Making prints with your visuals


Frames Per Second – Exhibition in Salon Projektionist – Vienna from Bopa on Vimeo.

Besides being a staple of the festival circuit in Germany and Austria the duo Bruno Tait and VJ Bopa take time to explore other possibilities and potential in what can be done with a projector. Take for example projected images and their ephemerality, especially in the live video world where sometimes compositions are created spontaneously, are not recorded. Bruno Tait came up with the idea of creating photographic prints of their projections by turning the clock backwards, foregoing the simple system ‘screen shot’ and projecting light onto IFLORD photo print paper.

One of the challenges that this project presented was adjusting the light levels in the projector correctly. Using too much light of course just wipes the whole page from over exposure.

An aspect of the works created that I had not initially thought of was how when using fast animations the light produced massages the photo paper creating smooth trails somewhat effectively documenting what can be achieved when using the ‘trace’ function in modul8.

Making art has always been at the heart of what modul8 is. I always think of the VJ experience or any sequential type of art as an ephemeral presence. This project threw me because what Bruno Tait and VJ Bopa did was remix the process of digital art creation as if it were chasing its tail. Not exactly so. This chase did lead into the gallery space called Salon Projektionist, a small gallery in Vienna, Austria run by the inimitable 4youreye that wholly embraces visuals as its own. This unique initiative is cared for by Eva Bischof who is one of the most committed souls I have met to changing preconceived notions about live visuals.

Obviously the word ‘commodity’ comes into play. But I will let you take it where you will.

posted by admin @ 28 July, 2009 0 comments »

AVIT Kezmarok, Slovakia

Closing of my 2nd day at the AVIT:Kezmarok, License to Screen festival. As I write this I am one hour from the first of my two part modul8 workshop here. My demonstration materials are all set up and I am always a bit giddy.

We arrived after an eight hour drive from Berlin. Two cars speeding along the highways of Poland. As the sun went down we arrived in the hills just before the Tatra mountains and finally the greeting party in the woods just outside the town of Kezmarok complete with a nearby stream, cookout and camp fire.

I am very excited about this festival. The initiative began as a conversation between a group of friends in Berlin who were discussing the tensions between Hungary and Slovakia. There idea was to try to do something cultural that would bring people together. As David Szauder was one of the persons present during this conversation the cultural element lead to VJing and the AVIT network.

AVIT was one of the first large international events dedicated to the VJ medium. This became VJ Central and the AVIT network has been adopted by LPM in Rome, Visionare in Paris, Visual Berlin and now extends east with Kezmarok in Slovakia.

Actually this festival was supposed to make its debut in 2010. But the mayor of Kezmarok was eager and asked if there could be a festival already in 2009. In less than three months arrangements were made as quickly as possible to include workshops in the Kezmarok House of Culture, outdoor performances in the main square and a club party in the basement of Castle Kezmarok.

So why am I here? Besides doing a workshop I will be doing some VJing in the square with some of my peers, David Szauder (recently re-christened pixel noizz), Benjamin Jantzen, Luci Benson and others. Beyond that I feel like I am part of something much larger. As individuals we are tightening our lines of communication within the community. As a group are trying to show how this medium can smooth the rough edges of communication within the European Community. All positive acts ripple on to other positive ones.

I am looking forward to posting some photos of some of the upcoming events.

posted by admin @ 23 July, 2009 0 comments »

Arbertura 3


As noted in my previous post I am on sort of a working vacation right now. Vacation to me is going to a small festival somewhere and performing a bit. In this case I am joined up with my long time collaboration Lance Blisters to perform two shows in Portugal.

We performed at last years Arbertura and were welcomed to return by them for the third (and last) edition. This year reads like a small deck of the usual suspects such as A-li-ce collaborating with Monkeyfish, Toby Spark and VJ Theory.

I would like to thank all those who have started following our new twitter feed. Kind of surprised how many and how quickly people have caught wind of it.

posted by admin @ 16 July, 2009 0 comments »

Twitter Twisters


I don’t know why I am doing this exactly. Do you? So we have one now and hopefully my collegeues will join in with some French tweets now and then. Feel free to chat us up. I have been looking around a some of the tweet traffic and noticed that its somewhat of a strange line of communication as well. Hmmm.

I use a very simple Nokia phone and apparently it’s so lo fi that I cannot tweet with it. Lillevan keeps on bugging me to get an iPhone and I come up with miraculous arguments against it. Good fun.

Will be in Portugal this week to do a show but support messages will still be answered and I have an interesting project from Köln based VJ’s Bruno Tait.

Until then.

posted by admin @ 12 July, 2009 0 comments »

Tramuntana Festival


Tramuntana09 [ Magnetismes ] from Tramuntana Festival on Vimeo.

Borja from the Sonom collective continues to pass on his creations to us. The above is a promotional video for a festival he is involved with called Tramuntanafestival. While he admits it is on a smaller scale then the Mapping Festival from the images on their site it looks to showcase a broad section of the definition of performance utilizing video. The significance of including this video clip is, as Borja notes, he used modul8 for it with a combination of other popular tools.

The festival dates are coming fast. July 16th through the 18th in Cadaqués (Alt Empordà – Girona), Spain. I like the dead fish construct.

posted by admin @ 10 July, 2009 0 comments »