Interview with Astrid Steiner of Luma Luanisch

Last month I visited Vienna. I am discovering that it has a very vibrant VJ scene. I must have already had hints of this from brief interactions with some VJs from there such as Luma.Luanisch who were invited to the Mapping Festival last year and performed a colorful audio visual set that was one of the highlights of the festival. The person I was in contact with the most was Astrid Steiner who is one half of Luma Luanisch. The other half Luma.Luanisch is Florian Tanzer whom I only had the chance to meet during my visit to Vienna.

I actually knew of Astrid’s work when she contacted us with some questions about modul8. Her signature included a link to her web site and I was very pleased with the types of projects she was working on. She was not only doing VJing but also working with Jazz groups and choruses. On top of that her images were curious constructs that were not completely literal but balanced in such a way that there was room for the viewer to connect the meaning in their own way. I believe this is one of the cornerstones of live visuals.

After meeting her briefly at the Mapping and then again in New York City last summer I proposed to conduct an interview with her for modul8.us. Proving how busy we both are it took a while to get this interview finished and I am very happy to post it for you the readers today.

m8.us: How did you get into VJ’ing? What attracted you about it?

Astrid: I’ve been working as an editor for film & television and started to VJ about 6 years ago. Video editing is a beautiful work. You influence the tempo, the look, the storytelling of a film. But it’s always somebody else’s story you tell. You are one link in the chain and have to deal with a lot of compromises. So I started to shoot and create my own footage, my own stories and to collaborate with musicians who loved to integrate videos into their concerts or DJ Sets.

m8.us: What did you study originally?

Astrid: Before I started to work in film & postproduction I studied media technology and media design. These were very technical oriented with classes in programming, information technology, signal processing. Very boring. But now I find it extremely helpful to this technical foundation.

m8.us: What process do you use when creating visuals? What are you thinking about? Is it a certain amount of experimentation that goes into it? Or do you have a clear picture in your head before handling the materials you want to use? How much of it is personal?

Astrid: The footage I use in my shows is always my own material filmed by myself or by artists I collaborate with. I don’t use found footage. That doesn’t inspire me.

When I started VJ-ing I walked around with the camera in my hand, shooting pretty much everything and anything that attracted me visually. I collected tons of clips with an interesting motion or an appealing motive, like “power poles out of the train window”, sky-scrapers, tunnels, time lapsed clouds, dancing people, highways, neon signs, graffiti. It’s nice, but when you see other VJs working with exactly the same subjects you start to think. Composing video live in a club or concert is such a great opportunity to reach people, so why waste it by projecting the same pictures over and over again? VJs should seize this chance and add real creative input to an event. We should start to surprise our audience with visual differences and bring this art form to the next level. So my approach in producing clips changed a lot recently. Now I want to show visual stories rather than visual moments.

m8.us: What has been your best and on a creative level the most rewarding performance project you have worked on?

Astrid: My favorite project is “MONEY”, an opera by Gene Pritsker, an outstanding composer who integrates chamber music, hip hop and jazz in an absolutely unique and “ear-opening” way. We premiered the opera 2006 in New York City and performed it since then in Sicily, Austria and New York.

I had absolute freedom with the visual implementation of the scenes. The opera is a performance, with the musicians, the singers and me performing live on stage. The visuals play with analogies and symbols according to the lyrics. For one scene I decided to document everything I spend money on within a month by photographing the money transaction and what I bought.

Many companies pay millions of dollars to get this information about us. Having those commercial traces presented so frankly may feel intimidating for the audience. It demonstrates in a truly striking way how much you learn about a person when you trace their commercial behavior. And is that something we really want to share?

m8.us: How did you find out about modul8? What did you use before you started using it?

Astrid: I started to VJ with Arkaos and loved it. You hit a key and suddenly the video turns crazy, kaleidoskopy, flashy or distorted. I was amazed and excited by the great looking effects although I was never quite sure what exactly would happen. After a couple of gigs my excitement dropped realizing that I need more control over what I was doing. I did my research and found modul8. It was exactly the tool I was looking for, the way you control the layers complimented my idea of mixing. I needed a reliable and stable tool with a clearly arranged interface, MIDI integration and I very much liked the idea of its scalability by modules. So playing around with effects doesn’t exist in my sets any more. I focus on using images that are striking and imaginative.

m8.us: Do you prefer focused and rehearsed projects, VJ’ing or both?

Astrid: I need both. I love the club VJ-ing where you improvise and just go with the flow.

You can create so much atmosphere with the visuals, you enhance the intensity of the music and you can push the party. I love minimal techno and I love to dance behind my laptop and drift away with the music. Especially in Europe VJs became an integral part of the club scene, which is definitely a result of the VJs dedication and strong engagement rather than the club promoters’ effort. Also the audience appreciates good visuals and demands that more and more.

m8.us: Where do you see yourself moving forward with this medium?

Astrid: I am mainly interested in telling stories. Sometimes when you see a really good photograph it tells you so much more than what you actually see. I try to find equivalencies in compositing different video clips into one image. I want to trigger a story in the viewer’s eye without showing the story. What interests me most is sparking the audience’s imagination and fantasy.

m8.us: Is it important for you to be seen during the performance?

Astrid: I definitely prefer to perform on stage, especially with the interaction that’s possible when you work with a band. For example when I play with Jazz musicians they would give me a solo where I can go crazy with my video. It feels much more like being a part of the concert, so I always demand to be close to the musicians. To me visuals are more than a decorative background element. They are a creative, performative act and I want to see the VJs on stage.

m8.us: Are there other VJ’s who inspire you? If not then what artists or things do?

Astrid: I love the work of my partner Florian Launisch. He is my favorite visual artist and I am very excited about our collaboration. The warm, analog and rough look of his animations has a high recognition value and I honestly don’t know a better live performer than him. Last year at the Mapping Festival I saw the band EZ3KIEL, maybe one of the best music & video symbiosis I’ve seen so far. They fascinated me with their great visual ideas and a unique look.

But in general I don’t find my inspiration in the arts. I find it in real life. Random words I catch, images I see, people I meet. It’s always reality itself that shows me what to film and tell.

posted by admin @ 17 March, 2009 0 comments »

Interview with VJ Culture (aka Grant Davis)

StarCulture rooftop shoot, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.

I am most delighted to present a short interview with Grant Davis. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the most recent installment of the Cimatics VJ Festival in Brussels. It was casual in a highly chaotic environment of party people. Despite that we were able to chat, comparing our knowledge of people, ideas and as usual modul8. Some people fall into things such as marketing and real estate. There is no doubt that Grant did fell in love with VJ’ing. And it is obvious that VJ’ing has rewarded him with the hard work he does with this love. To get all the details straight I have asked Grant to introduce himself and his past/current projects to date. Lets begin then.

Grant Davis (VJ Culture) gave up his collegiate ideals of working with deaf children 12 years ago when he first experienced a live, immersive, VJ, environment in the Black Rock City desert.

As a Communications Disorder Specialist, he thought this was a great way to visually interpret music for the deaf. Since then, under the name VJ Culture, Grant has provided sight and sound for audiences around the world. Torino, Italy where he performed 19 shows with the Magnetic Poets during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.

UK’s DJ Mag has voted VJ Culture among the top 10 VJs in the world for three consecutive years. He has also toured with Beck during the summer of 2006.

After returning from a tour in Japan, in the fall of 2007 Grant performed an audiovisual set at Forum Mexico as StarCulture, performing at the American Music Awards on US NBC TV for Mary J Blige.
Since the beginning of 2008, Grant has performed at NYE, ESPN/Red Bull Rio Hotel Las Vegas, Macworld SF, Austin TX, SXSW, Musikmessa Frankfurt Germany, and Winter Music Conference Miami and Glow, Santa Monica.
Grant with his partner Xarene Released, ‘vE-jA“, “Art and Technology of Live Audio Video”. A 196 page VJ book that covers the global VJ scene and includes a DVD.

Grant is also featured in two other books on VJ’s and has been in numerous magazines on the subject. Not only is he a visual artist, but he also organizes large-scale VJ related events across the US. Video Salon, Video Riot, VJ Battles and VJ Festivals. Co-producer in AVIT North America (Chicago and San Francisco). Recently, curating VJs for Beatport stage in Mami FL during Winter Music Conference.

VJ Culture rig macworld 08, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.

m8.us: Do you see a major difference between the newer vj’s and the more seasoned artists from 10 years ago.

VJ Culture: I’m envious of some of the new design talent in younger VJs. I think on average they are producing higher quality design than older VJs. In the early days it was more about the process than it was about the design. If today’s aging VJ’s don’t develop a good design sense they are going to be marked as technicians or has beens.

That said, some of the new VJs are simply cut and pasting code to create generative visuals. Although tightly synchronized it is algorithmic and can lack a human touch or narrative. My personal interests combine both approaches.

Sandisk vma afterparty, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.

On the technical side a lot of the newer generation of VJs don’t have the technical skills for installing a large video show. Muiti-projector installs over long runs of cable and appropriate lens configurations, seamless stitching. The earlier pioneers had to figure this out for themselves.

What I think is more interesting than age and experience is demographics of artists. We touch upon it in the vE-jA” Art and Technology of Live Audio Video. The difference in styles between artists is dramatic. Influence from other artists, venue challenges, policies in each region all contribute to the style developed.

The international festivals that focus on the visual are really important to developing a global scene. Everyone has something to gain when we experience art from outside our surroundings. The internet is helping us bridge that as we share demo reels and comment on forums. However, there is something to be said for being in the environment of a festival with like-minded visual enthusiasts. I would encourage everyone to make that investment, pilgrimage, whatever you want to call it and attend a festival.

The Riottt show, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.

m8.us: Does the term VJ sit well with you in regards to what you do?

VJ Culture: Not really, but its in my title. To make a living as a “VJ” you have to do a lot more than just VJ. I commend those that can live off of strictly VJing. I personally don’t know anyone doing that but I am sure they exist.

The term VJ is so general, it means different things to people. I think the one thing we have over come in the past 5 years is that a VJ isn’t just a MTV term anymore.
I had a show in Monterrey Mexico last year and when I went through Mexican customs I was ready to explain the whole VJ thing and why my equipment was racked in a pelican gun case. He opened my case and said, “Oh, you’re a VJ”. This was a 50 something year old man in a small Mexican town. I was blown away. I had two kaptivators and a v4 in the case and he knew exactly what they were for.

m8.us: How has modul8 served you in your work? What is it doing best for you and where would you like to see it go?

VJ Culture: I’m currently touring with Sharam from Deep Dish. We are using 4 bullet cams and a quad splitter. I take the 4 feeds as a single quad-view channel in as a live camera and then make a separate layer for each quadrant, colorize and effect each layer differently and then use the sequencer module to switch between camera angles to the beat.I love the stability I’m getting with the live camera feature and streaming it into Modul8 as uncompressed.

I also create a lot of my content as alpha PNG codec. It’s like photo jpeg but with alpha. It layers nicely in Modul8.

I would love to see more incorporation of generative elements in Modul8. Better integration of processing, Quartz, vvvv, etc. Oh, and apple + “Z.”

m8.us: What are your expectations from a vj software?

VJ Culture: Stability, flexibility and support. Rarely do my shows require the same configuration, so having a flexible design to the software is important to me.

For NYE, I did a show at City Hall in San Francisco. We used 4 DL1’s projecting on 4 massive columns in portrait mode. I used a desktop with dual graphics cards and a matrox triplehead2go card. I fed the V4 into a DFG box for converting the analog signal into a live camera feed for Modul8. Modul8 then spit out 4 portrait seamless images.
It ran perfectly all night long. Trying to pull that off with a hippo, spyder system or watchout would have cost thousands.

posted by admin @ 4 February, 2009 1 comment »

Deborah Johnson inteviewed in CDM

It takes a lot of guess work to figure out what most modul8 users are doing with the software. I am mostly fairly busy and tracking down stuff is not part of the daily routine. Sifting through the forum can be fun but I am very picky. Recently I added (as one should if they are working in the live video) Create Digital Motion to my RSS reader. I like it in general but it is a bit on the tech geek side for my tastes. So I was most delighted to see a post with an interview with a previously unknown to me visual artist by the name of Deborah Johnson.


Besides the obviousness of the image above providing very clear evidence that she is using modul8 (and I need to mention that an out of context quote that will be near and dear to any marketing team “I think that Modul8’s an incredibly smart program”) and hence my writing about it on this blog the overall message of what Deborah does is very much in line with the type of user that modul8 was created for. Deborah is a creative person who needs something that will simply and easily display the content she creates. And I guess more importantly modul8 lets her be the star of this article because most of the article she is questioned about her creative approach to making visuals for the music acts she works with. This particular interview was done during her tour with Sufijan and her previous collaborations involved acts like Wilco.

I could go on and on about the various aspects of her approach to working with visuals and the experiences she has in touching the audience with her work but I think its best if you posted by admin @ 18 May, 2008 0 comments »

Interview with sequencer module creator Gael Abegg-Gauthey

Some time this past fall Boris Edelstien of GarageCube showed me a module called ‘(vs) Layer Sequencer (Master). It was very nicely designed and it’s functionality was intriguing. While it did not much fit my own needs Boris was entranced by it.
Initially I was going to write a review about the module, how to use it, it’s pros and cons etc. I decided to contact it’s creator(s) and ask some questions about it. I followed the URL address provided by the modules author and the response I received was very generous and detailed. As a result this module review has been transformed into a brief profile of Gael Abegg-Gauthey, the gentleman who replied to my inquiry.

Gael Abegg-Gauthey is 33 years old, and lives in the alps of France in Annecy. His artist name is VJ Lupin. He is the co-founder of VisionSonore “a visual playground company” dedicated to video events, video production and of course VJ gigs. He was a former Art Director/ developer (a title he jokingly refers to as “a 5 legged sheep”) in a digital communication agency he also founded Megalos and Flash Teacher in a multimedia school(Gobelins – annecy) . He is an animation film geek loves to experiment with interactivity. His work is inspired by video games like Testuya Mizuguchi’s Rez project, digital art by John maeda, Nam Jun Paik’s videos, Gilles Roussi’s living digital light sculptures and japanese urban pop (sub) culture . He discovered modul8 during a gig in Geneva and he was totally amazed with the new approach of “live moving visuals.” He eloquently elaborated on this further in the following paragraph:

“Video compositing was what I was searching for in a live video software mixer. Thanks to my working habits as a graphic designer and motion designer I was used to composing pictures more than mixing images as traditionnal A/B mixing.
On the top of that modul8 was the first instance I could see being able create none square elements for a composition thanks to the alpha channel possibilities. I finally found a ‘non-cheating’ technique to make things tranparents as I was used to with other video software. Modul8 almost is the ultimate video playground to. I only wish it had several blend modes and then it would be the ultimate tool.”

I need to mention that the first version of Modul8 had blend modes. I hope very much that it returns in v.3. Now for the Q and A.

M8.u – Was there a specific project that you were working on that made you realize you needed this particular functionality?

Gael – When I first had the idea for this module I was just a modul8 rookie. I was a former resolume user before I had enough money to afford a Mac. Switching to M8 presented amazing possibilities. I was somehow lost in this 10 layer architecture canvas. The resolume experience was more simple and now I had to be more efficient like when you are working in a video editing and video post production environment. I was really concerned about music and it’s rhythm and tried to find a way to mix M8′s possibilities with a music & rhythm matching tool. Then the paradigm of time pattern used in most video and music softwares seemed to solve my problem and I decided to build the sequencer module.
now thanks to this module I have more time to work on color, composition and effects while the modules switches on and off video patterns and builds an additional visual rhythm based of my translation of music into visual triggering patterns.

M8.u Have you been using it on many other projects since you have created it?

Gael – Yeah sure, I’m using it almost everytime I am playing at a gig or when Visionsonore uses Modl8 for video events. We used it for the short french films festival in Munich, for the 100 th anniversary party of Rossignol Ski, Schwarzkopf Hair show, and artist’s shows like david grumel, delavegas, doctor flake, Flore…

M8.u Have you received any feedback about it from other users?

Gael – Oh yeah i didn’t expect such positive comments on this module. Of course most of the users have requests and I’m frustrated not to having enough time to give them additional functions to fulfill their requests. If I have time I’ll add the midi clock based function and a smart 10 layer sequencer setup. I also would like to create an effects sequencer. Programming is so fun with modul8 and the imagination of M8′s users is endless. I hope many of them will try to make their M8 fantasies come true and share it with other M8 users.

In closing Gael mentioned that he is starting a video label for users, graphic designers and motions designers. His company has set up a survey to find out what a lot of us are up to in our VJ’ing practice. In his spare time he is writing a book on how to code modul8 modules. We have a lot to look forward to.

posted by admin @ 21 February, 2007 1 comment »

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