if you are Amanda Palmer )

Beatmaker $19.99
- Mobile sampler interface with 16 pads (multi-touch up to 5 sounds at once ). Load or record your own samples or use the built-in banks from the likes of Richard Devine, or from genres such as hiphop, dub etc.
- On-board wave editor to select in/out points of samples.
- Fairly intuitive easy to use step sequencer to play arrangements of those samples.
- Delay, 3-band EQ + BitCrusher FX.
- Export audio and midi.

Touch DJ $23.99
The most expensive app on my afternoon list, this offers scratching, looping, positioning, equalization, effects and pitch controls for 2 simultaneously playing mp3 or m4a files. Claims to offer a ‘new’ DJ technology it calls ‘visual mixing’ – which basically shows the waveforms playing as every other piece of DJ software before it has done for the last 10 or so years. Has an onboard sampler ( limited to 3 samples ),

Spoke $2.49
Interesting radial design for creating drum loops. Sounds placed closer to the centre are more quiet, sounds placed further are louder. A clock hand spins around triggering each sound as it passes over it. Something about the lack of any grids seems to make this all the more fun for making loops work. Lacks tempo control, exporting capacity or ability to load samples. A fun toy anyway, and maybe interface ideas worth noticing by other developers?

JR Hexatone $12.99
More interface weirdness here : load six samples into a hexagonal grid, and start six oscillators by pressing play. These oscillators then ‘travel’ through the grid to an end point, changing position on the beat, and being affected by commands as they travel. Four modes of Play : GRID, CELLS, SND, or SET-UP, allow you to rekindle that feeling of playing Dungeons + Dragons with strange numbered a dice and a manual of elaborate rules. Bizarro, but can import + export, change tempo, so maybe of use to some.

Finger BassLine $3.99
I could say this reminds me of making acid-basslines with the old Roland TB-303 Bass Line Synthesizer – but I’ve only ever played around with Rebirth (RIP: rebirthmuseum.com ), software built in 1997 to emulate the old 303 (and the TR-808 and TR-909 rhythmic composers ). And so, now on my phone: monophonic synthesizer with built-in pattern based step sequencer. Sawtooths. Square waves. Filtering. Modulation. Tempo tap. Kids these days.

Nanoloop $8.99
Sequencer, sampler and synthesizer modelled on a version made for the nintendo game boy back in 1999.
“It does not simulate the Game Boy’s sound or other functions, but has been fully optimised for the iPhone’s capabilities.”

RjDj Free / $2.49 option
The original augmented reality music maker. Microphone + algorithims + auto-layered beats = fun times. Featured examples include work by Perth’s Chris McCormick ( Girl Science records ). Branching out these days into other apps :
“Experience LOVE by AIR in a new way, through four real-time soundscapes. Record yourself as you become part of the music, and send your own Love message to someone special.”

EveryDay Looper $4.99
“Record yourself, loop it, layer it, mix it, merge it. And do it again.” The equivalent of a loop pedal used by a guitarist or vocalist. Simple to use, lacking any sort of manipulation capacities ( eg changing pitch / speed or moving loops further forward or backwards in time ).

Tonepad (Free)
Draw dots on a big grid. Erase some of them. Draw more dots. Move your fingers around the screen. Congratulations, you’ve just made a soundtrack for a Japanese shampoo commercial.

Game Show Sound Board (Free) + Pocket Studio (Free)
Crowd laughter. Applause. Oohs. Ahhs. Bad answer honks. Etc

DrumPad (Free) + Mad Decent (Free)
They’re free. You like hitting stuff, right? A drum kit. And : Air horns, sirens, elephant groans, lazer guns, gunshots, delay. Optional looping, delay and warning siren if someone picks your phone up.

Overall verdict? Lots of little prices add up over time. Necks get sore from hunching over and peering into a little screen for a few hours. And yet, there’s lots of engaging fun to be had. Beatmaker struck the best balance for me, between being fun to use and seeming versatile enough to use for vaguely serious occasions. ( It’s sample bank functions should help get rid of a few sound-board apps too. Except maybe cat piano. That stays for now. )

Sculpture are one of my favourite discoveries of late. Notice the words ‘zoetrope record deck’ in their description? Those custom made picture discs ( just a sequence of images arranged around a vinyl disc and filmed from above ) definitely help define their aesthetic but there’s much more going on than that. Glimpse a few of their animations and live performances to grasp some more.

Everything
http://vimeo.com/6364896
A vibrant array of visual creators constantly pump out material on vimeo.com, so even casual exploration of the site usually brings some rewards. It’s especially nice though, to discover delights in clusters, masses of talented folk orbiting around one of vimeo’s groups or channels. Such as the awesome compilation ‘Everything’, curated by Danny Jelinek, each episode tending to feature 5-6 snappy segments, sharp editing and humour, and sophisticated but whimsically used visual effects.
 
Op Art in Visual Chinatown

davidope.com
http://dvdp.tumblr.com
On the optical art front, albeit with a more contemporary feel, ‘davidope’ creates hypnotic looping animations, which he offers up as a series of tumblr gifs ( hosted at what he calls his ‘visual chinatown’), or java apps / quicktime movs for those inclined. His recipe?

1. I create a simple animated 2d looped pattern in Flash or with Illustrator+Javascript.
2. Then I use them as a displacement/diffuse/alpha map for a static 3d object in 3dsmax.
3. Rendering it with Vray or Illustrate.
4. Finally converting it to GIF with Photoshop.

DJ Yoda 

www.djyoda.co.uk/
youtube.com/user/djyodauk

Belated shout outs to DJ Yoda, who toured Australia in late December. Admittedly I was skeptical after glimpsing a set portion online a long time ago ( too obviously cut and paste in that mid-late 90s way, with little sampling subtlety in the choices or choreography), but for the sonic and visual heads in the audience alike(@ Falls festival) yoda ‘ripped it’, constantly weaving through pop culture grabs with fluid, sophisticated ease. This included a range of recently new worthy items as well as an extended encore of contemporary Australian TV.    

Apart from busily honing his live gigs, DJ Yoda also recently contributed to the DJ Hero game ( Playstation, XBox, Wii ), offering up two mixes for playing : Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” vs. Gang Starr’s “Just to Get a Rep”, and Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” vs. Shlomo’s “Beats”. As an aside – has anyone ever used this? The game made a lot of splashes on release, but I haven’t heard from a single user of it since, or even seen anyone pointing to an interesting video of it (or it’s turntable controller ) in action. Meanwhile, ‘Scratch, The Ultimate DJ‘, being developed by Bedlam games and delayed because of legal troubles, is now back on track – with tracks by Mixmaster Mike, Kid Koala, Gorillaz, Salt N pepa etc. Stay tuned.

New kinds of cinema will inevitably continue to form and mutate. Video can now be chopped, shuffled and processed nearly as easily as audio, projectors continue to cheapen and shrink, and audiences practically expect moving images to appear in ever new screen and surface arrangements. Live cinema is just one of those possibilities, and within the video Toby explains part of why it appeals:

“Compared to Hollywood, it’s more like live jazz, a storytellers version.. telling different stories everytime – it’s not because there’s a definitive story, but because it’s more interesting that they have a sea of memories, every story they navigate through the sea making different associations, drawing different things in in different contexts. We can do the same with digital media as performers.”

Fellow Londoner, Mike from D-FUSE is less drawn to the narrative aspects, but still strongly attracted to what is possible with live cinema:

“It’s about the feel of it, as opposed to the other side of the tv, telling you a story… it’s about the texture, and the sound, like going back to a surrealist painting… ”

Toby welcomes feedback on the video, so have a watch and zap him a line. Myself, I think the Live Cinema aspect depends on a lot on context – where is the cinema and who are the audience? In that respect, his video would benefit from showing that better, rather than just clips detached from their screening context and audience. The live clips of the Light Surgeons used work best for that reason, but even then the wider context of the audience, or even audience reactions is still invisible.

And why does Live Cinema Suck?
It’s really, really, hard to produce a compelling feature film or create a compelling hour of music. Trying to do something in between both, and without a team of supporting cinematographers, actors, musicians, recording engineers, producers, and without any funds, means it’s a significant project for any solo laptopper to attempt, and yet it is often one or two people who are generally making ‘live cinema’. Playing with video in a more poetic way, and exploring with loops and rhythm, can reduce some of the burden, but it’s still a major challenge. Beyond merely producing a live cinema show though, what are the characteristics of a good live cinema show? And what are the cliches and easy pitfalls for producers? What makes a bad live cinema show? Why is there often a sense that they are fun for the creators but not the audiences? ( The same can be said about drunken bongo playing around a campfire ) Maybe this is a bit like the earliest scratch DJs a few decades ago trying to talk about what a good DJ mix is – from their limited perspective, the evolved styles, technologies and diversities of today’s DJing would’ve been unimaginable. But addressing some of these problems means identifying what works and also what doesn’t in a live context.

Elsewhere VJ Solu has articulated nicely some of the ways Live Cinema can distinguish itself :

“The traditional parameters of narrative cinema are expanded by a much broader conception of cinematographic space, the focus of which is no longer the photographic construction of reality as seen by the camera’s eye, or linear forms of narration. The term “Cinema” is now to be understood as embracing all forms of configuring moving images, beginning with the animation of painted or synthetic images…… Even though performance is a vital element in the live context, creating new narratives for visual culture should be equally important.”

Elsewhere she closes in on an important difference between cinema and live cinema, while showing how one can inform the other:

“Lost Highway (1997) directed by David Lynch.. is remembered for its long shot of a dark highway. I believe these kind of shots are the basic material for live cinema performances: the transitions, the movements, the pure visual beauty and intrigue, the atmosphere.”

Or as VJ Iko from Portugal put to me back in the day:

“Live video is as much about lighting and colour control as it is about creating interesting content. See the people watching the screen? See how the colour of their faces changes with what’s happening on screen? The light bouncing off their faces, that’s what you have to try and control.”

In the end, despite the ongoing quest for software and hardware holy grails, there’s already today immense capacity for provocative and beautiful live cinema to reward both audiences and performers alike. Technologies aside, zooming in on exactly what makes live cinema unique and interesting, will hopefully help evolve the form for everyone. Shout outs to Toby for putting his take on it out there.

Other People Thinking Lots About Live Cinema
Brazilian Live Cinema: And as well as ideas, they also build festivals and hardware live cinema interfaces. “Live Cinema is cinema that unfolds live. It´s an audiovisual perfomance where the director, creator, performer or artist presents his work in person, before the audience. Imagine an artist being able to change his film’s ending, simulate new sounds and images, new sequences, and above all, create different narratives based on the audience’s reactions to the work.”

VJ Falk : Long time Berliner Live cinema prototyper : http://prototypen.com/beamaz + http://prototypen.com/lc/blog

http://www.vjtheory.net : Well curated group discussions about the possibilities for ‘performers, performance, interactors, audiences and participators’.

http://avit.info/vjtalk : A range of mostly VJ talks ( surprise! ) but touching on some relevant live cinema areas.

Timothy Jaeger : Had a good book online a while ago called Live Cinema Unravelled. Missing in action.

VJ Solu : Especially of interest, her thesis which “reviews the influences and explores the characteristics and elements of live cinema, a recently coined term for realtime audiovisual performances. The thesis discusses the possible language of live cinema, and proposes “vocabulary and grammar”.”

Sloth Emissions
Like the twentieth century cyclist t-shirt slogans : ‘two wheels good, four wheels bad’, sloths have a message for the moment, and it is this :
“Less is more.” Or less is better, especially when it refers to expected global temperature rises this century. At the recent gathering of climate slash policy heads in Copenhagen, most preferred the idea of restricting that temperature rise to 2 degrees – which would still deliver a 50% chance of catastrophic climate events. Unsurprisingly, developing countries who would bear most of the brunt of this ( having coastal areas affected by rising sea levels, and densely populated areas that can’t afford further food and water difficulties etc ), wanted a limit of 1.5 degrees. Neither target was agreed upon ( in part due to Chinese Wrestling techniques), but there were still some hopeful signs : significant initiatives and funds were set-up for large scale rainforest protection, there was agreement on the science and the need for action, and there’s potentially a good foundation for the next climate meeting in Nov 2010 – which is being held in the sloth-friendly capital of Mexico City. Hammocks, siestas, cumbia : where better to sign an agreement for slowing the rate of emissions?

(Sloth shout-out to Melbourne’s Cumbia Cosmonauts who are on a roll. )

Sloth Software
Sure, military superpowers can build giant hi-tech infrastructure and send pilot-less drones spying over borders. But why bother with the work of competing with that, when there’s hashish in the hills to be had, it’s too hot to move, and as the Wall Street Journal reports:
“Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber –available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds.. ”

The even lazier militants in the desert of course, would likely bypass shopping for such software and just grab the relevant torrent file from Pirate Bay ( no, really. Hat tip to Coburg’s military surveillance connoiseur, Francis Bear ).

And maybe when the sun sets a little and it’s time for some moderate exercise, something like this iphone controlled helicopter might come in handy. ( See the copter’s camera view on your screen, tilt to steer. )

Sloth Visions
Both budding sloth cinephiles and ascending sloth auteurs have much to be happy about. For those who like to watch, the continued splintering of the mainstream provides much of merit. District 9 and the ongoing Wholphin DVD compilations were amongst my favourites in the summer haze, along with an abundance of bookmarked shorts bookmarked online :

vimeo.com/jeanpoole
youtube.com/jeanpoole
delicious.com/jeanpoole/video

For the sloth-maker, it’s an interesting time. After 100 years of cinema, the cinema system is needing to reinvent, and creative and distribution opportunities abound. Who knows what we’ll look back on in fifty years time, who knows which changes with visual storytelling and exploration will seem significant. In the meantime, ongoing visual software developments continue to excite (documented well at createdigitalmotion.com), as does crowdsourcing ( hello kickstarter.com ). Perhaps it’s those that creatively leverage these everyday network technologies to create in ways that haven’t been possible until now ( have you seen the sour webcam video yet? ), that will seem like signposts in years to come. At any rate, fun ahead. And shout out to the the animated webisoders over at http://slothvision.com ( & bonus sloth / major lazer remix).

VIDEO
REEL DIRECTOR – $9.99 and a video editing mobile (3GS) now lives in your pocket. Although understandably limited in scope, it does allow to assemble different clips from your library onto a timeline, edit those, and add a variety of transitions.
REEL MOMENTS – by the same company, is all about creating time lapse videos.
SLOMO – let’s you make videos 8 times slower or 2 times faster – with an option to change audio pitch or not.
AClapboard – $7.99
VINTAGE VIDEO MAKER $3 – Adds a retro effect. Not really sold on one-filter apps, but it’s probably a while away before there’s going to be an After Effects killer on a phone. Key frames on trams.

PHOTO / GRAPHICS / ANIMATION
pCAM Film + Digital Calculator $47.99 Calculates Depth of field, focal length matching, running time to length, underwater distances and other long lists of technical details useful for Directors of photography, film, visual effects etc.
phone photos swapped with others randomly?
SKETCHBOOK MOBILE – $5.99 from Autodesk. Multitouch 2500% zoom, paintbrushes 3 layers / import photos. Closest to a mini-photoshop in your pocket I’ve found yet.
PETIT DUMMY – Add any photo, add audio track, select mouth points, create moving animation.
FLICKMATION – Frame by frame animation with layers, onion skinning ( transparency which let’s you see the last frame while drawing the new one ) and a stamp system that can be made from existing photos.
STORYBOARD COMPOSER – $23.99 – An excellent storyboarding app (formerly Hitchcock ), which is possibly the most native feeling app I’ve used. It just seems to harness the touchscreen and gesture controls well, has easy integration of photos, has a great interface, and has a certain immediacy to playing with it, that really encourages exploration.
REAL CAM SP – $1.19 – onscreen menu items to help control iphone camera better… digital zoom, white balance for specific areas in frame etc. That said, there’s a LOT of one-function photography apps out there, with their one cheesy effect that can be added easily to your snap of the day.

INTERACTIVE
TOUCH OSC – $5.99 – Let’s you send and receive Open Sound Control messages over a wi-fi network using the UDP protocol. Which means controlling software on your onstage-laptop, from the dancefloor or in front of the speakers / screen etc. Faders, sliders, an X/Y pad, multi-touch. And a visual editor available from their website.
MRMR – Another OSC app, this one’s free and multi-user by design.
OSCEMOTE – $5.99 multitouch TUIO, accelermoter xyz
ispy Cameras $1.19 – view + control camera from public cams, take screenshots
TONETABLE $9.99 – produces a control tone – for controlling a digital vinyl system – eg serato scratch live / traktor scratch / m-audio’s torq etc. It also allows easy jumping between different pitches through a series of buttons. By the makers of Mix Emergency ( a video mixing app for use with Serato ). And included in this visual app list, because the digital vinyl system can control video as well.
VLC REMOTE $3.99 – Because you wanted a way to browse your hard drive of Al Jazeera recordings from the comfort of your bed.

Shout out to CANABALT, a kind of one-finger Bruce Willis platformer, which has captivated this week. ( My record? 5204m )

When Cinemek’s Jonathan Houser dream of ‘making innovative film tools’ met the iPhone in his pocket, a new mobile storyboarding application was born: Hitchcock. Utilising the iPhone’s touchscreen and built-in camera, Hitchcock adds a layer of fun to location scouting, planning for films and storyboarding sequences. The app has two modes – a panel view that focusses on each shot ( gathered from the photo library ) and allows easy overlays of character stand-ins, camera and character movement and text overlays. The sequential mode allows a finger to slide the panels into a sequence, and control the timing between each shot. There’s something great about the immediacy of being on location, arranging a sequence, and watching it playback to see how well it works as an idea. Hitchcock is a simple app, but executed wonderfully, with a gorgeous interface that encourages play and re-use. When done, press a button and email your completed PDF storyboard. Future developments include : drawing functionality, adding audio, ability to add custom stand-in characters, export to .mov, etc. Cinemek’s Jonathan Houser was happy to answer a few questions about it below.

More : cinemek.com/hitchcock
Tutorials : vimeo.com/channels/hitchcock

How do you feel about Hitchcock today?
I’m pretty pleased with how Hitchcock turned out as it is version 1.0. It really accomplishes what I set out to do which was create a lightweight mobile app that allows creative people to jot their ideas down in a visual medium. 

What has the iphone platform been like to develop for?
As a non-coder I was really supprised at how easy it was to design the app under Apples specifications. They provide developers with tons of tools and free API’s. The hardest part for me was to find a person who had the calibre of coding necessary when you reach beyond those free API’s. Jason Thane at General UI did a great job with this. 

What changes would you like in future iphones / the future iphone development environment?
There are many small things that I would like to see. The biggest for me is Apple’s payment process. They are really ambiguous about how they pay you. You may receive reports for a given months sales and the actual fund paid are 20-30% less than what those reports reflect. The worse part is actually contacting them about such problems. It’s pretty messy but I’m sure it’s getting better. 

What’s missing for you to develop Hitchcock on Android?
Right now, proven demand. We have been talking to other developers and the success rate for Android porting is very very low. We have not by any means ruled it out, we are taking it one step at a time. There are many updates to the iphone version of Hitchcock we hope to do before we port to other platforms. 

Hitchock feels like the beginning of an interesting animation sketching app – have you had any thoughts about creating an app that tilted more towards animation?
Yes, we are definitely exploring different specialized uses for Hitchcock. I think the animation community is large enough to warrant a application designed directly for that community.

Other iphone apps that impress?
There are so many – for filmmaking, the guys at Chemical Wedding just released an app called Artemis. It’s a professional director’s finder for the iphone. It contains just about any lens you can think about shooting on. REALLY cool. As for non filmmaking apps, Convert bot has a really cool interface. Its just a conversion app, but the UI team did a great job with the design. Shazam is still such a cool app. There are a bunch of Augmented reality apps coming out which will prove to be pretty useful. 

What aspects of the iphone are least utilised by apps?
I think the biggest aspect of the iphone that is least utilized is multi-touch. It seems like most developers design their apps as ported desktop versions of their app. The buttons are too small and do too little. I think there will be more apps in the future which utilize the whole iphone. 

Do you have a gallery of favourite storyboards submitted by users anywhere?
Not yet. But we are planning on creating a community for that. Keep checking in. 

Popular feature requests?
.mov export is the biggest request. This will be available really shortly. Possibly the beginning of December. Local PDF creation and emailing. Available in the next update as well. Sharing Hitchcock files. This will be available in the Pro version. Many people want to be able to import more PNG’s for stand-ins. We are working on a slick way to exchange PNG’s on a server. This will be a great tool for people who work on specialized projects. Ie car’s, Zombies, Dogs, people with guns etc. 

Other iphone app areas you’d like to explore in the future?
I have a few projects which involved the ipod touch as the software/hardware interface. They are in their infancy still so I cannot go into detail, but they are oriented towards the filmmaking community. 

Hitchcock Demo from cinemek / Hitchcock on Vimeo.

Vat Ist?
The AudioMulch elevator pitch : “Software for real-time sound synthesis, music composition and performance-oriented audio processing.”
Translation: Easy to grasp ( even for a pixel-head ) modular software that focusses on the flow of an audio signal through a range of ‘contraptions’ which are ‘patched’ together in a window with patch cords from the input and output of various contraptions.

Contraptionism?
AudioMulch’s signal processing modules (’Contraptions’) include:
Signal Generators ( eg drum machine, bassline synth, loop player, arpeggiator etc )
Effects ( eg Reverb, flanger, delay line granulator, ring modulation, pulsar comb filter, 16 channel live sampling looper etc )
Filters ( eg Parametric EQ, resonant comb filter bank, granular filtering, resonant lowpass with pattern triggering etc )
Mixers ( Mono and stereo mixers and gain elements, crossfader, matrix with variable fade times. )
Your  VST  plugins ( AudioMulch supports VST audio effects plugins )

Humming Like A Bird
Key to the ‘feel’ of Audiomulch is the ease at setting up a chain of contraptions for processing your audio. The interface is deliberately kept simply to three areas : A ‘Patch window’ where contraptions can be chained together, a ‘Properties’ window where the details for each contrpation can be viewed or manipulated, and an ‘Automation window’, which allows you to define the way selected parameters change over time. Automation can be applied to the values of knobs, sliders (both single-value sliders and Range Sliders), check boxes and Contraption Presets.

eg start off with a ’sound out’ contraption, connect a mixer to it, connect a loop player to one channel of the mixer, a bass synth to another, some effects to another and off you go.

Importantly, everything happens in real-time and all of your experiments with signal flow can be heard immediately without any drop in responsiveness. If in doubt of this, understand that this has been the choice of live performance software for every gig in the last 9 years, for that sweaty man who covers his laptop in gladwrap at gigs to avoid sweat pouring onto it ( aye, that’d be Girl Talk ).

Other Features
- MIDI – every knob and slider on the user interface can be controlled with a MIDI controller.
- multichannel input and output, with support for up to 256 channels ( great for live mixing, multichannel speaker arrays )
- Clickable built in help on every contraption ( great for beginners and advanced users alike )
- Metasurface – unique to the mulch, ‘the Metasurface lets you blend smoothly between dozens of parameter settings on a two dimensional plane’, Instead of having to turn one knob at a time with the mouse.’ This can also be automated and looped.

Audiomulch Resources
audiomulch.com
vimeo.com/audiomulch
twitter.com/audiomulch
facebook.com/group.php?gid=5443009226

Requirements :
PC : Windows XP or Vista
Mac : OS x 10.4 or later, Intel processors only.
Cash : $US189 ( with generous unlimited 60 day evaluation option )

Verdict
This’ll be the sweet spot for many producers and manglers of sound, easy to explore and yet offering incredibly lateral and complex audio manipulation and performance possibilities. Double thumbs up.

UPDATE : When asked about whether OSC support would be included at some point, Ross from Audiomulch wrote back :
“In terms of the roadmap OSC support fits into the “possible enhancements” which may (or may not) happen later in 2010 – basically it will depend on what users want the most when I get to that phase. I’m not convinced that OSC is useful without a mapping layer to translate OSC messages (ie a scripting language or some such) so I’m still trying to work out how that would fit in to AudioMulch.”

YouTube is now serving 1 billion video views a day, so it’s hard not to be impressed with YouTube. They got it right, and they continue to drive video usability, which has helped make online video become so popular.

One of the main goals of making the video sampling tool was to give people a way to deconstruct/reconstruct the media. When you deconstruct television, it helps you see how messages are created and used to manipulate peoples emotions. So I had always seen VuJak as a counter-ops measure to help the public fight back against manipulative media and propaganda. This has certainly taken hold in the laptop era and in the modern art world. These days it’s called an intervention, but it’s basically a force multiplier for the public against perception management.

Emergency Broadcast Network left quite a footprint in the live audiovisual arena. What extent of your original video sampling vision did you manage to execute?
Video sampling and cut-up is mainstream now. Yesterday I saw a segment on CNN called Mashup where they cover remix videos on YouTube. Remix culture has become its own art genre and has been pushed beyond anything I had imagined in the early 90’s.  There are some very talented artists putting their work on YouTube – such as Kutiman – which blow me away. Auto-tune the News is great, too.

The same is true for the generative school of video art, too. It has become mature as a genre and and the tools are robust. So now we have the tools to do anything, but what should  we do? So now I think it’s all about content.

For me, the big “oh yeah” moment was in 1991 when I managed to get a quicktime movie tied into Max. The first time I pressed a midi keyboard note and saw a movie play, I knew it could be done.

What are your thoughts on today’s live audiovisual acts, or the evolution of AV performance? What has improved? What has stagnated?
My favorite recent live acts are Addictive TV, ColdCut, Hexstatic, eXceeda.  DJ Yoda is amazing, I wish I could’ve seen him with Shlomo. The production quality of shows has improved vastly, and there is essentially no barrier to entry as well, which means there are lots of people doing it, which I believe is a good thing. Audience interactivity in live shows hasn’t yet taken off on in a big way, but I could see that happening now, since everyone has a cell phone. My only criticism these days is that I think it’s boring to watch two guys fingering their laptops on stage.  I’m guilty of this myself. But I’d like to see more fun presentation styles for live shows. There’s a lot of room for fun input devices using things like Arduino boards and such as well, too.

What do you see as the various interesting trends amongst live video at the moment?
I’m fascinated with the new micro-projectors that are coming out, and expect to see interesting innovations there. Also of personal interest is optical mixing with multiple projectors, as well as L.E.D. architecture. I want to play Pong on the side of a mountain.

What did you learn about humans and technology from your online casino days?
Humans are unpredictable as individuals, but predictable in groups. People don’t mind losing money if they are having fun. 1 attention unit equals 7 seconds. People prefer playing with a machine to playing with people. 1 button is enough.

What about commercial holography, where has that gone since the early nineties?
The latest generation of large scale full-color holography is truly impressive.  Zebra Imaging produces the best in the world. Full color, full parallax. Optical computing is progressing rapidly, too, which will bring about the next major advance in computing.

And to continue this techno trajectory of art forms you’ve been involved with, what were you doing with robotic software?
In 1994 I started to believe that the screen image is useless – meaning that people have become numb to video images and that there is simply no way of communicating with people in a meaningful way via screen images. This is a deep and long conversation, and in many ways I still believe it is true. So I stopped working with video and became interested in building physical experiences for audiences – moving objects in the real world that people can have a relationship with.

At that time, I met artist Chico MacMurtrie who was building robotic sculptures, and we started to work together. George Homesy had build a midi-to-voltage control box for the machines, but the software piece wasn’t robust yet. I wrote a variety of max patches which control the machines and sequence them into shows. Some of the machines required feedback to operate and so we needed an intelligent system to drive those, while at the same time allowing for improvisation within the framework of a master sequenced show. We toured extensively in the 90’s with a large show, and over time this became a rather complex system, all built with Max.

I continue to work with Chico to this day, although the latest piece, the Birds, is an autonomous installation piece.  There is more information on my website and on http://amorphicrobotworks.org.

What kinds of ideas are you hoping to provoke with your sculpture series?
I’m interested in taking the virtual experience into the real world.  Creating physical manifestations of our shared virtual experiences.

I see these as documentary objects which capture a common cultural snapshot of the present and preserve it for the future. As our present shared virtual culture decays though continuous obsolescence, very little remains beyond its’ designed 18 month life cycle / memory cycle.  So by physicalizing these experiences, we can archive them for the future.

As people switch off their televisions, projects like wikipedia spawn from their free time. Or like Urban Dictionary, which I noticed you’ve been contributing to. What draws you to that, and what are some projects that point to more interesting group dynamics and collaboration?
I’m drawn to Urban Dictionary because it is funny as hell.  I went through a period when I was putting in words, but that seems to have passed, like most transient newisms these days.  One of my entries was Urban Word of the Day, so I guess that means something.
Flash mobs are another great new form of collaboration, as well as local currencies.

Three things you’d tell a class of young interactive designers today?
Fast. Fun. Easy.
Design for humans.
Pay attention to the way humans behave. Watch what people do.
If an application is pretty, people are impressed for a few moments.  If an application is useful, people will use it repeatedly.

Thanks Brian!
Plenty more to visit over @ slashboing ( eg speed baraka / double game / meat water / HDADD™ – Attention Deficit Cinema / etc etc )

The Vinyl Arcade by Lucas Abela* (aka. Justice Yeldham aka DJ Smallcock )
Upstairs : Sit in a dodgem car and watch the results of your steering, on a projector screen ahead of you.
Downstairs : A remote control car with record needles underneath it, zooms around a floor made from vinyl records all over the ground.
The mind’s ear might like to imagine this process resulting in distinct grabs of music being pumped out of the speakers – a little Stevie Wonder here, a little classical violin there, but the actuality was more akin to a stuttering noise orchestra. Didn’t seem to matter though, delightfully executed : simple, ingenious, stupendous.

* Experimental turntablism eh? Try : “stabbing vinyl with Kruger style stylus gloves, bound on amplified trampolines, performing deaf defying duet duels with amplified samurai swords, hospitalised by high powered turntables, record chance John Peel sessions with the Flaming Lips, and most recently touring the world armed with nothing but a sheet of glass.” Guess we can add remote controlled cars on vinyl racetracks to that list. Toecutter in assistance below.


The Church of Pimmon
A former church is the head quarters of the Renew Newcastle project, whose 30+ empty shops now inhabited by artists and galleries certainly added to the festival’s saturation of the city, and it was in this highly appropriate venue, that Pimmon delivered a beautifully surging and serene performance ‘like a slow-motion whitewater torrent.. in space’. Even included some laptop microphone vocal work towards the end, albeit just one subdued layer rippling amongst the haze. Gorgeous. ( Listen to his weekly ABC radio show: Quiet Space, Pimmon on twitter, and audioboo – an iphone audioblogging tool )

Let’s Paint TV
John Kilduff’s blurb:
“Host of, and genius behind, the art damaged Los Angeles public access program “Let’s Paint TV”. He teaches you, the viewer, how to paint, blend drinks, and keep yourself healthy all whilst jogging on a treadmill. Kilduff believes in breaking down the barriers between art and pretty much everything else, in the ultimate aim of embracing failure.” Add 25 people in fluorescent clothes, buckets of paint and foodstuffs, a loud sound system, and put them all in a small glass room, and mix heavily. This happened twice daily.

Wade Marynowsky’s Dancing Robots
Great to see one of these ‘in person’. As well as witnessing it in action, Wade gave a great talk, aided by his electrical engineer Aras Vaichas, about the process of building 8 robots that could detect audience members, dance around them, and occasionally fire lasers directly into their souls. Or just y’know, spook people with seemingly intelligent commentary / engagement. ( More : http://marynowsky.net/ )

Screenings
The Japan Media Arts Festival 2008 animation program was awesome – virtuoso technical animations, but also relentlessly imaginative and diversely themed. ( )

Electro-Projections curated by Michael Prior and Matthew O Shannessy, featured a great selection of unusual and engaging work ( eg the humourous abstractions of Justin Kelly ). Getting a particularly strong crowd response was Skate bang by Damon Packard, an absurdist piece that reveals the power of the edit – cutting between close-ups of snipers shooting rifles, and skaters falling over on handrails, never seemed to wear out it’s welcome, even if the clip is nearly all punchline. Apparently he got an inheritance sometime ago, and decided to spend it all making and remaking films, sending a few thousand DVD’s of them out to random celebrities as well. Aaaaaaaaanyways…

Gig Highlights
DJ Ripley! Fave act of the festival! ( aka Larisa Mann aka PhD Candidate on the social implications of copyright aka just listen to her mixes! ) She seemed to enjoy the festival too… and plays Melbourne this Friday 9th @ Roxanne Parlour.

Bum Creek – Performance art? Music? Elaborate prank? Crowd ate them up naturally.
Qua – Featuring Laurence Pike on drums, James Super Melody and Cornel on electronic wizardry, reliably engaging, definitely won new fans over.

Not Enough Hours in the Day
Ok, so I missed the zombie rights march, the carpark ghetto aerobics ( well, it was on Sunday morning, the Sabbath! ), the zine fair ( usually such a great selection of DIY comics, books, CDs etc at this ), The DeConverters ‘Witness in the Wall’ project ( combining surveillance cameras and theatre ), a session about how video in theatre was bad ( ie lots of room for reinventing it ), and scheduled at the very same time as I gave a presentation about ‘opportunities for real-time video’, there was actually a Brazilian live cinema practitioner giving a talk somewhere else ( Bruno Viana made 2 feature films, and uses this weird circular interface beside the screen to let the audience see how his live editing process is reacting to them. Hope to interview him later on. )

Speaking of ‘blurred and frozen time’, I also missed Katherine Bennett’s exhibition, but over a chat with her ( Assistant Professors of Physical Computing, Rep-re-sent! ) on the way to the light-house, managed to catch Mika Meskanen’s Temporary Sauna, a square roomed tent nestled amongst the sand dunes, with chimney, makeshift oven and sauna rocks.

Below, Indonesian trees testing the screen before my audiovisual performance with Dan MacKinlay ( am going to write some more about that later, particularly the Indonesian part of the set, which was based around a performance we did at the OK Video festival in Jakarta in late July 09 ). To the side, Brisvegan Tom Hall setting up for his audiovisual performance later ( which was nicely engaging for such an abstract piece ). Swiss sound artist Gilles Aubry also performed that night, a quite loud meditation on ‘planes’.

Six legged video projection anyone? You’re going to need a miniature projector and cables, you’re going to need a Mexican video artist by the name of Fernando Llanos, and most of all, you’re going to need, a chihuahua. Fresh from their recent Mapping festival performance, Fernando explains some more.

You are sitting at an airport with a chihuahua, laptop and video projector. A Californian with long blond hair wants to know what the ‘Videohuahua’ sticker on your laptop means. What do you tell him?
It’s a project I made as an artist, it started with me becoming a superhero, VIDEOMAN, and projecting video on the streets, like videograffiti, and now my Chihuahua projects some video too. I’m like Batman, a weird man with no super powers but some technology and lots of guts, and Chamaco is like Robin. 

Still curious, he wants to know :  ”What kinds of places you project with these ingredients?”
Different places, I have been projecting in 5 cities in 4 years. I call them “urban accupunture”, they cause certains reactions, that in certain ways help heal the city or the people that saw them. For example, the first video projection I ever made was called: POETIC TERRORISM, and was the projection of airplanes having accidents on the Airport of Porto Alegre in Brasil.

Impressed that you brought your chihuahua to Switzerland, the Californian is inevitably wanting to know how difficult it is to bring a four legged creature around the world, during times of such cross-border disease phobias. 
It’s easier than you thought! You just pay, have the papers ready, and that’s it. Nobody told me anything in Switzerland when I arrived. When I arrived to Zurich I made a passport to Chamaco, now he is European.

“And what kinds of things do you project? Do you use sound as well? How does the dog feel about all of this? Is it ever integrated into the show somehow?”
The first time we did the VIDEOHUAHUA, Chamaco got really scared, so while I was putting the equipment, he pissed. People in Europe are more sensitive to this, when they saw him shaking and scared, they started telling me things like DOG ABUSE, etc. But I didn’t care, he’s my dog and he has to work, it’s like in a circus, there’s a price the animal has to pay, in order to eat foagra in France and jamón in Barcelona.

The first videohuahua projection was called: CHIHUAHUA’S ATTACK!! And was some video of some Chihuahuas barking really mad at the camera, with sound as lound as we could play: Chamaco got that in his back so he was really afraid!

“And what other kind of art do you do?”
Drawing, Guitar in a band, all kinds of videos, I’m writing a book, published first on my blog and I also like to cook.

The guy at the airport fumbles for his drivers licence, and smiles sheepishly at you. He wants to point out he’s from California, that he knows California and Mexico were once part of the same nation, before California shifted away to join the U.S. in 1846, and you, are not sure why he is telling you this. You receive a text message, and use this as an excuse to turn away briefly, before reading an invitation from a friend in Mexico City to participate in an upcoming show. You are excited by this, the event has a great range of Mexican artists, and a typically creative approach to how it will be happening. What is this event, and who else would be involved?
Actually today I got an email, with an invitation, and I got very excited, it’s a review of the 20 years of FONCA, like the official art support institution in Mexico, they are inviting me to participate, everybody is there!

“Ahh. So who are some interesting digital Mexican artists / art collectives?”
Arcangel Constantini,
Ivan Abreu,
Fran Ilich,
Alfredo Salomon
Hector Falcon
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Rogelio Sosa

And if you speak spanish, check my radio programme.

And which airport are you at, anyway, and where are you going?
I was travelling too much, Switzerland, France, Spain, Buenos Aires, Chile, Tijuana, San Luis, etc…. but now happy at home!!

Which robots have exhibited the most signs of life to you?
Hmm most are kinda quirky and you get over it real quick. I like David Hanson’s Phillip k Dick robot head that you can talk to.
(( “Somewhere on a shelf in a cavernous warehouse in Alabama rests the life-like noggin of Philip K. Dick, quietly dreaming of electric sheep. Or maybe the robotic head of the legendary sci-fi author got blown up. These are among the possible explanations for the bizarre disappearance of an artist’s homage to Dick.” ( more on Robot Dick’s head, over @ Wired )))

How’ve audiences responded to your previous robot installations? Did they react in any ways you didn’t expect?
One older lady put her scarf around the robot and had her photo taken with it. People have been convinced that I was inside the robot and that the robot was intelligent in some way.

4 days. 378 performers from 26 different countries. Almost 300 performances, workshops, talks and demonstrations. An open exchange of knowledge, inspiration, technology and live audio-visual experiences, events running nonstop from mid afternoon ’til 5am each day. Quite an achievement for the organisers, who run LPM as a non-profit and have managed to grow the event steadily over the last 6 years, whilst maintaining a clear emphasis on making the artist connections the most important outcome of the event.

The heart of this year’s LPM was it’s central meeting room, a space large enough to act as a workplace and rendezvous for artists as well as the site of various installations, open-platform discussions and presentations. The atmosphere in this room was great – friends and strangers alike shared bench space, laptop chargers, offered technical advice and eagerly enquired about your work, your performance and whatever hardware/software you were playing with at the time.

Workshops and performances were spread across the rest of the complex and the main AV stage boasted a serious 9-projector setup, with screens wrapped around three of the four walls, a suitably impressive and immediate visual impact for the performers, and allowing multiple signals to be distributed across the room for ‘VJ clashes’ later in the night – apparently a bit of an LPM tradition that sees groups of artists all take the stage together in the wee hours of the morning.

Vidi-Yo!
Mr.Monkeypresso (Hungary) used a triple-head to span his work across the whole nine screens, his performance, Serpendity, a half hour show played entirely from a custom-built Quartz Composer patch. Much of the imagery was certainly very QC-graphics heavy (think cubes, spheres, line work) however Monkeypresso deployed these elements with a rare level of finesse and sophistication, using them very carefully in combination with narrative film footage and harnessing QC’s audio-responsiveness to synchronise the whole piece unshakably to it’s soundtrack. Never entirely abstract nor entirely pictorial, Serpendity pulled you into it’s dark, dense interior like some kind of semi-suppressed nightmare. A stunning show and for pure visceral impact remained unsurpassed the whole weekend.

Another favourite performance, was the incredibly fun last-minute collaboration between Oigovisiones (Spain) and German video artist, e (from e-Gruppe Berlin ). Bumped along by a stellar music set from Rafa Gonzalez and Nin Petit (Spain), the combination of Oigovisiones’ bright cartoon animations and e’s super crisp, subversive vector backdrops was refreshingly original and watching all four crew members bouncing around behind the stage, extremely entertaining. Oigovisiones’ dance moves and exuberant Spanish exclamations could have carried the show alone (I wish someone had handed this man a mic..) but the killer visuals, sublime jumpy techno-bop, and enthusiasm of the performers made it hands-down the most contagiously enjoyable set of the event. Oigovisiones said after the show; “I want people to know i am enjoying myself – that I am happy to be up there” and I really don’t think anyone could’ve been left in any doubt.

Other highlights?
The beautifully simple video installation by Marco Calderón (Mexico ) which saw a ping-pong game variously write and erase sections of text from ‘The Aleph’ by J.L Borges. A theatrical piece from Italy, in which a rather bored looking femme fatale had her face and body explored with a micro-camera by a Mexican wrestling-mask clad man. Servando Barreiro (Germany ) and his techno-tambourine, a homemade ‘post-music’ controller, complete with accelerometer, built into a 20-pack plastic CD case. Attending an excellent Quartz Composer workshop run by Belfast artist Shakinda and having QC guru Vade (New York ) turn up for two inspiring guest lectures. The U.K’s Toby *spark, during an AVIT talk pushing home our potential to create a shared and meaningful community. And hearing the artists behind RomaEuropa Fake Factory ( a subversion of an Italian arts competition that did not allow remixed or open-source content to be submitted ) explain that their version of the competition had been so successful it had actually influenced the original site to change it’s entry requirements (they also had a WC installation at LPM allowing you to literally flush copyright down the toilet).

Across the entire weekend, I was struck by the complete lack of competitiveness amongst the artists. Despite the quality of the work, the performances at LPM are extremely transient, which in a sense equalizes the event for everyone. Opportunities, gigs and events were passed on happily and regardless of your medium, aesthetic or background, there was nothing but support and interest from the other artists. The whole event feels like one big overblown family get together; a sprawling party of new friends and shared experiences. And it’s not just at the venue – back in the hostels and hotels provided for the artists, the exchanges continue. It’s quite something to wake up in a youth hostel and find a bunch of AV artists stretched across the kitchen, twiddling knobs, jamming to music and discussing software over coffee and juice.

Sure there were bad points – the tight schedule invariably led to pushed-back timeslots, doubled-up performances and general confusion about who was on where. But given the nature of the event, you tended to just have another drink, start another conversation and soon all was forgiven. For my part, my half hour set on the last night turned into a five person mashup with my travel partner, Shakinda (Ireland ) and some new friends made at the event. But to be honest, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

[ See also, Lucy's review of the 2009 Mapping Festival ]

In The Beginning
To trace some of Monkey Marc’s pre-solar-studio history, we need to go back to the Lab Rats Solar Sound System (Monkey Marc + MC Izzy ), which was formed to bring music to the Jabiluka uranium mine protests in 1998, transported there by a diesel van converted to run from vegetable oil ( “We actually get more miles per gallon on veggie oil than we do on diesel. Also all the oil we get is old oil so it’s all recycled and free. We’ve done just over 20,000 km’s around Australia for basically nothing, and it puts out much less pollution than a normal diesel” ).

At the same time, the Lab Rats van was also fully equipped as a mobile studio running off solar panels on the van’s roof. Which made it perfect for post-Jabiluka desert nomadics – the Lab Rats “travelling the country working in many remote Aboriginal communities across Australia with indigenous kids creating socially conscious hip hop, conducting cultural preservation workshops and oral history recordings”.

Add DJ Wasabi and MC Elf Tranzporter to the mix, and Combat Wombat was born, a super-charged political hiphop group who eventually released a very well received album on Elefant Traks Records ( Unsound System – which was written and recorded using renewable energy ). ( Download music, videos and more )

Powering Up
Cut to the Collingwood Children’s farm, and nestled in a corner is Monkey Marc’s fitted out shipping container, with nearby horse trailer from which 6 solar panels provide the energy to keep everything running. Inside the container, his dub weighs a tonne, one end entirely filled with shelves of vinyl, the other end dominated by a large mixing desk ( RTW / Telefunken Broadcast mixer / Mackie 1604 ), and a second hand basketball floor (!!) has been cut up and attached to the floor, walls and ceiling to improve the acoustic properties and make the studio a bit more liveable.

Monkeymarc need 4 panels to complete his ideal set-up, and any would-be solar panel donors are encouraged to contact him. In the meantime, his 6 solar panels provide 5.5 full days of continuous energy in summer, before the 12 x 2 volt ( 1100 Amp Hour ) Deep Cycle Batteries need 1.5 days to recover before repeating. In winter the panels give 4 days of power running before needing 3 days off to recharge capacity. There’s also a 400 Watt Airstream Wind Generator on the roof for topping up the batteries too, and an 1800 Watt sine wave inverter allows all the energy to flow compatibly into the studio equipment.

Electricity Eaters
Aye, the power, it flows to a wide range of gear : an Akai MPC 3000 ( signed by Public Enemy no less! ), EMU SP 1200, EMU SP 12, Studio Electronics ATC 1, AKAI S3200 XL, Rhodes 73 Electric Piano, Roland TR 808, Casio F2-1, Publison Infernal Machine, Roland Space Echo 201, Radar 24 recorder, a laptop running Ableton and that Telefunken Broadcast mixer / Mackie 1604.

And So:
Currently gigging in Europe ( Glade Festival in UK, Paris end of July, see www.myspace.com/monkeymarcbeats for venue details ), Monkey Marc launches his solo and solar album ’soon’ with a series of gigs around Australia in the months to come. Beyond that, the studio can be easily transported for ‘around $200′ to remote parts of Australia on a project by project basis, so who knows what the next renewable powered chapter will bring?

Real-Time Vidi-Yo Puppetry!
http://animata.kibu.hu

Bored with mere live triggering of video clips or visual effects? Using the real-time animation software Animata ( free, open-source ), it’s now possible to control the limbs of virtual puppets in real-time, either with simple computer keyboard or midi controls, or a variety of physical sensors, cameras, audio levels etc. Designed for stage use, the software allows simple creation of scenes ( characters and backgrounds ), that can be controlled easily in real-time. Say the Hungarian creators:
“Creating and moving characters is as simple as loading an image and attaching a skeleton to it. ( On the basis of the still images, which serve as the skeleton of the puppets, we produce a network of triangles, some parts of which we link with a bony structure. The bones’ movement is based on a physical model, which allows the characters to be easily moved. )”

Once various characters and scenes are set-up, the various limbs and joints can be animated in real-time by external applications, such as hardware midi controllers or software like Max MSP or Quartz Composer ( A quartz patch has been made, which allows Animata to be controlled directly from within popular mac VJ software, VDMX ). In other words, instead of rendering out a variety of animated loops for triggering over time, animations can be made fresh on the spot. This offers all sorts of live performance and installation possibilities, limited only by the imagination and preparation time.

Elsewhere on Planet Quartz
http://openemu.sourceforge.net

Also running wild, Open Emu is an open source project that brings game emulation to OS X ( Sega Master System, Game Gear, SG – 1000, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Sega 32x, NES/Famicom, SNES, Super Famicom, Game Boy Advance etc ). Which is all fine, but it’s recent porting to Quartz Composer means that old ROM computer games from the above consoles, can be used within quartz compatible video software and controlled live. Says Team EMU:

Use audio or MIDI input to drive game characters and input
Use the same input signals to control multiple ROMs at once from the same joystick/gamepad
Add 3D effects or image processing to the game image for interactive 8bit visuals
VJ with your favorite games, in realtime, with effect responding to game input

*Bonus Nerd Utopia Level : Open Emu QC includes a separate plugin just for the Nestopia engine, which supports extended features, such as ROM glitching, cheat codes and game rewinding. You can now software ‘bend’ a virtual NES, in realtime, with your favorite Quartz Composer-compatible VJ applications.

So that’s Space Covered. What About Time?
Abundant live manipulation of video is indeed already here. An embarrassment of pixel riches. On the other hand, while there are some sequencing solutions and workarounds ( eg using midi and Ableton’s time controls to trigger video clips ), many video artists are still waiting for better time-based control and sequencing of video clips. The release of Max for Live later in 2009, will undoubtedly explode live audiovisual possibilities and sophistication, when it brings together Ableton’s sophisticated and musically precise time controls, with the custom visual effects possible within Jitter, the visual component of Max. In the meantime, another sequencer contender has emerged, a step sequencer for Resolume, built as a Max patch, and using the OSC protocol to control the clip launches in Resolume. More.

Controlling It All?
http://www.osculator.net/wp/
“OSCulator is software that links your controllers to your music and video software. For example, with OSCulator, your Nintendo Wiimote or iPhone can talk to major MIDI sequencers or your favorite console emulator or even the Kyma sound design workstation.
OSCulator supports the OSC protocol which makes it able to be used with a wide variety of software and devices like SuperCollider, Processing, Max/MSP or the Lemur multitouch controller.”

And Outputting to the Projector?
Maybe you’ll be needing one of these : an as yet to be bulk manufactured, but awaiting your order, hardware dvi mixer. Which means being able to mix digital signals in high resolution between 2 laptops. The UK’s Toby *spark and D-Fuse are behind this effort, with further updates ( and requests for orders ) to come.

Below, a selection of highlights, crammed from six screens into one…

Animals Really Are Funny People from jeanpoole on Vimeo.

Electropical? Bleepy cumbia? Such hybrids are inevitable, given a generation raised on candied synthetic computer game sounds, and the speed at which localised bass variations now travel from shore to shore. They are also core chunks of the Meneo sound, alongside ‘electro-gameboy-reggeaton’, which describes their recent CD, Santa Nalga ( mastered @ Mad Decent ), as well as their recent EP, Papi. Rigo Pex makes the music, Raul Berrueco makes the video, both use gameboys to do it. Music, videos, nude performance photos and more : http://www.entter.com/meneo/istheshit.html

What’s your quick and easy definition of ‘reggaeton’ ?
Rigo: Old School reggaeton= booty marathon with ass sweat dripping down your ankles. Current reggaeton= boring ego rap, with some exceptions to both.
Raul: Atun Con Pan!!!! Yeah… it’s kind of a joke ’cause the rhythm sounds like saying in Spanish ‘atun con pan, atun con pan’ which literally means: tuna sandwich.

I am gathering your happy blend with many other styles, which of these are you enjoying a lot at the moment?
Raul: Gabba Lounge, nah kidding… we both love the new electronic cumbia made by artists like Uproot Andy and Sonido del Principe
Rigo: Yep, all that comes out from the Zizek and Bersa labels…also dubstep never stops to amaze me.

How does the Gameboy fit into your musical processes?
Rigo: I use LSDJ, a gameboy sequencer made by Johan Kotlinsky.. It’s actually a tracker. I love the way you can alter the values that define the sounds to come up with noises that you never heard before, digital rawness.

What kinds of tools and techniques do you use to get that chunky retro graphic style?
Raul: At the beginning I go through a lo-tech process where I use applications designed by freaky programmers without girlfriends. I’m talking about ROM hacking and prehistoric hardware/software emulators, but I also use the pencil tool to draw pixel by pixel sometimes. When I put all this material together I use more conventional languages like Action Script while wearing my cool designer specs.

In what ways do you collaborate / build performances / audiovisual sync / themes?
Raul: we are into creative freedom, so mostly we don’t talk about doing this or that, we both do our own stuff with almost no feedback and then show it ’till we’re on stage…like some Dadaists did back in the day. In that way, we keep the surprise even to ourselves and focus more on feeling than acting. When we let go, things flow depending on the stage, public and energy.
Rigo: Then there’s the part of capturing what happens on stage and communicating it through pics, blogs and overall media management, which is truly an important part where we really work as a military team.

Nakedness seems to be a visual trademark too, care to explain some more?
Raul: we usually do it if we feel good on stage, so if the sound and visual equipments are working all right, then they get a technical seal of approval… MENEO √.
Rigo: It also means that we can safely climb up to the stage roof and then jump into the speakers while the crowd is licking each other’s sweat to a 280 bpms backward version of popcorn.

Santa Nalga ‘was mastered by DJA at Mad Decent..’ What were you happy with about that album, and what differences are there coming up in your next release _Bitnik?
Rigo: Santa Nalga was pretty much done in 2006, when reggaeton and 8bit was still something whacky for me, but since it was the first album it took some time to surface. Diplo liked us and pointed us to DJA, who was great for achieving that bouncy epileptic feeling we like. The soon to release BITNIK album has more of a band sound an less club breaks, since it’s mostly all 8bit coming from the game boys sound that shred more than a million distorted guitars and their marshalls put together.

Your thoughts on the wii, iphone and other portable competitors to the Gameboy?
Raul: In 20 years will say “wow, we were really into waving a stick in the air, like it was a tennis racquet…hahah!
Rigo: there are no competitors to the gameboy… no portable game will stick around for more than 8 years these days… and even if technology didn’t changed so fast, it would be hard to achieve such a strong graphic and audio personality: the gameboy chip limits were it’s advantages.

What would be your ideal gig, and who else would be playing at it?
Rigo: Meneo playing on the greek coliseum with John Bonham on drums, the bass player from Primus, Milli Vanilli as choir…
Raul: and a 3d screen so everybody could wear those amazing 3d glasses!!!

Many months of sampling and rehearsals with DJ Lewis Cancut culminate in a few days time, bringing together OJ Simpson, Prisoner, Molly Meldrum, Marshall McLuhan, Princess Diana, Jon Safran and assorted media luminaries into a 45 minute mix about television. It’s part of an ACMI series called Synaesthesia, curated by Eugenia Lim ( ACMI / Share Outpost ), which has already had great sessions by Robin Fox ( rocking the oscilliscope like no other ) and Abject Leader ( Brisbane’s infamous celluloid fetishists ), and with one further show still to come withQua (Jun 18, 6.30pm ) accompanied by visual work from Isobel Knowles and Paul Robertson. Great to have so many ‘live cinema’ events @ ACMI.

We’re excited anyway, and looking forward to having the work on the big screen and speakers finally.
Thu Jun 4, 6.30 ( with ACMI recommending to arrive before then to ensure a seat in small theatre )

I’ll be triggering and controlling videoclips (with sound) through VDMX ( reviews ), Lewis will be on the decks, playing back sounds and scratching video withMix Emergency (review) , and both of our signals will be going through an audiovisual Mixer: Numark AVM02 ( review ). Like so :

Half the work has been trying to figure out a good audiovisual dynamic between the turntables and my laptop, jumping the various tech-hurdles on the way, and just trying to figure out what actually works best in a live setting. Still a work in progress, but hopefully there’ll be enough of interest on Thursday night…. Drop a comment if you manage to make it along : )

UPDATE:
And whille you’re there, check out the United Visual Artists installation opening that night as part of the Light in Winter program at Fed Square.

**
Over the last 5 years, Geneva’s Mapping Festival has earned a solid reputation for showcasing the world’s preeminent ‘Visual-Audio’ artworks and technologies, maturing into a lengthy 10 day event with a strong emphasis on live performative acts and VJ culture. Some highlights in 2009 :

Kine TXT

KineTXT is a live story-telling collaboration between *spark and another UK outfit, Novak that allows live-generated illustration, text and poetry to be composited together in realtime and manipulated via a wii remote to develop a meaningful progression of narrative. It’s a beautiful project and despite some last minute technical difficulties – including rain, the show delivers and the six busily active artists and live soundtrack make for an absorbing spectacle.

KineTXT’s live camera action turns out to be indicative of a clear trend at the festival. Performers from all parts of the world embraced the potential of a live feed, human involvement celebrated on stage rather than hidden away behind screens and consoles and bringing to mind the emergence of a certain folk-like inclination amongst the artists. It also signified a lovely return across the festival to a human perspective of time, the most real real-time there is; the time it takes a body to move, breathe, think and react.

Visual Feedback?

The deceptively simple work, Inside/Out, by Croatian artist Klif is made up of 3 computer controlled cameras, eight monitors and five projectors. The cameras, feeding into the monitors, pan and zoom across the installation sending glorious cascades of feedback across the large room. The open mechanics of the work provide a fascinating centre piece to the installation and lend themselves to a variety of spontaneous interventions from visitors to the exhibition.

Reflexus is Spanish audiovisual processing software developed in Open Frameworks for theatre productions, and allows live camera feeds to be processed with a variety of effects, linked to an audio synth (currently the project uses Reaktor GUI components) and played back to stage. Not exactly groundbreaking, but it allows dynamic manipulation of up to 80 or so(!!) layered video feeds. Without a single dropped frame. Impressive. And the hour long showcase performance, featuring seamlessly integrated dialogue and action between ten or so versions of an actor, was mesmerising and a real highlight (despite being delivered entirely in French).

Collectif Akrylonumerik, France

A collective of four or five street artists, dressed head to toe in white, a dj and a visualist on laptop projection. Starting with a blank white-papered wall, the artists build a foundation of graffiti and paste-ups for the projected illustration and video, creating a series of beautifully composed, continually evolving, hip-hop meets punk mise-en-scènes. The show is incredibly good at times, with an infectious street-party atmosphere and some mind-bending transformations between the physical artwork, the projections and the white-suited artists themselves. The real strength of the work however was in it’s thoughtfully constructed progression over the show’s duration.

VJ performances
The beautiful control and pacing evident in many of the performative artworks was sadly lacking here. Perhaps VJs are so used to their work being backgrounds that the tendency towards flashing, eye-grabbing graphics and technique, at the cost of meaningful imagery, is so ingrained it’s hard to break away from. One exception was Poland’s PussyKrew who built a controlled and considered show, utilising a restricted canvas area to great effect.

Overdosing
Noticed a surprising tendency for cheesy, overly-sentimental or effects-reliant material – often from an artist who a moment ago had been displaying something truly captivating. Perhaps as artists we all have our particular stylistic achilles heels – aesthetics that for some reason resonate with us, but leave everyone else scratching their head. Maybe something to be reckoned with as long as we are asking for a genuinely personal experience from these performers.

Outdoor Projections
Impressive video mapping technologies? French artists Exyzst certainly delivered with their closing night performance mapped to the riverside Façade de l’Usine. The piece was sonically and visually synchronised to that extent that stops you noticing either individual medium and simply transports you temporarily.

Germany’s Videogeist also stood out, breaking the mould with some painterly generative art and an augmented version of the building that differed from the neon neo-futurist vision inextricably bound to this technology at present. Another French team, Digital Slaves, also went for a more organic aesthetic with some particularly nice moments, however were let down by the lack of synchronicity between the sound and vision – unfathomably for each of their short sets the audio abruptly cut out before the visuals.

VIDEOHUAHUA
Videoman (Fernando Llanos, Mexico) brought his own take on the festivals tagline ‘deviant electronics’ with his invention: the Videohuahua. That’s a chihuahua with a mini projector attached. Of course! Fernando and the Videohuahua (a very cute fellow named Chamacos) were an unmissable pair at the various evening events as well as the clubs and parties backstage. Little Chamacos won many fans, tottering alongside Fernando, beaming his art into the night and lighting up more than just the Geneva streets.

(( Thanks to Lucy for the report, try her full version ( twice as long))))
Stay tuned for another report, the next one from the home of mozzerella de bufala, over at the LPM festival in Italy. So many festivals, such little time~!

“Web Comic Guru Interviewed”
What we have here is a talkshow host who thinks impersonating a hyperactive foghorn is a good interviewing style. Thankfully the guest, web comic artist Nicholas Gurewitch manages to avoid being steamrollered and retains some integrity throughout. Mostly this is of interest, if you’re familiar with his comic Perry Bible Fellowship, which has recently made the transition from adored web comic into sold-out-book-and-people-are-knocking-at-my-door-for-movie-scripts-etc. But it also serves the purpose of letting us explore the social value of links. Where did the video come from?

10zenmonkeys.com
The above video link was within a post that explored the PBF rise to fame, and discussed the reasons for Gurewitch’s recent lack of web-activity ( hey – a pilot tv show for British TV, remastering the book for re-prints, working on a feature script etc – keeps you busy! ). I’m not subscribed to the monkey site, but I found it through a subscription to :

Waxy.org/links
Waxy.org is the site of Andy Baio, a software developer, whose steady stream of eclectic ( well, eclectic within the mostly tech/online ballpark ) and succinct links and commentary quickly found its way into my RSS feeds. Where did that come from?

Kottke.org
The Kottke radar stretches out to include the design world, the arts, cinema, tv, with perioidic snapshot reminders that the world is a very strange place. Although posts are longer than waxy’s, they are similarly succinct, regularly appearing and well written, drawing the reader into merits of a particular topic. At one point, Jason Kottke’s popularity could be measured by a one weekend donation drive, where he asked his readers to donate, so that he could concentrate on blogging links full-time and gave up his designer job for a year. He raised an annual income in one weekend, but later returned to design work, claiming the paid responsibility of blogging changed it’s nature for him. Found via:

Boingboing.net
“A directory of many things”, co-curated by a busy bunch, each contributing their particular thread-flows of interest. Pointed to many mooons ago by:

alexburns.net
After a certain number of emails were ping-ponged, projects were intersected ( ask him about DIY rocket-launchers ), and because he was the Australian based editor of:

disinfo.com
Back in the pre-corporate mall days of the web, this site emerged as a repository of alternative culture / politics / weirdness in general, albeit weighed down by a conspiratorial component ( the overall mix kept it worthwhile though, and nice being kept on your toes ). Founder of the site, Richard Metzger produced a cool spin-off TV series at one point, and is currently guest blogging on boingboing ( noticeably ramping up their weirdness ratios). Found via…

marcuswestbury.net
Marcus was one my the earliest pingers of links, and although his current site is relatively fresh ( and not where I would’ve discovered disinfo.com), I’ll credit him as the first link in the chain here, given his infamy as a 20th century bean-cans-and-string-modem-type-hacker.