If there’s one thing the latest wave of webbery does well, it’s keeping track of sites that keep track of sites that keep track of…

Back in the Day
Used to be simple enough – find some curious brained folk who spend too much time wandering the web, and drop into their blog from time to time. The rise of RSS readers to easily subscribe to material like this, made it a snack to quickly gather a huge range of hand-picked curators and connoiseurs to keep you in touch with news in any number of esoteric topics. And then, when it happened that there were too many curators walking the earth, along came the re-blog (software that facilitates the process of filtering and republishing relevant content from many RSS feeds – reblog.org), enabling a new breed of curators to pick out the best .. curators, which was grand for a while, apart from the problem of still being limited to the perspective of that particular curator. More brains were needed, and that’s where things get messy.

And Then
Expanding on the web curation idea, slashdot.org launched on the premise of allowing it’s readers to nominate stories, with a constantly rotating team of editors filtering these submissions and presenting the best on their frontpage. The shift to many brains was spectacularly successful, and then the founders of digg.com tried to expand on this idea by letting the audience not only nominate stories, but also become the editors themselves – by voting on the stories, the stories with the most votes being shifted to the frontpage, in turn meaning avalanches of traffic for the sites being profiled. newsvine.com and reddit.com are amongst those following the same path, both aiming to provide customised stories for you, based on what you’ve submitted or voted for over time. Popularity alone of course, isn’t necessarily a measure of quality, and acknowledging that is the latest iteration in the field, polymeme.

Sayeth Polymeme:

“We have a database of about 25,000 leading blogs covering specific topics — economics, architecture, media, and so on. Every few hours our unique buzz-detection system analyzes each topical cluster and determines what are some of the “hottest” articles — be they from the traditional media or other blogs — discussed by the blogs in our cluster. We then republish the most interesting of them on Polymeme.com, displaying the sources that are talking about each “hot” news article or blog post. We believe that relying on this “wisdom of clusters” and not just “wisdom of crowds” provides for superior buzz detection than most regular buzz-aggregators, which usually give preference to most popular stories across all topics, and not most interesting ones in specific areas.”

Sample Polymemes?
The Poly-feed offers about 50 headlines or so a day, eg ‘the decline of the american empire’ which offers an article about recent economic, financial and geopolitical events that suggest the above, but also shows how this theme is something that has been recently covered by many people and offers all the links to these. The extra contextualisation is really nice, and so for the time being am enjoying the feed quite well.

Face is The Place
Of course, the ease of publishing and reading links – and importantly, having access to a more direct group of peers ( for both reading and writing ), inside the walled garden that is Facebook, means many people are now filtering their web through their facebook account. Within most groups of friends, are a few who take with glee to the chance to spread the word about what they’ve been reading / viewing / listening to / thinking, and for a particular few, this extends to the compressing as much links, juice or wit into their ‘account status’ messages as possible. Which is exactly the premise and promise ( or threat ) behind the popular twitter.com service. While Twitter sounds maddening to many, the core idea of being able to send a short SMS sized message from phone or computer at any time, and have this be published on a site, be picked up by others subscribing, and responded to, is obviously compelling for many.

Too many accounts, too little time? Ping.fm updates your facebook, myspace, twitter etc etc accounts in one go. Tubemogul.com publishes your video to many different accounts at once ( youtube, blip.tv etc etc ) and Friendfeed.com gathers your updates, comments, bookmarks etc from a large range of sites in one place, and allows subscribing to the collected updates of friends – which actually provides a pretty useful service – being able to comment on and develop conversations with friends about their broader web travels, all from the one location.

Broadcast media organisations are slowly adapting to the idea that their audiences can produce and distribute media too, shifting the top down one-to-many model of media to one of many-to-many. Representing part of an adaptive strategy over at the ABC, pool.org.au is about to launch, a site where anyone can upload and publish material – or remix some of what is there already. John Jacobs ( Video Subvertigo, Indymedia, ABC’s Night Air ) was happy to be interviewed about the site’s aims.

The pool site is about to launch – what would you like to imagine it being in 2010?
By 2010 I’d hope that media professionals and consumers had used the live web to blur each others boundaries and used spaces like Pool to build the new public media forms and platforms. So maybe Pool 2010 is some kind of aggregated media tagzine.

To what extent are ABC radio and TV archives available now, and what kind of plans are there for increased future availability?
Opening up the ABC archives is an important goal for many people.  Like the BBC, the ABC recognizes the huge potential of digital access to its back catalogue. There’s a balancing act to be played out between intellectual property rights and public interest. Public media is shifting roles from broadcasting media units to hosting a digital connection cloud. Right now ABC TV’s iView (abc.net.au/tv/iview ) is one avenue for directly accessing popular current productions. I can see a future where less high profile ABC output is delivered to the pubic domain directly. Pool is modeling this with its use of Creative Commons licensing.

What ABC media would you especially enjoy seeing remixed by it’s audience?
In the night garden it’s one of my favorite shows. Like Telly Tubbies and Mr Squiggle before that, kids programming always has the most open agenda and abstract language that naturally welcomes remix or re interpretation. Just add a bit of ABC news actuality and you are in VJ heaven.

What contributions have surprised you so far?
I liked hearing Holy’s story of her squat but it was so great hearing Dan turn it into a song!

What limitations of current Pool system are you looking to transcend?
Pool is a space to rethink public media, there are plenty of limitations but also many possibilities. I invite you all to log in and start to co-create. Once media objects are free of ownership many options open up.

Examples of forward-thinking broadcast media projects online?
Engagemedia.org is a great homegrown example of direct video publishing. And viddler.com okay it’s like just another You tube competitor but check out it’s time line annotation feature. Soon social media will aggregate tags like “silly” into a channel and then I will have found a home.
 
Other video remix sites that inspire?
The “Related to” side bar on Youtube, I love browsing have you watched http://play.blogger.com?

Blame it on the Melbourne winter, but recently I’ve embarked on the task of republishing a few hundred odd articles from my former blog, the now defunct octapod.org/jeanpoole, which covered live video, electronic art and music, tasmanian tigers, gangsta rapping physicists and other odds and ends from 2001-2005. Though some are less relevant today, there’s plenty of still interesting interviews amongst it all, and figured if these files already exist on a hard-drive somewhere, that may as well be on a publically accessible one.

The archives has the full list of what has been transferred so far, and I’ll add another post when the process is finished, highlighting some of my favourites over the years ( though I’ve published the embarrassing ones too.. ). For now though, here are a few of the live video and VJ related posts which now live on skynoise..

Artist interviews…
A Brief History of VJing in Australia ( longgg interview heavy piece focussed around late 90s onwards), The Light Surgeons (UK), VJ Honeygun Labs(US), Jasch (Switzerland), Eye-Fi(Sydney), John De Kron ( Germany), Falk (Germany), Lalila (Sydney), Semi-Conductor (UK), Rawbone ( Perth ), DJ Spooky on cutting film ( US ), Falk on VJ blogging (Germany), Solu ( Finland/Spain), Runwrake (yes he VJs sometimes as well as being an amazing animator)(UK), DJ Yoda (UK), Neotropic on music and film (UK), audiovisualizers.com interview, meta, QBert on Wave Twisters (US), and Addictive TV ( UK) and 242 Pilots ( US/Europe) both of which slipped through as ‘recent’ posts.

VJ related Software reviews :
Comprehensive overview of VJ Software in 2004 with screenshots, interviews, smaller VJ software round-up in 2005, vdmx 2, VDMXX 4.0, Grid Pro Vs Arnold Schwarzenegger, v-track, Arkaos video sampler, Arkaos VJ 3, Wildform Flix, Isadora, Livid 1.1

Wheeeeeeeeee~!

For mating purposes the South Australian Lyre bird has developed wonderful song and signal capacities. It can even mimick urban sounds such as a camera lens zoom and click or a car alarm. The fine feathered 242.Pilots on the other hand, are a video performance trio whose signal processing and improvisation often has them compared to a freejazz ensemble. Not sure how their recently released DVD fits into their mating strategies, but it’s a great showcase for their capacity to improvise.

(( Update : this interview was done in 2003, and is part of large import of writing from the now defunct octapod.org/jeanpoole, which covered live video and electronic art from 2001-2005. Mostly I’ve been publishing the posts with their original date, but this slipped through and has been linked to already. See the archives for more. ))

DVD: – Live @ Bruxelles
Distributed through Carpark Records, this DVD allows the chance to see and hear a live recording of the 242.Pilots performance at a Belgian festival in 2002, three solo pieces and an interview which illuminates their processes and interactions. Under the pilots bonnet, lies custom made software – video components for the max/msp programming environment. Having built their own software with this, the pilots can freely improvise in real-time, layering and transforming imagery in real-time. Effects are also layered in real-time, and the customised effects are often foregrounded more than the actual content itself. The end result is at times haunting, beautiful and fantastically elastic. For the most part they maintain a level of visual interest, if not surprise, and interplay with sound. The occasional lapses you would expect within a long improvisation, I found were related to the saturation and predictability of certain effects. Even their own customised software has it’s certain aesthetic trademarks and glitches. Fascinating DVD though, available through http://242pilots.org. While you’re there, click along to www.nervousvision.com, the site of Berliner HC Gilje, who answered these questions:

What are the challenges of building a video ‘instrument’ ?
Our instruments are a combination of software and hardware, and must be built in a way to encourage/stimulate our visual dialogue. The challenge is to make a interface, maybe a mix of hardware controllers and video software, which is very flexible, responsive and which gives room for unexpected things to happen. The biggest problem is balancing features with an intuitive interface: if you end up having to think too much while you perform you have a problem.

What is liberating / limiting about customising your own software?
Achieving results not possible with available commercial software, and also to make mistakes which creates interesting results. The limitation with using an environment like max is that you spend hours and hours on your interface, and continually keep implementing and changing the program which makes it less intuitive. In max based work you tend to get bored with your patch when you know it too well. With programs like imagine, you can learn to master the features to a certain degree.

How much do u consider the audience & their perception of ‘liveness’ when composing a video work?
242.pilots wants the focus of the audience to be on the audiovisual output of the performance, not us as performers. For us the interesting thing is to create experimental video in a live setting, which gives a complete different energy and dynamic than to make a prepared video and screen it in front of an audience. The presence of the audience and the other players, as well as the space, our mood++ totally effects what we create, as it is always completely improvised.

Have you noticed with your live work with dancers, that the audience is more receptive to the live-video?
In my recent work with dancers I use no recorded source material, only the dancers as input for my video. It is then obviously easier for the audience to understand the “liveness” of the video than in an impro-setting like 242.pilots.

Live video-art is often criticised for not feeling worthwhile, unless you know how it is was made. How do you feel about this?
At our performance in Bruxelles upon which the dvd is based, a large part of the audience didnt understand that it was created live, but looked at it as an experimental film. From my experience with improvisation there will always be uninteresting parts but usually there are those magic moments which makes the whole jamsession worthwhile, just as in a music jam. If the total experience of a performance is negative, then it’s a bad show, and not related to the genre itself.

What are the difficulties with live video compared to audio?
It demands more attention, as people aren’t so used to watching longer stretches of non-narrative video. Compared to laptop audio performance, at least you don’t have to watch the boring guys behind their laptops as you are supposed to look at the video.

Abstract cinema? Graphic design in motion? What are you aiming for with your improvisations?
People always look for some sort of story no matter how abstract and non-narrative the video is, and I find it interesting this dialogue between us and the audience in terms of creating meaning. Our improvisations are like taking a walk in some unknown landscape, and depending on the curiosity/attentiveness of each indivual in the audience, they will all walk out of the space with their own unique experience.

Future projects? ( any longer narrative live-cinematic aspirations? )
A collaboration with contemporary music composer Yannis Kyriakides, a 20 minute piece which will tour with an ensemble and be performed live, and my Tokyoproject, which will be a 4 channel video installation, a live video-audio piece and DVD with Jazzkammer. The live Tokyopiece would be something like a longer narrative cinema. Am also continuing collaborations with the sound artist Kelly, in our impro duo BLIND.

Snapshot of recent audiovisual developments.

First Up
3 of the most exciting things of late? Previews of the upcoming Resolume 3 Avenue, an inter-application video routing piece of ( mac only ) software released by Vade. and the new 3L real-time 3D program.

Resolume 3 Avenue will be available for both Mac and PC in September and already looks something like the holy grail of live audiovisual applications. Some of it’s key features : – VST audio plug-ins can be used ( in a live video application! ) and easily sync-ed with visual effects to create custom audiovisual effects. – Lots of beat and loop controls. – Drag and drop audio files onto video clips and have them play in sync. – Heavy integration of graphics card and 3D capabilities – and much more in the demo video at their site.

Vade’s great new app is a patch built in Quartz Composer which allows the user to isolate whichever part of the screen they want, then re-route this as a live source in another application such as VDMX. Which means photoshop painting or game playing, or other weird video glitch apps etc can be running in one spot and that output can then become one video channel in a video mixing program. Live grafitti, or rotoscoping on top of videos, mixing games with other clips and more – all on one machine with no need for a mixer. Works super fast too.

3L by http://artificialeyes.tv/, recently ended a long beta development phase, and has arrived as a very sophisticated 3D real-time application with several
unique features : – individual rgb fx wet/dry mix controls – built in DMX control for the VMS moving mirror projectors. – Interpolated presets ( slide between complex presets easily )

Available now, jump in while it’s hot.

Web-Video?
No great leaps recently in technical terms, but have been enjoying some of the new flickr.com video groups ( eg the Kite Aerial Video group, various underwater and abstract video groups) created since they opened their doors to videos – or as they put it, ‘long photos’ up tp 90 seconds long Playback on the site is nice, but a shame clips can’t be downloaded in an editable format. Blip.tv and vimeo.com seem to be staying ahead of the video pack at the moment. Locally, Australia’s ABC have launched a hosting site that encourages the remixing of its audio and video content : pool.org.au.

For those who prefer to have a vimeo account for quality and youtube account as well for the hits, noticed that tubemogul.com enables easy simultaneous upload to many sites at once.

Visual Blogs
Some various additions to the RSS reader of late :
Code And Form : Computational Aesthetics – http://workshop.evolutionzone.com/
http://mograph.net – well populated motion graphics forum where people throw around problems and solutions.
http://aefreemart.com – various after effects tips and tutorials noted here.
http://advancedbeauty.org/blog – Ongoing audiovisual projects.
www.eurodisney.biz – Latvian axe in the world of aesthetics.
vvork.com – Themed curation and daily flood of artprojects, presented simply.
http://lightsurgeons.com – Documenting projects for the UK AV crew.

Video of the Week
This has been doing the rounds a lot ( 5 million + views at last watch ), but there’s a good reason for that. Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch passed away recently (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008), and recorded a one hour lecture last year, some time after being told he only had a short time to live. With that in mind, his last lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, takes on all the more meaning and resonance, and well worth the viewing.

May 08 Video Snippets
April Video Snippets 08
Eyeball Snippets for July 07

Movie star guests and a huge roster of great films is fine, but it’s exciting to see Melbourne’s International Film Festival embracing some live cinema experiments this year.

“If I’ve learned anything from big budget action movies it’s that complicated global problems are best solved by one lonely guy.” – So sayeth the cheeseburger chumping Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me). Morgan will be chatting with John Safran about his latest film, ‘Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?‘, Sat 2 Aug 4:00 PM, Cooper’s Festival Lounge, 154 Flinders St. Those two’d be stars, yes. Stallone and Schwarzenegger can finally pass the baton to the new generation of action hero pranksters out to save the world.

Not to forget Eric Bana – who will be presenting a screening of George Miller’s Mad Max II ( Tue 5 Aug 7:00PM @ Forum Theatre ), and talking after it about Peak Oil, Climate Change and the need to curb our addiction to fossil fuels ( or maybe the Hulk or Chopper etc ).

Five Lines, Five Films? 
I’ll be @ these, holler if you’re heading along…
DaiNipponjin Sat 26 Jul 11:15 PM Greater Union 5 : Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto tries his hand as director and mega-sized superhero.
PERSEPOLIS Sat 9 Aug 7:00 PM Greater Union 6 : Feature length animation telling the story of a girl growing up in Iran. 
WALTZ WITH BASHIR  Sun 10 Aug 1:00 PM Greater Union 4 : How many compelling Middle Eastern feature length animations can one festival have?
THREE MONKEYS  Sat 2 Aug 5:00 PM Capitol : Turkish thriller that untwists interior worlds and recent Cannes festival winner.
PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, THE  Sun 27 Jul 9:15 PM Greater Union 4 : Quirky daydreamer of a film featuring road trips, lots of theft and a polar bear.

( + have seen, but highly recommend MAN ON WIRE!)
( Films listed in A-Z on one page )

Intermission: Who is Miss Roder?
Located in an old Flinders lane warehouse ( Fri 1, Sat 2 Aug ), this series will feature a series of performance film events from international guests and some of Australia’s leading exponents of ‘expanded cinema’ and video art. With quite an engaging mix of digital and analogue experimenters on hand, this should be quite a treat. Amongst the highlights – experimental animator Dirk de Bruyn, Abject Leader’s photochemically milked sonics, Guy Sherwin with Lynn Loo, Ben Russell, long time Melbourne visualist Steven Ball returning to the city, and a chunky, descriptive program. 

Jon Pak (pictured above), experimental composer, designer of the http://lightmatrixinterface.com hardware, one of Melbourne’s dorkbot organisers, and recent deliverer of a very popular Next Wave festival soft/hardware performance workshop ( aye he’s busy ), had this to say about the Miss Roder event he’s involved with:

What’s ‘the Feast’ ?
A performance piece that examines ritual and the subtleties of human interaction through sound within the context of a fine dining setting? Or a couple of ill-mannered restaurant patrons making a ruckus in the name of art.

What was your role within that?
Concept, sound design, video, broken glasses, soiled tablecloths and much soldering.

What’d you find challenging / surprising about the development process?
Working with the thespian types. It’s something I don’t have much experience with and also from the actors’ perspective, they were not used to working with sound. So the process has been a challenge, but to their credit they are doing a marvellous job.

Intriguing software in 2008?
Quartz Composer. Not exactly new in ‘08 but recent additions in late 2007 have opened up some exciting possibilities in the areas of video processing and interactivity.

Hardware?
The iPhone. Again, not so 2008 but the potent mix of accelerated graphics, multi-touch capabilities and network facilities make for an intriguing development platform with many exciting possibilities. I want one.

What are the joys and limitations of your Light Matrix interface?
Its got lots of blinking lights and it looks cool on stage. The downside is that it is difficult to play and a nightmare to set up. It’s something I still haven’t worked out: do we become a more proficient player or make the instrument easier to play?

What plans do you have for developing it further? 
Making it a permanent installation but I don’t want to give too much away yet. Future versions may include new form factors, force feedback and better software integration.

MIFF 08 film you’re looking forward to?
To be honest I haven’t had the chance to look at the program yet. I’m always a sucker for animation.

MIFF 2006 Review
MIFF 2005 Review
MIFF 2004 Review
MIFF 2003 Review

What’s been happening in the world of audio subscriptions and downloads?

The Elevator Pitch
Podcasting in a nutshell? The publishing of audio files online in a blog-like manner, which enables them to be subscribed to with podcast software ( eg getmiro.com, juice receiver or itunes ), for automated downloading, first to a computer, and then to an mp3 player if desired. Which means two things – firstly, it has become very easy to create what is effectively your very own radio station ( with global reach ), and secondly – there is a vast audio universe of delights awaiting your earbuds.

The Public Transport Pitch
Podcasts have been around for a while now though, so what has risen to the top? What’s worth listening to on that tram ride through the grey boxes? There’s a few problems finding out – so much exists, and then – the usual crap-to-gold ratios apply with podcasts just as they do in any other media, but audio is much harder to search through than text, so it’s harder to cover as much ground and find that uniquely satisfying quirky just-suited-to-you kinda thing. There’s a few audio search engines around ( eg http://audio.search.yahoo.com, woonz.com ) but not so many like podscope.com which allows searching for words inside of an audio podcast or video file. And then there’s the robots.

Useful if dizziness can be avoided, there’s also a huge range of podcast directories to allow browsing of categories :
podcastdirectory.com, podcastdirectory.com.au, podlounge.com.au, podcastdirectory.org, podfeed.net, podcastdirectory.org.uk, podcastferret.com, odeo.com. More specific directories?
Radio National’s MP3 audio and podcast service: abc.net.au/rn/podcast/default.htm
Several podcasts over at: sbs.com.au/podcasting and bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts
50 public radio stations and producers with the National Public Radio in the states: www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php – .
And there’s also the in-built podcast searching within itunes ( apple.com/podcasting ) which allows easy browsing, selecting and subscribing.

Much as giant impersonal databases are fun, actual humans are pretty useful for recommendations too. Two long lists of favourite podcasts : via Textism, and via Shannon O Neill ( Syd sound-scaper ).

Some of my recent faves :
( Podcast links below, right click to copy URL, paste into itunes or podcast software of choice )
Chasing the Tangent, fortnightly mix by Sofie Loizou, Plum Industries, fortnightly mix by Jen Teo, DJ Rupture’s Mudd Up! on WFMU, Dublab – Live sets by guest artists, Night Air – weekly collage soundscape eclectic themes, Ed Banger Records – occasional DJ mixes, Radio Lab.

Video podcasts? Find some of the Creative Cow Final Cut Tutorials, After Effects tutorials pretty useful :

And recently started pumping some video into this subscription friendly location : http://jeanpoole.blip.tv/rss/itunes

The Bedroom Pitch
Aye aye, DIY! Once audio files have been made, the trick with podcasting is just making those files published in a way that allows podcasting software can auto-detect and download them. This can be achieved with code ( adding an ‘enclosure’ to your feed ) or with simple plug-ins for a blog ( eg Podpress for the wordpress blog software ) that allow easy uploading and auto-embedding etc of mp3 files. Even simpler? Free hosts : libsyn.com, podbean.com, odeo.com and much more.

Visualist and 3D animator Josh Cardenas gigged 6 times in 7 days for the recent ‘Hard Sell’ tour with DJ Shadow + Cut Chemist, yet still had enough pixel gadget stamina to hook-up later with VJs in most cities too. And so..

What Went Through The Customs X-Ray Machine

2 x Edirol V4 video mixers,
1 x Pioneer SVM-1000 AV mixer for final mixing – “It was cool cause it handled both video and audio – as we had some pre-recorded animated ‘intro’ to the show that had a voice over track. With the mixer I could control the audio levels from my feed. Also, it had a nifty touch-screen to add some super effects! i used this a bit, but sparingly as they are pretty heavy handed. = ))”
2 x DVDJs ( VJs can scratch too )
Laptops ( Who’d have thought?)
Midi controllers.
Cable spaghetti, and inevitable sprawl of AV and international power adaptors.
Portable Battery the Size-Of-A-Laptop which supplies 8 hours of power.
Various tools and tech problem-solvers.

Oh – and 4 x ‘robocams’ which could be remotely controlled by midi, for panning and tilting on the dual DJ action, 1x DJ wristcam for the trainspotters and 2 x cams on mic stands.

Getting It Together
Josh met up with a few Melbourne visualists at Horse Bazaar, where we showed him the resident panoramic screen and the Dataton Watchout software which stitches together the 6 screen wide panoramics, and then he whipped out one of the robots for us ( after cycling through a range of power adaptors before settling on his ‘back-up’ 8 hours of power Size-Of-A-Laptop battery… ). Soon enough, with impressively fluid arcs of movement, the camera was swooping around via controls on the computer. Josh built the hardware himself, mounting each cam on some movable parts ( see MAKE / createdigitalmotion / instructables etc for DIY midi, motors + electronics ), then connecting that up with some patch based software ( eg VVVV, processing / max-msp / quartz composer ) which allows midi signals to control the movements.

Once the software was launched, camera movement was a simple task, gliding the mouse this way or that way to swing the camera’s focus around the room. More impressively, software based control also allows a range of audio analysis or sine wave oscillators to steer the camera movement – eg letting the bass levels control the tilt of the camera, or setting an oscillator to swing the pan back and forth at a preferred speed or frequency. Save a few of these movements as presets, map these to be triggered a midi controller, multiply by 9 cameras, and Dr.Versatile is in.the.house. Kinda handy when VJing for highly improvisational DJs. Josh showed the setlist which featured extensive cues where he was supposed to trigger various video clips, but said inevitably the shows were different each night as the DJs extended out various sections on a whim, keeping Josh on his toes at all times. And with his 3D background, Josh has plenty of ideas for spatial exploration with camera rigs, expect to hear more in the future.

Hollywood Bowling
For those who missed the show, it’s already a disc on the shelf of indie DVD distributors, microcinema.com. Whereas the “Freeze” and “Product Placement” shows were also recorded for DVD, the Bowl setting inspired a less spartan treatment for this disc – with a full behind-the-scenes story of how the show came to be, the live performance, visuals, a gazillion camera angles, more interviews and a 40-page booklet.

(( + hat-tip to Jaymis from CDM + Plug N Play Brisbane for hooking up Josh with the Melb video peeps.. anddddd UPDATE: vidi-yo interview just posted by Jaymis over at the CDM Brisvegas ranch))

Like a continuously expanding themepark emerging sprouting towers through a forest floor, audiovisual tools – they keep developing at a cracking pace. Here’s a quick scan of the recent* topography. ( *well, actually, it was April Snippets, but then there was this minor issue of a spamwar and entire blog rebuild to deal with… still some pixel-juicy links below though.. )

(above Melb VJ Keith Deverell + DFUSE in last minute preparation mode )

Live Audiovisual Performance

Kids’ve been busy in the Northern hemisphere it seems. The Euro-experimental-media festival circuit has been charging ahead, much of it documented at createdigitalmotion.com by by 1 x Toby *spark, wolverine UK VJ of note, who trampled his way through the AV Social at London – an event which featured performances and discussions, but also a fantastic compilation of VJ narrative works, cream of the crop, each complete with a URL to explore. Next stop was the Node 08 festival in Frankfurt, exploring the VVVV software and the gazillions of projects spawned by it. Then the Mapping Festival in Geneva, put together by people connected to the VJ software Modul8, another smorgasbord of sublime AV performances and installations. Dizzy yet? Then the Vision’r festival in Paris, where Toby observed “a strong culture of innovative live performance, which brings visualism and a/v trickery with it, but through a very different lens”, and a new release of Resolume, the long dominant PC VJ software now becoming available natively on OS X as well. Coming soon Visual Berlin and Live Performer’s Meeting in Rome.

Elsewhere in the North, Vague Terrain offer up a fantastic cross-section of VJ + AV related articles in a recent journal, including an interview with VJ Solu ( Finland / Barcelona ). And the consistent DVblog offers up this fascinating performance / video event where the screen is made up of large white cubes which are continually deconstructed during the event, playfully changing the nature of the projections ( Event by myspace.com/pixelbirds )

Video Hardware

The much hyped 4K resolution RED camera gets plenty of mentioned over at the EDIT blog, but the blog is worth checking out for it’s general tips about editing and hardware, software etc. Having a 4000 pixel wide image isn’t necessary for most people though, and some have even been shying away from HD cameras for all the extra headaches and hard drive space the extra image size needs. Seeing the UK’s DFUSE preparing for a performance in Melbourne recently though, opened my eyes to some of the more creative options that HD allows. Even if you still choose to work with smaller resolutions, having that extra width and height to play with can prove useful in all kinds of complicated zooming, panning, tilting and multi-screen scenarios.

Video Software

Yes, a new version of resolume is out ( now for mac + pc), and along with it a new version of the popular freeframe effects, now optimised to take advantage of graphics card acceleration. If needing some clips to play in that, youtube has started including much higher resolution clips and the Google Operating System blog notes a useful hack to access and save these videos as mp4 files ( allowing editing and much easier use for VJing ). On the Quartz Composer front, Machines Don’t Care has been kicking many goals with lots of experiments building all sorts of effects, plugins and real-time graphic mutations – all of which can be then inserted into various OS X VJ software.

Video on the Interwebs

Yes there are over 200 video uploading services now, yes there are a key dozen or so with better options than youtube ( including payment options, higher resolution, better interfaces, browser based remixing, better social functions etc, but no, none of them have a fraction of the eyeballs of youtube. Which makes the recent extension of youtube’s partnership scheme into Australia significant. This means if you have original clips you own the copyright to, you can enter into an agreement to share part of the ad revenue these clips generate on youtube.

Popular photo sharing site flickr recently made a splash too, adding the ability to add video or what they call ‘long photos’ to their site. There’s something appealing about the way they have implemented this, and the outlet for shorter clips amongst the well defined flickr community. After a splash of motion graphics? Try flickr.com