Apparently Modul8 is so popular now that people like to dress up in the colors of the logo and dance around in nice lighting.
Come Play with Fire!
As of November 1st I will be visiting my old home town of New York City for the entire month. Most of my colleagues here in Europe say ‘nice’ and it is. But it is no vacation. I have arranged for several events to take place. The most relevant one to Modul8 users will be a two hour presentation of Modul8 on November 15th at Harvestworks as part of the Play With Fire Festival that has been most efficiently curated by Kristen Trethewey.
Two hours is not a lot to get very deep into Modul8. Its simplicity is deceptive. I did a two day workshop in Barcelona last year and besides feeling a bit exhausted I felt that I was able to cover almost everything beyond getting entangled in Python scripting, something I have yet grapple enough with to be able to conduct a workshop on.
I will take a consensus of the attendees level of experience with Modul8. If the majority says ‘we have no idea what this about’ then it will be fairly basic. However as we are nearing the release of Modul8 2.6 I will pepper in some of the new features we have and how to use them. In particular Sound Analysis, a brief demonstration of DMX control from within Modul8 featuring the mighty ENTTEC DMX USB Pro interface and as I always did prior to WACOM support, some live drawing using the Paint module. Even if you are a well seasoned user, you might want to show up just to say hi or give me that promo DVD you never got around to sending us via post.
As for the performances and discussions, some notable Mapping Festival participants from previous editions will be present. In particular the inspiring and heart warming Artist and Professor Raphael Di Luzio and the renegade film maker and audio visual performer Rafaël.
There are also some close friends from my SHARE days such as Paris Treantafeles, Mary Ann Benedetto and Adam Kendall. There are also quite a few names on the bill that are either vaguely familiar or completely foreign to me. Whoever they are I look forward to meeting them.
Do have a look at the Play With Fire site for further, in depth details about the performances, workshops and talks.
Look forward to meeting you there on November 15th!
Modul8 v2.6 release candidate
The beta testing phase of modul8 v2.6 comes to a close. Thank you to everyone who has participated in the beta testing program for v2.6 of modul8. Your feedback has been very helpful to us.
We are providing a ‘release candidate’ so you will be able to continue to use modul8 v2.6 until the upgrade procedure is in place. We will notify you about the full details on about upgrade procedure within a few weeks.
This version of modul8 will expire on November 31st, 2009.
Even if you have not been testing the beta and are a registered user of modul8 with a valid license this limited time version will be available to you.
Contact us at support [at] garagecube [dot] com and we will provide you with a download link. Be sure to include your serial number in the email so that we can verify your account with us.
Thank you all once again for you enthusiasm and support.
Kind regards,
The Modul8 Team
*Update*
In some instances you may have to deauthorize modul8 2.5.8 or older if you have trouble authorizing 2.6 RC1. After you have successfully authorized v2.6 RC1 you will be able to launch 2.5.8 without having to authorize it again.
DVI mixer… finally! Someone has done it!
My history with VJing started with software running on a laptop. I don’t know what the percentages are of how many people are using laptops now for VJing and/or other activities involving mixing images live using a projector. Considering the growth of this area in the last five years I would not be surprised at all if the number of people using just their laptops out numbers the amount of people using a V4 with two input sources without laptops. That leaves us with a lot of people using laptops that have the potential for high quality being back clocked with NTSC/PAL in their final output.
I have a passing fascination with the V4. Using modul8 and sometimes occupying whole nights with just 1 laptop I never really saw the advantage of a V4 and never bought one. The effects in it did not interest me and I much preferred a VGA output over composite. It looked more ‘direct’ if that is a good description for it.
Boris and I have always dreamed of a VGA mixer. One of those discussions that meandered through cost effectiveness to the V440 HD and finally culminating in a long sigh.
What we both always felt was that we did not really care about effects, BPM function or even keying. Just the simple pleasure of switching between two computer signals smoothly so one of us could take a break.
This past summer I was invited to Lisbon once again to participate in the small festival mentioned before here called Arbertura3. Toby Spark was also invited, en route to Brazil to deliver and supervise the tech of a new project by D-Fuse that called for mixing a VGA signal with two laptops and a TripleHead2go(!). Upon his arrival, I am always glad to see Toby, he pulled out a neat little black padded case, a few inches thicker then a regular laptop case and opened it up to reveal what appears in the image above. A VGA mixer. I remember my heart pacing wildly and my mouth running dry from the excitement of seeing this realizing what it could do. As I had my laptop open I sent a message to Boris via Skype and not a minute later he was talking with Toby on the phone.
So now it is here. Not quite. Its really up to you now to go over to his page and put your money where it counts and order one of these things, custom built just for you. Your support will drive this device into demand. Just imagine that clean signal you always wanted for your VJ sets and performances. Fill in that demand sheet today!
Zaji Chalem
One of the aspects about being involved with communications for modul8 is that I have an overview of all of the different people and ways that people are using the software.
I am always finding interesting approaches that teach me about how people work and share these ideas with other modul8 users.
One of the more inspiring stories I have come across in the past year is that of the multi-media artist Zaji Chalem.
Zaji has a long history with video. Having studied traditional animation in Paris in the 70s he has been working in video graphics production back when there was no such thing as Desktop computers.
His journey eventually led him to work on the high end systems such as the Discreet Flame and Inferno com positing systems. If you know anything about these systems they cost thousands of dollars. They are still in use today in high end production facilities. The learning curve for these systems is high and generally accessibility to them is very limited.
Based on the work that I have seen him do throughout his life I can sense a very pragmatic approach.
In more recent years Zaji has been working more and more in event production, working with slide projectors and now video projectors. He has had some exposure to some of the high end tools of the events production world, most of which are usually quite expensive and require teams of people to install and operate.
He discovered modul8 via another good friend and modul8 user, Lillevan who started to use modul8 as part of his setups for collaborations with musicians such as Christian Fennesz and Vladislav Delay. For Zaji the first experiences were revalatory. Here was a software that was not that expensive (compared with competative products that provide very similar features) and allowed him to run it on his desktop computer in his home. This allowed him to experiment and be more creative. “It makes me feel like a painter again.”
After purchasing his license he also bought a TripleHead2go and three small Samsung LED projectors. While one might scoff at the mere 150 lumens that these projectors provide, a setup like this actually makes a lot of sense for our current world of small apartments or studios combined with the desire to experiment with projections. The LEDs last a very long time and don’t take up too much space allowing Zaji to spend hours of experimenting with images in modul8 and moving the projectors around in different ways.
For most of his projects owning large projectors don’t make sense. As a production artist his interest is in creating the setups on a small scale so that he can visualize them for his clients. In most cases and event production company will handle the large projectors and installing them to meet the needs of the design.
Zaji also picked up the ever popular nanoKontrol so he could add interactivity to his live paintings.
For myself, I do a lot of workshops with modul8. It occured to me the tremendous convenience it would be to have several small projectors with a Triple or DualHead2go that would allow me to demonstrate multi-projection setups with all of the participants standing around a table and being able to interact with the projectors in a more intimate way. Kind of like playing with legos.
It is really inspring to me to see someone with all this experience embrace a relatively new technology like modul8 and also bring a completely new perspective to it.