Oh so pragmatic. Quick glimpses.

This past week was Bread & Butter here in Berlin , the international fashion fair. And what is a fashion fair without after parties and visuals to decorate these events where new trends are concocted and consumed simultaneously? A series of photos by Kriszta Turna provide a glimpse of a setup by David Szauder for a Custo after party at CHB in Berlin. David (aka Pixel Noizz) works a lot with Quartz Composer and Flash and was able to integrate these elements together quickly in order to have control over the atmosphere in the entire room. Color plays an important part in mood and this series of photos demonstrate Davids understanding of what is necessary in order to acheive this. David says "I was able to bring together my material quickly, QC compositions, .swf files, still images. No MIDI controller, mouse or any other external device. Amazing how quick and simple it was to put everything together. On top of that the client was really happy with the results."


I recently modified my keyboard. Look closely. I don't need to look at the keys anymore when I type, but when I am using my keyboard to control modul8 I like to have an alternate way of changing layer sets and for this I use the 1 through 8 keys. Fine for the numbered keys that control group A. But what about group B? The solution? Grab the 1 through 8 keys from my older, backup laptop and swap them out.


Our recent move gave us access to more space and finally ready is the production space for t-shirt printing and box assembly.


Installation, created by Fred from the Le Zoo crew in the Kab club for last weekends 4th edition of the Drum & Bass + Hardtek party. It was a 4 output setup with a Mac Pro. Connected the MacBook Pro in FireWire transfer mode so I could use my own system. Most charming. The tech was pretty much the last minute and setups were scrambled for at the last minute yielded the following setup:


After creating compositions with all of the layer sets using the library of foreground material at my disposal it was just a matter of re-arranging layer sets over time for variety sake.

If anyone has their own Korg NanoKontrol that they want to share please let me know. Would be fun to see what other people are doing with the same controller and I would gladly test them out and then post them here.


Finally would like to give a big thanks to Visual Berlin and fh.Meppen as well as all who attended the workshop this past Saturday. It was a small but very friendly group of people. Not only did they have a lot of good questions that kept things rolling along, they also communicated with each other giving the whole thing a sort of communal affair. There have been a few requests to do another. Likely in August. So if you are interested in a workshop, live in Berlin or happen to be coming to Berlin this summer please be sure to communicate so we can all get together.

VMX VJ v2

VMX VJ CODANOVA
Originally uploaded by codanova

Our friends over at Codanova have unleashed extensive photographs of the refreshed VMX VJ controller. Thinner and with some small graphical alterations this controller is a collaboration between French VJ and tenacious blogger Le Collagiste who had modul8 very much in mind when advising on the layout of the controls.

Its good to see this controller slim down a bit as one my only qualms with it was its size and weight. Ever the traveling digital bards that we are know that every once counts in making that gig back lighter.

One of the sweet spots for me on the VMX VJ is the grid of square buttons that allow for switching media with a visual reference to the media set window with LED lights that act as a visual reference to which media set you are in. By looking down at the led lights I did not have to look at my laptop screen and could therefore determine what media bin I am in. The playback controls at the top can be mapped to the logical record functions for easy access to this feature without having to fiddle around with your mouse cursor.

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.

Some very fine modul8 demos on YouTube

modul8 user Gary Oldknow from London, UK has posted some very impressive modul8 demos. Not only does he cover the basics in a most befitting manner but also presents it all with a very sensible aesthetic sensibility. Especially enjoy the lighting he chose for demonstrating the midi configuration.

Demo part 1
Demo part 2


Upon further investigation I discovered that Gary has been involved in some very big gigs. Have a look on his website. I can also recommend having a look at his other demos using the kaos Pad Entrancer and the CG8.

Thanks to eric for bringing my attention to this.