La Terrazzza report
We just returned yesterday afternoon from Barcelona for the VJ gig at La Terrazzza. It was an amazing trip for many reasons. First off this would all not have been possible without the amazing energy of Raul Casañas of The Holy Trinity Project. I often hear from other aspiring VJ's how difficult it is to break in and do something. I completely agree. The fact is that there are very few clubs out there that readily call up VJ's and say 'Hey! we have lots of extra money lying around. You are a talented VJ and you work really hard so we are going to pay you some big bucks to buy some projectors and everyone will boogie to the early dawn to your crazy images.' The reality is that for the most part the artist has to make this happen. Raul is working hard on making that happen.
La Terrazzza is a moderately sized outdoor club that occupies a court yard in a building within a district on the outskirts of the city of Barcelona. When you approach the area you see all these crazy beautiful buildings and when entering the 'gates' you are transported into what looks like a fortified town from the middle ages. As it turns out all of it was built in the 1970's for the soul purpose of 'promoting Spanish culture.' All of the buildings are actually replicas of famous buildings from all over Spain. Architectural sampling mash up. What a concept. Raul explained all this with enthusiasm as he lead us through the winding streets to the venue.
A little over 4 or 5 months ago I received an email from Raul asking for some kind of cooperation in a venture to enlarge the presence of visuals at La Terrazzza. They had been doing visuals there last year but with only on or two projectors. His ambitious plan to bring that number to 6 projectors. 3 on each wall above the dance floor with two groups of three creating a panoramic for which they would use two TripleHead2go units. This plan was made possible by a generous contribution from Sanyo in return for having their logo projected at the beginning and the end of the night and printed on all of the promotional material for La Terrazzza parties. His appreciation for modul8 led him to inquire if we would be interested in a similar arrangement. He was also very much committed to bringing great VJ's from outside of Spain. Upon finding out we were not just a software company but also VJ's he invited us down to try out the system he and his partner assembled.
From the moment we entered La Terrazzza I could see that Raul had an amazing raport with the entire staff. Smiles and 'Hola' to everyone as he showed us the big posters with the logos and then guided us up to the VJ booth that was perfectly situated near the DJ booth with a full view of the club and the two panoramic projection screens that were already up and running. Raul explained to us that the theme the club adopted this year was a that of a travel agency. He contributed to this theme by shooting video of the staff members of the club dressed in uniforms worn by people working in the travel world such as flight attendants, pilots and air ground crew. The figures were shot on a black background so that they were very visible projected. I thought this was a very clever way to embrace the theme of the club and also get the people who work in the club to be part of the fun in creating visuals. We plugged in our gear and got some drinks chatting up with Raul who introduced us to the people that run the club.
Raul describes La Terrazzza as a bastion for House music in Barcelona. It caters mostly to foreigners. Despite the surroundings though and it's location away from the center of town it is very much a club that you have to be 'in the know' to get to. By 02h00 the place was wall to wall bodies. At 02h30 Boris and I started our mixing. Some friends showed up. Rigo from Meneo, the Latinesque 8bit boy wonder who was a feature at this years Mapping and who generously let us crash at his pad for the duration of our stay. Bram Crevits from Cimatics Festival in Brussels happened to be staying in Barcelona. I had met him only briefly when he came to Geneva this year for the Mapping and it was great to have some time to talk about our respective experiences with curating audio visual oriented festivals. Jaime who is a big modul8 fan and works with Luis on setting up projections for parties and we shared thoughts on vj software and projector installation.
At 05h30 the sky started to pale and the house resident DJ Oscar Aguilera did the last round of beats we packed up our gear as the La Terrazzza crew ushered the crowd out. By 12h00 we were on our flight back to Geneva. Exhausted but fulfilled.
Labels: Barcelona, challenge, collaboration, Community, Modul8, people, Performances, personalities, projection, Spain
posted by ilan katin @ Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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