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Review : Peter Newman – Paperhouse

Disc 002 on Sydney’s Demux label, Peter Newman’s DVD debut covers an hourlong documentation of his audiovisual practice from 2003-2007. Cutely for a DVD, it’s tracklisting offers both a Side A and a side B, each covering material from Newman’s exhibitions, performances and installations. From the get-go we’re left swimming in abstract textures, Newman’s style reminiscent of the flickery film pioneers such as Stan Brakage or Len Lye ( a New Zealander with a major retrospective including kinetic sculptures coming up at ACMI next year ). Whereas these filmmakers sought to produce cinema by directly interacting with the actual material of film – by scratching and painting on it, by applying processes of decay and physical mutation to it – Newman explores some of what is inherent to digital cinema – the blending modes available for overlapping pixels, the fuzziness and grain found with various compression methods, the masking and keying out of colours, the blending of layers. While youtube demonstrates that the moving image doesn’t have to have glossy high resolution to be compelling, Newman reminds us that the types of compression artefacts usually associated with youtube, and typical of digital video, can also be played with and celebrated, a textural avenue of exploration in themselves.

( see also : wade marynowsky dvd review )

by Sean Healy, February 25, 2008 3 Comments

Review: Wade Marynowsky : Interpretative Dance

Experiments in Real Time Audio Visual Performance 2002 – 2007

Another experimental DVD available for click-purr-chase, hailing from Sydney label DeMux. Label founder, Wade Marynowsky, is no stranger to the live manipulation of screen and sound. Way back in the twentieth century he used custom made applications built with macromedia director to bang out sets of speaker crunching live cinema – lo-fi graphic animations married fantastically to the language of layered audio loops. Future explorations using software such as NATO, Max/MSO and Jitter delivered ever more sophisticated processes and audiovisual relationships, but the Demented Australiana theme stayed with him : native flora and fauna reinterpreted through the noise of the digital.

It’s a disc of gorgeous stuff, and so even though the boy’s shunning the AV limelight for a while (to pursue an obsession with building robots), the disc neatly encapsulates his diverse mutant flavours spawned over the last 6 years. Rewinding to one of the earlier pieces, ‘Apocalypse Later’ feeds us Australia’s history of violence in a haze of abstraction and digital decay. Landscapes ebb and flow in and out of comprehension, close-up plant textures scratched up and layered as though to reveal their underbelly of corrupted data. The building sonic tension never relents, albeit in a Gameboy edition of ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ kinda way. With the visual crackle of bush campfire, we are surrounded by flapping birds squawking to each other through vocoders. Convicts are lashed ( video footage from the now defunct convict theme park ‘Old Sydney Town’ ), stormy skies are mustered, and nature’s cruelty and splendour is displayed in equal measure.

The ‘Uranium Country’ and the ‘ISEA Baltic Sea’ performances document further interrogations of the above palette, as does ‘The Geek From Swampy Creek’ though attempting to transcend laptop performance limits by introducing live imagery of a costumed Wade into the mix. All three pieces exude Wade’s strong sense of both musical and visual composition, fluid manoeuvring providing ethereal transitions through his material. The boy has obviously mixed a lot of audio and video in his time ( and indeed, spotted some of my own footage in there from video jams with Mr.Wade ).

‘Autonomous Improvisation’ eliminates the performer entirely. First exhibited as an installation in Artspace in 2007, it exists as a stand-alone piano, which has been programmed to generate a random series of notes, each of which triggers a pre-recorded video of a Sydney artist playing their instrument. It’s a stellar cast of sonic freakery – featuring Singing Sadie, Toecutter, Wade, Lucas Abela, Shannon O Neill, clown turnablists, saxaphonists, celloists and a variety of surreally costumed performers. In other words – a ghost pianist in a saloon bar is triggering a fast sequence of holographic musical performers above the piano. Bring on the robots!

More : “>http://marynowsky.net ( includes 8 x early mp3 demos. )

( see also review of : Peter Newman’s Demux DVD release )

by Sean Healy, February 25, 2008 2 Comments

The Sweet Ableton Live 7 Suite : Review

Choose the ‘Ableton Suite‘, and alongside Ableton Live 7, you’ll receive a swagger of new audio production tools. Naturally, all of these will integrate seamlessly with Ableton’s deservedly championed interface and work processes. For audio-heads, this latest bundle is truly an ’embarrassment of riches’.

The New Flesh:

Three Collections of Instruments :
Tension – physical modelling string synthesiser – which means massive variations and otherworldly string sounds are possible.
Electric – classic electric pianos with physical modelling synthesis, allowing to dive inside the guts of the instrument.
Analog – emulates the unique circuitry and irresistible tweakability of vintage analog synthesizers.
Two Drum Collections :
Drum machines – classic drum machines, sampled to reproduce, with additional features not in the originals.
Session drums ( boxed version only ) – 28 Gb (!!) of quality drum sounds, multisampled in various ways, thereby offering a studio engineer level of refinement.
Operator – a software synthesiser designed to match the best of Robert Henke’s hardware synths, and integrated smoothly into Live.
Sampler – a software sampler with powerful multisample playback and import, and innovative sound design capabilities.

Live 7 Core Enhancements
Live 7 sounds better and it’s timing is more precise – there’s a new high quality compressor, a 64 bitmode EQ Eight, improved midi timing ( esp. when recording midi in Live ) and an enhanced audio engine. Live 6 sounded good to me, but the new compressor and EQ do sound tangibly better. Both the arrangement and session view timelines can now deal with multiple time signatures within a single live set. REX files can now also be dragged, dropped and played just like WAV or AIFF files (Recycle from Propllerheads converts audio files into REX files – which allow flexible retiming manipulations). Operator, Dynamic Tube and Saturator now feature optional High-Quality modes. Memory management has been enhanced to allow smarter use of large sample libraries ( such as those above ). And there are many, many other incremental improvements, but also some brand new pleasures.

Live 7 New Features
You can now view a spectrum analysis to pinpoint frequencies, gently nudge the master tempo ( useful for adjusting between tracks of different tempo ), insert physical instruments into the Live workflow like plug-ins, all of which is useful – but not nearly as cool as the brand spanking new Drum Rack feature. A single right-click on any audio file, offers the option of slicing the file up into different sections and instantly assigning these to a set of pads, arranged in a square like an MPC style sampler. Being designed by Ableton however, this simplicity is deceptive – each pad can actually contain a whole range of effects, instruments and presets ( meaning each individual sound slice can be treated very differently ). A MIDI clip is created for this collection of slices, and will play back each slice sequentially so the sample sounds the same. Shuffling the midi slices around however is a breeze, allowing beats and soundslices to be reshuffled in typically smooth Ableton fashion. Files can also be drag-and-dropped onto the pads, and REX files can also be used. And there’s much, much more to the Drum Rack, flexibility, complexity and power densely packed in.

Ableton + Video
Ableton 6 introduced the possibility of importing video onto a timeline, mostly to help film soundtrack producers, allowing them to better match soundtrack elements to a videolip. Ableton 7 introduces the capacity to export video clips, including those which have been edited or warped by time – which perhaps marks the beginning of Ableton Live as a video editing or video production tool of sorts. Ableton’s sequencing and timing controls also address a feature lacking in all VJ apps – decent sequencing. Real-time video software has developed rapidly in recent years and now includes many of the different flavours of crazy that audio software has enjoyed for years – but no sequencing. As a result, many synchronised audiovisual performers send some kind of midi signals from audio applications, to trigger video clips within video applications. Ableton Live is usually the preferred application for live audio and midi in this context, and the last year has seen plenty of hacks with various techniques and plugins to try and deal with the many difficulties still existing in this process.

( The CreateDigitalMutants have been steadily documenting one of the best collections of the weirder options with Live. )

Ableton Suite Requirements?
649 Euros ( or half that for students / educators )

Mac: G4 or faster, (Intel Mac recommended) 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended), Mac OS X 10.3.9 (10.4 or later recommended), QuickTime 6.5 or higher, DVD-ROM drive
Windows: 1.5 GHz CPU or faster, 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended), Windows XP or Vista, Windows compatible sound card (ASIO driver support recommended), QuickTime 6.5 or higher, DVD-ROM drive

VERDICT ?
The Ableton Berlin kids are still slaying with this release. They’ve refined and extended the features of the application, integrated new instruments and processes, allowed ever more complex workflows and at the same time have managed to retain a smooth and consistent interface. When it comes to real-time audio – there’s really nothing else in town.

Ableton Live 7 Tutorials
http://www.ableton.com/tutorials ( how to rewire Live with other audio software, abundant tips, tricks, techniques )
http://www.ableton.com/movies ( useful video run-throughs )
http://www.ableton.com/pages/forum ( Giant community of Live-hackers, tinkerers and problem solvers )
http://www.ableton.com/artists ( Explore how plenty of big names are using it )
ableton tutorials on youtube
eg drum racks video.

Different approaches to using Live – ‘Draggers vs. Set-freaks‘.
livetweak.com host forums, as well as ‘custom Live instruments’ uploaded for sharing
eg “Glitch Rack – Rack Patch by 3rdordertrauma: For all the fans of glitchy random broken beat kinda sounds. And for those of us who don’t have the “Glitch” plug cause we are on mac os.”

remixmag.com/ableton_tips_tricks, ableton-live-fans.com/forum : Warping Accapellas, Using groove shadows to spice up drum loops, Isolating vocals and sounds using the Ableton Live Utility plugin, VST Synths with polyphonic arpeggiator?, Live with MsPinky & more. loveableton.com, abletonlivedj.com/forum, 4 hours of Live video tutorials , Ableton Live 7 – Slice to Midi video, it just doesn’t end.

Useful Plug-Ins
“Just Add Music is your new powerful visual companion for Ableton live 6/7 on Mac OSX 10.4/10.5, from creation to production to performance Just Add Music takes you into the new audio visual DVJ world. All by using Ableton Live exactly like your used to.”

The Smart Electronix crew maintain a good collection of donationware VST + AU plugins for both mac/pc.
The Plogue Bidule Peeps also a do a range of free VST plugins ( mac/pc ).
Mangle, glitch + FSU in Live

Via Kyle ( thanks ) – Tobybear has some fantastic ( PC only) VSTs that have been around for a while. One of his that I use a lot is Peakfreak, an audio to midi converter. Great if your VJ app does not have something like this built in (and also good for AV with Live + Video app).

AND-D-D-D – this’d seem to be the mother-lode for mac-based VST / AU plug-ins… lots of other free mac audio tools here too… +bring it!+

*Please Holler ( via the comments )* if you know of any useful / weird / great VST or AU plugins that help transform Live for you, especially any in relation to synchronisation with video and VJ software, and esp mac-compatible and I’ll add them to the list here…

(Previous skynoise reviews of Ableton Live 6 )
Ableton Live 4, and back in the day… Ableton Live 2.

by Sean Healy, February 19, 2008 6 Comments

Robert Henke Dizzies at Planetarium

“The history of immersive projection dates back many thousands of years. From the earliest connections visualized between radiant points on the celestial screen, humans have projected literal or metaphorical devices through their imaginations onto the vault of heaven.”
– from http://elumenati.com, a company dedicated to the art of domed projections, featuring video artist Johnny DeKam ( founder of vidvox + vdmx vj software).

From the Top Of The Dome
Surround sound, a 3-4 storey high dome, lay-back seating for around 100 and a bunch of sonic maestros fiddling about under the simulated heavens. Such is life at the Melbourne Planetarium( On the evening of Feb 2nd, 2008 anyway. ). Nat Bates of Liquid Architecture started the evening off with a granular deconstruction of classic rock songs. Never heard enough to recognise the riffs when the sound was stripped back to raw guitar, but a nice enough piece unfolding beneath the dotted stars. Steve Law + Ollie Olsen, veterans of sonic mutation, followed next with a textural exploration that flirted with percussion by it’s close. Performing as the Mutagen Server, their fluid interweavings were accompanied by films on the dome by Sonia Leber + David Chesworth. Drone based noodling isn’t for everybody, but a novel setting like this is more forgiving than most places. A short break and then..

Robert Henke introduced his hour long piece, Layering Buddha, by explaining how the Chinese music group FM3 had made this ‘Buddha Machine‘ that he loved, a small electronic device that played 9 different mantras. As it turns out, their cheap electronic manufacture means tha the machines played side by side develop all kinds of layers and inconsistencies, which Robert ( aka Monolake & the creator of Ableton Live ) recorded, relayered and remixed to produce his Layering Buddha album. Performed live, we get super-rich textures that ebb and flow, a slow sonic choreography over the hour, matched by a gradual shift overhead of the stars set to Melbourne at the start, and Robert’s Berlin by the end. The gentle shifting of the stars proved somehow soothing, but joltingly interrupted 3/4 of the way through when a large black rectangle appeared in the sky. Either one of the projectors had crapped out or a great piece of German minimal design, it felt like a building ( or black Kubrick monolith ) was falling through the sky, created a surprisingly real presence overhead. Minutes later the direction of the star movement reversed suddenly and sped up dramatically. The top edge of the wall beneath the dome, effectively a horizontal line around the room, suddenly started swinging wildly like a boat edge in heavy seas. The music faded out shortly after, but the star movement continued to shift directions, and no-one said a word, content to be there floating in space. (see also )

More Domes

Vidvox founder Johnny DeKam now uses his videoprogramming and VJ chops bending pixels to fit on domed ceilings, as part of the Elumenati crew. Rather than the multiple projector installation at the planetarium, they work with single projector solutions for immersive environments, using Omnifocus fisheye projection systems to project without need for edge blending or alignment.

Also dedicated to panoramic projections is Chromatouch ( found via cdm ), a blog by Leon Trimble (UK), which includes the following breakdown of the core issues involved with immersive projections :
1) choreography of the camera – (thinking outside of the frame, editing for immersion, precise control of actors/dancers/camera in an inescapable environment, wearable computing/camera )
2)capture of 360Â° video – (camera arrays/stitching, fisheye lenses, ultra hd, telematics, mimetics )
3) presentation of 360Â° video (dome structures, customisable distortion maps for â€˜genericâ€™ rooms, edge blending/masking, projector arrays, fisheye projection, kinesthetics, viewer tracking/perspective shift )

And Spheres
Musica universalis ( or ‘music of the spheres’) is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies â€” the Sun, Moon, and planets, as a form of music. This I discovered within Walter Murch‘s delightful book about editing, sound, cinema – In the Blink of An Eye. Editor on the Godfather series, Apocalypse now and The Conversation, Murch has plenty of incredible experience and anecdotes to pass on, but comes across as an incredibly curious character who draws on a huge breadth of human knowledge to inform his editing. He recommended The Music of the Spheres : Music, Science and the Natural Order of the Universe, by Jamie James, which amazon.com’s secondhand section finally delivered yesterday.

by Sean Healy, February 8, 2008 2 Comments

Visual Melbourne

Gathering links for a visitor makes you realise it’s quite the city for eyeballs, old Melbourne town.

Australian Centre of Moving Image
: Usually has a few exhibitions / screenings, the free Christian Marclay exhibit currently exhibiting is available until February 3 and has several cool AV collages worth checking out. The nearby Federation Square public screen often hosts interesting public screenings too.

City Lights Project
Across the road from ACMI, is Hosier lane, ever drenched in graffiti and stencils, and host to a monthly laneway exhibit hung high and illuminated in light boxes. Also located in another CBD lane, Centre Place.

Stream Collective : live A-V performances, adventurous sound, screenings and installations.

Stencil Graffiti Capital Hearts Melbourne. More stencilly stuff.

Pecha Kucha Melbourne : Series of rapid-fire design and graphics presentations by wide range of melbourne visualists.. with big audiences, big design social event..( next event mar 19 ).

Forepaw : Shopfront in Northcote transformed into gallery, venue, comic + illustration jam nights and much more.
Just missed ‘Trails’ http://forepaw.org/trails.php group drawing jam night ( Tue Jan 29). ( “Bring pens. And beer”).

Sticky Institute : Zine store and seller of much lo-fi and rad print stuff.

Is Not Magazine : Maybe you’ve seen that giant one sheet magazine that gets printed in colour XXXL and pasted up on walls around the city? This is it.

Comic’s Lifestyle : Lots of the Melbourne comic making massive live here.

Breakdown Press : Local independent publishers of provocative visual material.

Engage Media : Local makers of software for self-publishing video online

Dorkbot Melbourne : Local tweakers of electricity and odd projects.

Footscray AudioVisual Social Club : Regular show and tell events @ Footscray Community Arts Centre.

Tape Projects : a collective of young and emerging artists who champion provocative, temporal, audio-visual works and site-specific performances by our peers in and around Melbourne. ( Also release a quarterly DVD ).

Horse Bazaar : Club with a really, really long video screen that wraps around a corner, and regularly features visual artists.

Loop : Another club with many dedicated video walls and regular visual arts bits & vj projections.

Plug N Play Melbourne : Pixellists and live visual experimenters every 2nd thursday of every month… 201 Smith st, Kent st Cafe, Fitzroy, 8-11pm + free.

Art Galleries? Melbourne has those too. ( 150+ here for starters )

Film Festivals / Open Air Cinemas / Cult film Societies? Try….
Popcorn Taxi, Melbourne Cinematheque, Silver Screen Sundays, The Astor Theatre, Melbourne Underground Film Festival, Italian Film Festival, The Other Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Bicycle Film Festival, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Antimatter Underground Film Festival, Rooftop Cinema, Moonlight Cinema, Junkyard Cinema, St Kilda Openair Cinema, Melbourne International Animation Festival etc etc and film festivals every second weekend or so for just about every clump of people big enough to call themselves a nation.

*MISSED ANYTHING* ?? Throw it in the comments, and I’ll add it on…

UPDATE :
Outpost / Share : last Wednesday of every month at Horse Bazaar. A/V jam night with feat. guests. ( thanks, Boz )
Time Capsules: ‘Screen Gems in Strange Territories’ every Friday 8.45, 127 Campbell St, Collingwood
(found via ‘i flips me lid’ )
AudioVisual Melbourne is a mailing list with frequently posted items about interesting (audio+) visual events in Melbs.

by Sean Healy, February 1, 2008 1 Comment