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.

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!

Cities that start with an 'A'

The Modul8 VJ Team (along with some of the Mapping Team) has been invited by 'The Erasers' to Athens to light up the Cyclorama Party. The Erasers were one of the highlights of Mapping Festival 2009. We will actually be in town from the 30th through the 5th so feel free to chat us up if you are in Athens.

For those of you based in the U.S.



Atlanta: From July 10th through the 12th Motion Graphics Festival showcases explosive artists and motion picture creators.

The ATL-MGFest will be hosting workshops and lectures about the shift in motion-picture audiences and explores the new technologies that motion designers will need on the video internet frontier. Motion design, sound design and interactivity, are all featured during July 11th and 12th, with daytime workshops at Atlanta's Adobe Certified Training Facility, Sterling Ledet. Evening screenings and live performances will be hosted at Atlanta's Internationally-renowned portfolio school, Creative Circus.

This festival in the fast moving field of design technology has opened it's Art & Entertainment events for only $7. Rather than charging the typical $500-$1500 conference fee, the Motion Graphics Festival encourages participants to stop complaining about the economy, and spend their money on something that will upgrade their tools, technique and aesthetics. Software, DVDs and music will be available at a discount rate throughout the festival week.

Silent Auction for over $18,000 in software, DVDs and training materials.

.: MGFest Schedule + Registration :: http://www.MGFest.com

Finally, coming up next month will be an AVIT gathering in the town of Kezmarok in northern Slovakia. It will be a audio/visual feast of performances, outdoor and indoor, open jams, workshops, talks. I'll have more accurate details in the coming week.

Brussels + Starloops delivers Claridge with their dreams

During my last visit to Brussels for the Cimatics Festival we were taken by our friend François from Starloops to see an ongoing installation site in an event space called Claridge. I met with Marco who is the director of the space. He explained the importance of Brussels in that it is the administrative capital of the European Union. Because of this many large organizations are also based there. Claridge provides these organizations with a space and full range of services to host events such as presentations, parties and ceremonies. The goal of Claridge is to constantly find new and innovative ways to enhance and maximize the use of the space. To appeal to the olfactory senses of the attendees by providing a fully immersive experience. For Marco modul8 was a key step in accomplishing this goal.

Initially Starloops was hired to provide visuals for the events at Claridge in the form of projections of fractals. However once Marco was introduced to Modul8 and its multi-projection capabilities he, along with François and the Starloops team were able to accomplish an idea that had been in their minds for some time. Along both sides of the walls of Claridge are inset arches. An elevation is situated just below these. With the multi-projection Starloops was able to have a projection in side each arch on both sides of the space. The dream was to be able to project a panoramic still image across the screens so that the images in the arches were continuous and provided the illusion so that the space could transport people into another place on the globe without having to travel there.



Examples of this experience are enhanced by using various materials for each type of panorama. For example to provide the experience of a beach sand and deck chairs were brought in to compliment a panorama of a sunny sea side. For a forrest setting a carpet of real grass filled the floor and a setting for a picnic. For a mountain range the lesser yet still effective fake snow. This combination of image and material can be quite thrilling for audiences. Marco used the word 'surreal' to describe the experience.

Some cool tools so you don't have to run around with a remote control.

From the success of this idea new solutions emerged. For awards ceremonies it was commonplace to use the stage as the focal point of the evenings presentations. Instead Claridge borrowed the fashion industry approach of a catwalk placed down the center of the room. This change yielded two advantages. The first was that that the time needed to announce all of the nominations was cut in half because the images of the nominees could be presented simultaneously inside each arch instead of one by one on a single screen. The second advantage was that the audience was seated facing each other at all times preventing people from falling asleep when realizing how embarrassing it would be if anyone saw them.



With these capabilities fully realized the Starloops and Claridge partnership is looking to new achieve new goals. Instead of just still panoramic images they want to have full motion video panoramas in order to deepen the sensation of immersion. The current obstacle is obtaining such footage that would fill all the screens without having to stretch the image. At this time there few if any companies that offer stock in these sizes. The solution the are currently looking at is to use a camera from RED that would allow them to shoot 4k. Starloops can shoot original materials to be used at Claridge and also provide them as stock for their online store that has been providing quality loops for the video and event industry for several years now.

A collaborative client like Claridge that is open to new ideas has been a real treat for a company like Starloops. Having a shared vision between the customer and the client has allowed Starloops to do experiments in a space that Claridge has clearly benefited from. Once you have a proving ground based on concrete projects it is easier to present these projects to other existing customers.