Archive for the ‘VJing’ Tag
All 3 from Henry
Filed under: Video, VJing, Wordplay | Tags: av performance, edirol, london, london poetry systems, motion dive tokyo, poetry, v4 mixer, vj, VJing
Leave a Comment The three poems Henry Stead performed at the launch night for London Poetry Systems.
In order, they are:
- The Love of Phlebas
- A Visionary’s Visionary Vision
- An Ancient Process
Thanks to Kaara for her design work on Phlebas. All three visual scores were outputted through an Edirol V4 mixer, performed with motion dive .tokyo, and pre-produced in Adobe Premier and Adobe After Effects.
Understanding Fair Use
Filed under: Public Information, VJing | Tags: Copyright, fair use, law, remixing, Video, VJing
Leave a Comment Luke sent me a very informative link from Boing Boing yesterday. If you’re not in the habit of making video, you can skip this post.
I won’t pretend that Fair Use is riveting. But it’s something you need to understand if you want to sample material that isn’t your own.
This piece is available in full here and the Centre for Social Media has a lot more to help you get your head around Creative Commons law and Fair Use.
Why does any of this concern me? Well, it affects my VJing work, for one. I’ve not yet met a VJ who doesn’t use a single sample in their set. Neither have I met a VJ who’s entirely comfortable about their legal footing in doing so.
But a VJ should aspire to sample less and less as they develop. There’s a lot of insight in the book and DVD by D-Fuse and Michael Faulkner on this subject.
And whatever you’re doing, whether it’s original or sampled, it should be transformative. That’s the whole point.
I think reading up on Fair Use is an effective way to quality control your work and ensure you stand out from the YouTube mash-ups. I’d recommend it.
Painting with Light
Filed under: Design, Video | Tags: antivj, fubiz, light painting, lightmark, pikapika, revver, ryan cashman, tochka, VJing
Leave a Comment A lovely photoblog post over at Fubiz triggered this spot of digging.
Ryan Cashman shot his light-paint piano player in San Diego. High five to Ryan!
This was a live performance by AntiVJ Lab in Bridwell Prison, Bristol, earlier this year.
And the best I’ve found so far are Japanese crew PIKAPIKA. Unfortunately, all their most high-res work is on Revver and I’ve not cracked the embedding yet.
If you’ve got time, you should really check it out here.
Live at the FleaPit Cafe
Filed under: VJing, Wordplay | Tags: av, beat poetry, beats, ginsberg, live av poetry, london poetry systems, performance, poetry, VJing, william burroughs
Leave a Comment Videos from last month’s London Poetry Systems launch night at the FleaPit are now online.
Here’s Henry Stead performing ‘A Visionary’s Visionary Vision’.
We spent a few weeks working together on each of his poems, and this live audiovisual performance is the product of those experiments.
How to VJ #3
Filed under: VJing | Tags: animation, gilles deleuze, How to VJ, layers, london, loops, motion graphics, Music, video editing, vj, VJing, zan lyons
Comments (1) 
After How to VJ # 2, you’re now in the deep groove of pre-production.
Your footage is moving alright. But you’ve got to cut it correct in the edit, or you won’t be able to make it behave on the night.
You look ahead to that future in loops or lines.
Stop for a second. Listen to music you like – the kind of music you want to perform to. You have to understand that music.
Parts of it will be looping in regular and complete patterns. Parts of it won’t feel complete. They’ll be coming in at intervals and fading out, unfinished. They’ll be stabbing in, hard, jagged, irregular.
Your footage should use both if you want your live performance to be subtle and impressive. You’ll rely on loops to create layers and depth. You’ll need lines to give it surprise and character through manual control.
I’ll end this with Zan Lyons. I was lucky enough to work alongside him for London Poetry Systems this week. His layers, loops and lines reverberated through sound and image together and they explain this core thought much better than I can in words. Truly stunning.
Just watch closely what he’s doing, and turn your speakers up…
Bonus thought: Still not sure what’s meant by loops and lines? Look at the next Flash landing page you hit online. Is the load animation linear (like a load bar with a defined end point) or looping (like a circle going round continually until the page loads up)?
Recommended reading: Gilles Deleuze – Cinema 2: The Time-Image.
Previously: #1 What can you do?; #2 How can it dance?
Up next: #4 You know the type?
Movimiento Porteño
Filed under: Street, Video | Tags: argentina, blu, buenos aires, HD, iplayer, motion graphics, movement, punto y raya, street art, tango, vimeo, VJing
Comments (1) Last year in Buenos Aires I was hungry-eyed on the streets. There was protest, performance, politicking and an implacable air of tango. Under the stern skies, always life and movement.
Now, after a winter of work by Blu, the walls have started moving (thanks Kaara for the link).
So what the hell’s happening out there?
You can keep a watchful eye on What’s Up Buenos Aires.
And if you need a motion refill, last month Buenos Aires hosted Punto y Raya (snippet below). Not the same ai ai ai! factor as Blu’s animation, but a bucketload of technique.
Back to basics: dots, lines, movement.
All core for VJs. But with HD and new(ish) sites like Vimeo – not to mention BBC’s iPlayer – everyone needs to stay sharp to movimiento.
It’s a language the whole world’s speaking in. You gotta catch its finer inflections.
Update: Blu, the artist who created the first video, is from Bologna. You can read his blog here. More info about the production here. And a well-gathered overview at Drawn!
How to VJ #1
Filed under: VJing | Tags: bbc, frame, How to VJ, multiple orgasms, visuals, VJing, words
Leave a Comment We bump into each other at the bar.
You: So you’re going to write some stuff about VJing?
Me: Yeah, it’s something I get asked about. Figure I should put some thoughts down. I taught myself through trial and error - it’s hard to find anyone who can give practical advice.
You: But what’s the point? Where do you start? Most people haven’t heard of VJing.
Me: I’m going to start with a question.
You take photographs. You write notes and doodle.
You have eyes and those eyes see hundreds and thousands of things every day that arrest you.
Any mark you make, any visual record you take of the world around you, whatever your eyes process – could all be used in VJing.
Focus your mind on the frame. That’s your first blank space. What can you make or find to put in it?
Until you consider that, you shouldn’t start. The BBC recommends starting with a camera and a computer. Their advice is sound, but they’ve skipped a few beats.
Your material doesn’t need to be filmed, for one. You don’t need to use software, for two (more on this later).
You can use anything that’s visual. You could use words alone, if they’re written well. Play a Nina Simone record and tell a story about multiple orgasms in North Korea, if you like.
Just get the frame in your head and start filling it with your eyes.
Up next: #2 How can it dance?
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