In the only city in the world existing on two continents ( Europe & Asia either side of the river ), the audiovisual collective Artificial Eyes can be found weaving their hi-tech pixel magic.
Wassup, AE?
Like any collaborative project with 3 x artists + programmers, Artificial Eyes are busy pushing the boundaries of what is possible with current technology. What helps make them noteworthy is that they have their own large audiovisual theatre venue in Istanbul, have development relationships with several dedicated video hardware manufacturers, write their own software and have oodles of experience between them all. Introducing:
Michael Parenti (exiledsurfer) – has directed over 200 music videos, has VJed internationally with over 150 different acts since 1998, blogs with unmediated.org, rhizome.org, eyebeam in NYC, curates the AE REBLOG, and it must be mentioned – as an avid bird lover, his list of previous pet featheries includes 2 x EMUs~!
Todd Thille (synesthete) – seen online recently ‘jamming with a plant’ and ‘controlling software with his mind‘, comes with a post-production and documentary film making background, followed by a long history of stateside VJ action.
Pascal Lesport (3rd Design) – studied music and programming at Ircam in Paris, discovered Max/Msp and DSP processing and more recently has been actively pushing forward real-time audio, video and streaming installations – developing OpenGL based real-time 3D applications, and teaching real time audio and video processing at Istanbul Kultur University.
Korhan Kaya – veteran amiga developer, OpenGL and DirectX specialist, and coder of PMX Pixelmixer (in beta), a realtime compositing application for the Windows platform.
And So..
There be lots of AE events and performances. Witness the gig fitness.
artificialeyes.tv teach classes and workshops in the video arts at various universities and institutions in Turkey.
They’re about to release their software :3L ( pronounced ‘Thrill’ ). Still in pre-release beta, pretty schmicko looking live 3D VJ software with special features for abstracting video or generating abstract video. (screenshots @ www.artificialeyes.tv/thrill ). And they run a dedicated audiovisual program at their theatre called “Live Cinema Nights”. What’s not to love?
And They Got Toys
Video Mirror Units: These can be fitted to many common video or data projectors to create a VideoMovingProjector. Basically bouncing a video projection onto a tiny motorized mirror, which easily be controlled to rapidly move the ‘screen image’ around the room easily. The controlling software has built-in audio responsiveness controls, and if you have a few – this allows on the fly compositing of projections on top of each other.
The Codanova midi controller is a deluxe dedicated midi controller/interface for video, with a new model being co-developed with Artificial Eyes.
VIXID – Leave the computer at home – this is a hardware based video mixer with 16 inputs, 4 outputs, and hardware based layering of video inputs, including various compositing modes ( ala photoshop ).
Oh, and ze cats are in cahoots with vidvox & M-Audio.
And Radness of Radness
They’ve invited me over to spend two euro-summer months with them in the AE studio. And I’ll be there 48 hours after pressing send on this here article, for all of june + july. Crazy video hardware reviews, and possible Turkish Batwoman sightings to come.
Safe travels Mr.
Best of luck to you. AE looks like an incredible collective of artists and programmers who are pushing the boundaries of VJ applications and hardware. How can I get the software?
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