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“… a fat banging cross cultural Turkish James Bond themed hip hop party song… a world where each MC character is a superhero agent unifying to fight ignorance and navigating through utopian landscapes and colourful scenes in an undercover global mission rap style.”

This ended up being quite a crazy animation ride, transforming Curse Ov Dialect into animated secret service agents… Was very happy with how it turned out though!
(More on the animation process here)

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Music for the medley below – Fight the Night, by Leah Flanagan

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Curse Ov Dialect – “Never North”, Dir by Jean Poole,
From the 2021 full length album, ‘Dark Days Bright Nights’
More about that.

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Shadow Visuals for Ania Reynolds from jeanpoole on Vimeo.

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One of my favourite gigs in 2019 – was ZATOCZKA – a live cinema tribute to Krzysztof Komeda (the Polish jazz / film soundtrack composer) at Melbourne’s Fed Square. Adam Simmons and the Adam Simmons Creative Ensemble cooked up a gorgeously meandering musical tribute, and it was a treat to try and match the mood, with footage shot around Merri Creek with the enigmatic Luca Brazil. It was an enchanting evening, and while all live performances are ephemeral, this felt even more so, given the unique combination of people (including special guests Tony Gould – piano, Deborah Kayser – voice) coming together for that night, in that beautiful space.

Fast forward a year, and there’s now an album available, made from the live recording. And, there’s also a music video, for – ‘Sleep Safe & Warm‘, probably Komeda’s most famous track, used in the 1968 Polanski film, Rosemary’s Baby. Hopefully there’ll be a chance to perform Zatoczka again soon, but at least we have some mementos in the meantime.

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“My underlying design philosophy is akin to synthesizers in music, that is, visual instruments with oscillators and various visual ‘forms’ as source compositions.  I tend to design these instruments to be open, allowing you the greatest flexibility to influence the output, a good dose of ‘meta’ design that can get you results quickly, and finally I strive to build systems with unique aleatoric progression, randomness and style capable of producing unexpected results… I take great joy in crafting shape-specific UV texture maps that preserve the best aspect ratio for maximum video impact.”

– Johnny De Kam

Overall, the Zoetroepe collection of plugins focus on colour controls, pattern generation and geometric transformations – but it’s the way they’ve been built, which distinguishes from a lot of more directly functional plugins out there. Let’s start with the juiciest:

FLOW : Organic Generative Design

FOLD: Folding Generative Design

GEODE: 3D Mapping video

“A 3D video mapping & geometric alpha transition engine, based on meticulously crafted 3D mesh models – you can easily map a video source and animate it in space.”

There’s a lot of fun to be had – adding video textures to objects as easily as this. With the technical details resolved, it’s straight into compositing and animating movement, scale and rotation over time. Duplicate layers to create shadows, composite against colours, textures, backgrounds (muted? coloured? blurred?), scale large for abstraction – everything happens fast with OpenGL acceleration.  Enabling the vertex distortion algorithm – animates individual vertex points in the model, offering up even more contortions on your video.

• could use mirror (and other modes) for tiling..

GEODE TRANS

Using this same 3D model-based approach, playful transitions are possible by using the alpha channel to define the transparency between A and B video over time. Load one of thirteen models, then define / animate the light source position, and adjust softness to vary the transition from hard edged wipe to gentle fade. In the screenshot above, a geometric transition is revealing the orange cityscape against the wet window clip. The combinations possible through object rotation, changing the light source, and softening the object edges really help tune the dynamics of the transition to the clips.

PATTR: Seamless Patterns Suite

MULTIVIEW: Split Screen Effects Engine

“A collection of nine multi-channel video generators, allowing you to display up to nine synchronized videos at once, with or without borders.”

HALO BENDER: Organic Colour Effects

COLR: Animated Generative Colour Backgrounds

Requirements:

• After Effects, Premiere, or Final Cut Pro X on OS X.
• Each plugin available at FXFactory, priced between $39 and $49 US.

Verdict:

The Zoetroepe plugins bring some of the fun of real-time visual software – to the demands of the keyframable production timeline. Well worth a spin by anyone looking for timeline convenient ways to explore and experiment with compositing, visual styles and effects.

Examples of Use:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkeRezlhC_x

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkjCt17HzS9

Interview with Johnny Dekam:

What have you been doing with video since creating VDMX?
I decided to pass the VIDVOX torch to David Lublin when it became clear there were opportunities in large scale project work: concert tours, installations, media festivals, etc. My first big tour was with Sasha & John Digweed & my client list grew steadily over time. Touring as video director or visual content director is something I’ve continued to do until very recently.  I’ve also kept very engaged with the art world (which is where my formal training began). Through it all, I’ve continued to create custom software, systems and experiments. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve managed to keep a very interdisciplinary practice over the years.

Was there a fulldome phase in there somewhere?
Indeed there was. My first project when transitioning away from VIDVOX, circa 2004, was to create a digital planetarium for a children’s museum. That’s where I met the Elumenati, who had just started marketing their patented fulldome projection lenses. Within a year I started working for them directly, seeing what kind of real-time software we could create to drive immersive fulldome experiences. It was fascinating work, years ahead of its time in terms of VR. We mounted several live dome projects as well as a few permanent installations. Alas, the work was very niche and difficult to sustain, and concert tours kept calling me. I subsequently left do develop a full show for synth pop icon / renaissance man, Thomas Dolby.

What has interested you about the evolution of live video during that time?
It was a very new idea for concert tours to incorporate realtime visual content. So called media-servers were in their infancy. The electronic music scene was very hip to it all, but outside of this, only a handful of VJ’s had managed to break out into larger concert production industry. It was a very interesting place to be in. I had spent years of my life pioneering my tools with VIDVOX, and now I was able to see the fruits of my labor work in front of massive audiences around the world. The pursuit then became more about the content itself, and advancing the ways in which we could create and manipulate it live. How it could seamlessly integrate with the lighting and set design. It has been fascinating to watch the technology continue to evolve.

I am so proud that VDMX continues to be such a powerful tool, used by so many people, on so many productions.

What lead you into exploring abstract plugins for editing and post production software?
With touring, working for grammy winning acts, television, the whole thing, I found I was traveling nearly most of the year. Then, my wife and I had our daughter, and it quickly became important for me to focus on my family and get off the road.

I struggled a bit to figure out how I could pivot my career. We moved to Boston and I started doing `traditional` video editing and production for the many universities here, such as Harvard and MIT. It dawned on me that I had one true calling that I’ve always loved, and that was video software. FxFactory is based here in Boston, which if you didn’t know, can use Quartz Composer under the hood to create plugins. I love QC so it just made a lot of sense.

I saw a unique opportunity to explore some perennial creative ideas I’ve worked with, but in the plugin space. Most plugins out there are purpose built for utility and saving time. I am more interested in the artistic and generative design possibilities. The downside perhaps is that I’ve curtailed my market by doing so, as they may seem bit idiosyncratic and weird at first glance, but hopefully there are some folks that realize their true potential.

Which of your plugins do you enjoy using the most?
Each one has its own unique appeal. One of my favorite strategies is to use COLR as a source generator, and then apply FLOW or FOLD to play with shape. It is endlessly fun! I’m also proud of GEODE, my equivalent to ‘basic research’ — It is deceptively simple, but ultimately powerful when you explore its potential.

What opportunities exist for 3D software today?
I think there is a lot of interesting things one can do with 3D, but for years I stayed away from it because I found the mechanics so tedious. People who model and animate 3D really have a special temperament, it is not how I like to work, but often find I must. For me I am most interested in live generation and manipulation of the 3D form… to bring the immediacy of raster based instruments like VDMX to the 3D space. I would like to build visual instruments that use 3D vectors as their source.

You’ve mentioned the plugins work better in FCP X rather than the Adobe suite – because they were built using Quartz Composer, which I’ll presume FCP X integrates better. Is QC the reason behind the large number of plugins that are FCP X only?
It’s not because of QC, it is because Apple allowed Motion to be a plugin and template engine for FCPX. Anyone with mograph experience can get their feet wet making plugins, even sell them if they like. FxFactory facilitates a lot of this. PixelFilmStudios is another player that really works almost exclusively with Apple Motion as their dev tool.

As for Adobe CC, part of the magic with the FxFactory ecosystem is that they ‘wrap’ plugins built natively with Quartz into a package that Premiere and After Effects can use directly, which has allowed people like me to make products without needing to work in Xcode, and be able to address both Apple’s and Adobe’s ecosystem with the same source. I think my plugins run ‘better’ in FCPX simply because FCPX is quite simply faster than Adobe. Mind you, this is a MacOSX discussion we are having here.

What are your thoughts about the role and future of QC today – within the Plugin developer community – and for coder artists in general?
People have been saying for years QC is going to die. Yet it hasn’t happened nor has Apple ever indicated they plan to. I see it a bit like QuickTime. It is so fundamental and so many products rely on it that Apple would be shooting itself in the foot to actively kill it. That said, what they are doing is building more tech around Metal and making it easier to code with Swift, at the same time training young ones in Swift from the start. It’s a powerful long term strategy when you think about. Eventually there won’t really be a need for Quartz (in their mind).

There will always be a place for node-based graphical programming, so even if Apple doesn’t release ‘a new Quartz Composer’ I am absolutely certain other tools will be filling the space (as they already are). Vuo, VVVV, FxCore, Max/Jitter, Touch Designer Etc.

Do you have future  Zoetroepe plugins in mind?
I’m working on something completely different than plugins right now. I mentioned earlier an interest in realtime 3D instruments… and this is where I’m heading – a return to application software rather than plugins. I hope it will have a broader appeal. I’m particularly interested in the design community, who I think have much to gain by exploring instruments rather timelines and canvases. I also have a keen eye on blockchain tech, but I really can’t say anything else about that right now.

**

See also: reviews of VDMX 5 (2012), VDMX 4 (2003)  VDMX 2 (2002) and Grid Pro (2005)

and : VDMX Masterclass with David Lublin at ACMI

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Above – some recent projects I’ve had the pleasure of being involved with.

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My videoclip for the fabulous and enchanting Melbourne duo, Time For Dreams.

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After all the work that can go into video material for an event, playback control can sometimes be left as an afterthought – it’s not unknown to see videos being played back from video editing software and ‘live-scrubbed’, or to watch users flipping between their desktop and powerpoint / keynote / Quicktime etc. VJ software of course brings a flexibility and reliability to playback control – taking care of the basics such as fading to black, or looping upon finish of clip, cross-fading, or simply – avoiding the desktop suddenly appearing on the main projected screen. The flexibility of most VJ software is also one of it’s limitations – the strength of real-time effects and mixing, tending to make interfaces more obtuse than they need to be for users seeking simple playback. And when getting simple playback exactly right becomes important, for events, theatre, installations etc – this is where Mitti seems to be aiming at, in the ballpark of apps like Playback Pro, QLAB or perhaps Millumin, where cues and critical timing are given more priority than visual effects.

So What’s Mitti Like?

Running at it’s most minimal, with a playlist of clips, Mitti appears deceptively simple – but comes dense with custom controls at every level.

The Interface – a strength would seem to be the efforts spent in making a very clear and intuitive interface for Mitti – it comes across as clean and easy to navigate, with extended options available where they might be expected. (And for further depth – go to the control menu, choose Mitti, then Preferences, to see a very well organised array of options)

Timing – Exact timing control can be critical, and Mitti boasts low latency, a GPU playback engine, and can run from an SMPTE based internal clock, or slave to external hardware or software sources. If you know what these Mitti capacities mean, you’re possibly the intended audience: external MTC (MIDI Timecode), LTC (Linear Timecode), SMPTE offsetting, Jam-Sync.

Cues – You can create and trigger cues for videos, images, cameras (and native Blackmagic support), syphon and NDI sources – each with nuanced options, and easily add or adjust in/out points per clip. Cues can be set to loop, and the playlist can be paused between cues, until ready to start the next cue.

Nuanced control of fades, transitions – eg individual control per cue over fade in or outs, and over 30 ISF based video transition options

Remote Controllability + Sync – Hello MMC (Midi Machine Control), MSC (MIDI show control), hardware and software midi controllers, OSC + Art-Net (DMX over ethernet). Multiple versions of Mitti on the same network can be easily synced.

Output finessing – Includes colour controls, video effects, audio channel routing and for multiple video displays – Mitti provides individual 4-corner warping for each, and edge blending between overlapping projectors. Mitti can also output syphon, blackmagic and NDI.

Screenshots:

Below, showing the various cue preference options:

Launch page:

Video output options:

Project Preferences, which include detailed options for each item on the left:

Support:

This can be important when dealing with unusual projects or computer quirks… and Imimot boast great support –  “Our average first response time was only 3 hours 5 minutes in the past 7 days!”, as well as extensive FAQ / tips and support documentation:

Requirements:

A mac computer – running 10.10-10.12.

$299US for perpetual licence (for 2 computers) (30% edu discount available)

$79US rental licence for 30 days from first activation.

Verdict:

Solid, reliable software that’ll be of interest to anyone involved with running video for time-critical events, theatre and installations.  Double thumbs up!

Interview with Tamas Nagy, Creator of Mitti

Tamas, below in Imimot HQ, was nice enough to answer some questions about why he made Mitti….

With the ecosystem of video software that exists – what inspired you to add MITTI to it?
The idea of creating Mitti is coming from Vezér feature requests – the funny thing with this is Vezér was also born by a couple of CoGe feature requests A lot of Vezér users were searching …. for an any-to-use but remote controllable video playback solution, which plays nice with Vezér, or even requested video playback functionality in Vezér. Adding video playback functions to Vezér does not sound reasonable for me, the app was not designed that way, and I wanted to leave it as a “signal processes”/show control tool instead of redesigning the whole app. After doing some research I’ve found there were no app that time on the market I could offer to Vezér users which is easy to setup and use, lightweight, and controllable by various protocols that Vezér supports. So I’ve started to create one. The original plan was to make something really basic, but once I’ve started to speak about the project to my pals and acquaintances, I’ve realised there is a need for an easy to use app on the market with pro features, and by pro features I mean timecode sync, multi-output handling, capture card support.

What are some contexts you imagine MITTI being used?
Mitti is targeting the presentation, theatre, broadcast and exhibitions market, usually where reliable cue-based media playback is needed – and this is where Mitti’s current user base come from: event producer companies, theatre, visual techs of touring artists, composers working together with DAWs, etc.

What interests you about NDI?
I believe NDI is the next big thing after Syphon. Now you can share frames between computers even running different operating systems without or minimal latency, using cheap network gear or already exists network infrastructure. And there are even hardwares coming with native NDI support!

What are some interesting ways you’ve enabled Vezer+Mitti interplay?
The coolest thing is NMC I believe – our in-house network protocol which enabled sending transport and locate command thru the network. Vezér sends NMC commands by defaults and Mitti listens to them by default, which means you can make Mitti scrub on its timeline and receive start/stop commands from Vezér with no setup. 

An other big thing is the OSC Query. This is not strictly Mitti and Vezér related. OSC Query is a protocol – still in draft mode yet – proposed by mrRay from Vidvox to discover an OSC-enabled app’s OSC address space. As far as I know only Mitti and Vezér supporting this protocol on the market, but hopefully others will join pretty soon, since this going to be a game changer in my opinion.

You can even copy-paste Cues from Mitti to Vezér.

Why is Mitti priced more expensive than COGE?
This is a rather complex topic, but basically Mitti has been designed to a fairly different market than CoGe. Also CoGe is highly underpriced in my opinion – well, pricing things is far more complex stuff than I imagined when CoGe hit the prime time – but that is a whole different topic.

Thanks Tamas!
(See also : COGE review and interview )

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What is Lumen?

A mac based app (needing OSX 10.8 or later) for ‘creating engaging visuals in real-time’… with a ‘semi-modular design that is both playable and deep.. the perfect way to get into video synthesis.’ In other words – it’s a software based video synthesiser, with all the noodling, head-scratching experiments and moments of delightful serendipity this implies. A visual synthesiser – that can build up images from scratch, then rhythmically modify and refine them over time. It has been thoughtfully put together though, so despite the range of possibilities – it’s also very quickly ‘playable’ – and always suggesting there’s plennnnttttyyyy of room to explore.

The Lumen Interface

While the underlying principles of hardware based video synthesisers are being milked here to good effect – a lot of the merits of Lumen are in the ways they’ve managed to make these principles easily accessible with well considered interface design. It has been divided into 3 sections – a preset browser (which also features a lovely X/Y pad for interpolating between various presets), a knob panel interface, and a patch panel interface. It’s a very skeuomorphic design, but it also cleverly takes the software to places where hardware couldn’t go (more on that later).

What should be evident in those screengrabs, is that experimentation is easy- and there’s a lot of depth to explore. The extensive reference material helps a lot with the latter. And as you can see, they can’t help but organise that beautifully on their site:

Lumen Presets

Lumen comes pre-loaded with 150+ presets, so it’s immediately satisfying upon launch, to be able to jump between patches and see what kind of scope and visual flavours are possible.

… and it’s easy to copy and remix presets, or export and swap them – eg on the Lumen slack channel.

Midi, OSC + Audioreactivity

Although all are planned, only midi exists in Lumen so far, but it’s beautifully integrated. With a midi controller (or a phone/tablet app sending OSC to a midi translating app on your computer) – Lumen really comes into it’s own, and the real-time responsiveness can be admired. Once various parameters are connected via midi control, those of course can effectively be made to be audioreactive, by sending signals from audioreactively controlled parameters in other software. Native integration will be nice when it arrives though.

Video Feedback, Software Style

Decent syphon integration of course opens a whole range of possibilities…. Lumen’s output can be easily piped into software like VDMX or COGE for use as a graphic source or texture, or mapping software like madmapper. At the moment there are some limitations with aspect ratios and output sizes, but that’s apparently being resolved in a near-future update.

With the ability to import video via syphon though, Lumen can reasonably considered as an external visual effects unit. Lumen can also take in camera feeds for processing, but it’s the ability to take in a custom video feed that can make it versatile – eg video clips created for certain visual ideas, or the output of a composition in a mapping program.

This screengrab below shows the signal going into Lumen from VDMX, and also out of lumen back into VDMX. Obviously, at some point this inevitably means feedback, and all the associated fun/horror.

Also worth a look: Lumen integration with VDMX – post by artist Wiley Wiggins – and accompanying video tutorial (including a nice top to use osculator as a means of enabling touchosc finger-gliding control over the square pad interpolation of Lumen snapshots).

Requirements:

• macOS 10.8 or newer (Each license activates two computers)
• $129US

VERDICT

There’s an army of lovers of abstracted visuals that are going to auto-love Lumen, but it has scope too for others looking for interesting ways to add visual textures, and play with real-time visual effects on video feeds. It could feasibly have an interesting place in a non-real-time video production pipeline too. Hopefully in a few years, we’ll be awash in a variety of real-time visual synthesis apps, but for now Lumen is a delightfully designed addition to the real-time video ecosystem.

Interview with Lumen creator, Jason Grlicky

– What inspired you to develop Lumen?

I’ve always loved synthesizers, but for most of my life that was limited to audio synths. As soon as I’d heard about video synthesis, I knew I had to try it for myself! The concept of performing with a true video instrument – one that encourages real-time improvisation and exploration – really appeals to me.

Unfortunately, video synths can be really expensive, so I couldn’t get my hands on one. Despite not being able to dive in (or probably because of it), my mind wouldn’t let it go. After a couple failed prototypes, one morning about I woke up with a technical idea for how I could emulate the analog video synthesis process in software. At that point, I knew that my path was set…

– When replicating analogue processes within software – what have been some limitations / happy surprises?

There have been so many happy accidents along the way. Each week during Lumen’s development, I discovered new techniques that I didn’t think would be possible with the instrument. There are several presets that I included which involve a slit-scan effect that only works because of the specific way I implemented feedback, for instance! My jaw dropped when I accidentally stumbled on that. I can’t wait to see what people discover next.

My favorite part about the process is that the laws of physics are just suggestions. Software gives me the freedom to deviate from the hardware way of doing things in order to make it as easy as possible for users. The way that Lumen handles oscillator sync is a great example of this.

Can you describe a bit more about that freedom to deviate from hardware – in how Lumen handles oscillator sync?

In a traditional video synth oscillator, you’ll see the option to sync either to the line rate or to the vertical refresh rate, which allows you to create vertical or horizontal non-moving lines. When making Lumen, I wanted to keep the feeling of control as smooth as possible, so I made oscillator sync a knob instead of a switch. As you turn it clockwise, the scrolling lines created by the oscillator slow down, then stop, then rotate to create static vertical lines. It’s a little thing, but ultimately allows for more versatile output and more seamless live performance than has ever been possible using hardware video synths.

Were there any other hardware limitations that you were eager to exploit the absence of within software?

At every turn I was looking for ways to push beyond what hardware allows without losing the spirit of the workflow. The built-in patch browser is probably the number-one example. Being able to instantly recall any synth settings allows you to experiment faster than with a hardware synth, and having a preset library makes it easier to use advanced patching techniques.

The Snapshots XY- Pad, Undo & Redo, and the Transform/K-Scope effects are all other examples of where we took Lumen beyond what hardware can do today. Honestly, I think we’re just scratching the surface with what a software video instrument can be.

How has syphon influenced software development for you?

I had an epiphany a couple years back where I took a much more holistic view of audio equipment. After using modular synths for long enough, I realized that on a certain level, the separation between individual pieces of studio equipment is totally artificial. Each different sound source, running through effects, processed in the mixer – all of that is just part of a larger system that works together to create a part of a song. This thinking led me to create my first app, Polymer, which is all about combining multiple synths in order to play them as a single instrument.

For me, Syphon and Spout represent the exact same modular philosophy – the freedom to blend the lines between individual video tools and to treat them as part of a larger system. Being able to tap into that larger system allowed me to create a really focused video instrument instead of having to make it do everything under the sun. Thanks to technologies like Syphon, the future of video tools is a very bright place!

What are some fun Lumen + Syphon workflows you enjoy – or enjoy seeing users play with?

My favorite workflow involves setting up Syphon feedback loops. You just send Lumen’s output to another VJ app like CoGe or VDMX, put some effects on it, then use that app’s output as a camera input in Lumen. It makes for some really unpredictable and delightful results, and that’s just from the simplest possible feedback loop!

What are some things you’re excited about on the Lumen roadmap ahead?

We have so many plans for things to add and refine. I’m particularly excited about improving the ways that Lumen connects with the outside world – be that via new video input types, control protocols, or interactions with other programs. We’re working on adding audio-reactivity right now, which is going to be a really fun when it ships. Just based on what we’ve seen in development so far, I expect it to add a whole new dimension to Lumen while keeping the workflow intuitive. It’s a difficult balance to strike, but that’s our mission – never to lose sight of the immediacy of control while adding new features.

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I recently animated some vintage botanical illustrations for an interactive exhibition installation at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. It was fun to collaborate with Robert Jarvis ( zeal.co ) on this – who programmed the interactivity (incorporating childrens’ webcam photos into the various creatures and plant-life storylines), as well as with D.A. Calf ( dacalf.com ) who brought the world to life so well. And a special shout-out to Luke Dearnley and Sophie Daniel who produced it.

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New York Times article:

“Bill Etra, an artist and inventor who, with a partner, created a video animation system in the early 1970s that helped make videotape a more protean and accessible medium for many avant-garde artists, died on Aug. 26 near his home in the Bronx. He was 69.

The cause was heart failure, said his wife, Rozalyn Rouse Etra. Mr. Etra had spinal stenosis for many years and was mostly bedridden when he died.

Mr. Etra and Steve Rutt created the Rutt/Etra video synthesizer, an analog device studded with knobs and dials that let a user mold video footage in real time and helped make video a more expressive art form. Among the artists who used it were Nam June Paik, regarded by many as the father of video art, and Woody and Steina Vasulka, who founded the Kitchen performance space in downtown Manhattan in 1971.”

“The dream was to create a compositional tool that would allow you to prepare visuals like a composer composes music,” Mr. Etra wrote. “I called it then and I call it now the ‘visual piano,’ because with the piano the composer can compose an entire symphony and be sure of what it will sound like. It was my belief then, and it is my belief now after 40 years of working towards this, that this will bring about a great change and great upwelling of creative work once it is accomplished.”

From Rutt’s own page:

“Developed in 1972, the RUTT/ETRA Video Synthesizer was one of the first commercially available computerized video animation systems. It employed proprietary analog computer technology to perform real time three dimensional processing of the video image. In the first use of computer animation in a major Hollywood picture, Steve Rutt, working directly with Sidney Lumet, used the Rutt/Etra to create the animated graphic for the film’s “UBS” Television Network.”

Rutt Etra Audiovisualizers page

Software based tributes to The Rutt / Etra Synthesizer.

The Rutt-Etra mac-based plug-in (using quartz composer) by Vade.
How to Rutt-Etra in Blender ‘like a pro’ (3D software tutorial)

Rutt-Etra-Izer is a WebGL emulation of the classic Rutt-Etra video synthesizer, by Felix Turner, which ‘replicates the Z-displacement, scanned-line look of the original, but does not attempt to replicate it’s full feature set’. The demo allows you to drag and drop your own images, manipulate them and save the output. Images are generated by scanning the pixels of the input image from top to bottom, with scan-line separated by the ‘Line Separation’ amount. For each line generated, the z-position of the vertices is dependent on the brightness of the pixels.

Realtime audio-reactive processing application by Felix Turner. It scans input image pixels and draws scanlines with Z position proportional to the brightness of the pixel. Audio level modifies z-pos from top to bottom.

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Concert Visuals for Audego from jeanpoole on Vimeo.

Hear the enchanting sound of Audego :  soundcloud, bandcamp or facebook – or at a gig sometime – with these visuals in motion:

(Thanks, Newcastle beach!)

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Neil Sanders –  a Melbourne hand-drawn illustrator and animator extraordinaire, famous for his signature organic tumblr loops…
Ori Toor – another hand-drawn abstraction loop specialist, beaming pixels to us from the Middle East.
Colin E. White –  moodily stylised New York animator.
Brad Hammond – A Melbourne 3D Unity animation ninja + coder. (And shout-out to Kejiro Takahashi from Japan, for his ongoing publishing of Unity software addons… )
Stu Gibson – A Tasmanian surf + aerial cinematographer, who was very generous with his wild coastline footage (which I used to make the Bermuda Bay clip below)

Hermitude – Bermuda Bay (Dir: Jean Poole) from stu gibson on Vimeo.

It was also a pleasure to develop this visual set over time, because Luke ‘Dubs’ + Angus ‘El Gusto’ (aka Hermitude) are so down to earth and friendly, despite their relentless touring and acclaim, as are the whole Elefant Traks crew – especially their tireless manager (and collaborator) Urthboy and Luke Dearnley (Sub Bass Snarl), their wizardly tour manager (who designed a clever + efficient video rig featuring live cams – for routing and controlling their stage video feeds).

A lot of pixel-sweat across quite a few months, but …

.. so satisfying to see it all come together in the end.

The post Tour Visuals for Hermitude appeared first on skynoise.net.

Music video made for the Cumbia Cosmonauts Mexico Remixes EP, based on footage shot during our tour of Mexico in Dec 2014.

(Shout outs to all the fine people we met in Guadalajara, Monterrey, Metepec, Tijuana, Mexico City and Oaxaca!)

The video and EP launched on CassetteBlog in Jan 2016.

The post Mexican Tour Music Video appeared first on skynoise.net.

Reich I + II – Cleverhorse
Directed, edited + filmed in County Limerick, Ireland by Jean Poole ( http://skynoise.net/projects )

Cleverhorses’ 2nd album, “50:fifty” will be released December 2016. Released through Jazzhead records.

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Given that Indonesia has not officially or publically discussed the mass killings that happened in 1965-66 (supposedly to get rid of a communist threat) – and that many of the perpetrators are entrenched in power today, it’s quite remarkable that these two films got made – prompted national discussions about them – and that the second film was given official recognition:

“On November 10, 2014, 2,000 people came to the official and public premiere of the film in Jakarta, and on December 10, 2014 – International Human Rights Day – there were 480 public screenings of the film across Indonesia. The screenings of the film in Indonesia has been sponsored by the National Human Rights Commission of Indonesia and the Jakarta Arts Council.” ( Via wikipedia)

Incredibly, after the first film – which featured the ‘surreal / defensive(?)’ boasting of one of the mass-killers – an Indonesian journalist saw the film, and persuaded their magazine to send out investigative journalists to document similar people in 60 different locations across Indonesia – and then published all of these in one go – alongside an in depth reaction to Oppenheimer’s film – which broke the silence, and allowed Indonesian media to move past the taboo of discussing these events.

Regardless of your awareness of this Indonesian mass killing, these are powerful films on many levels – well worth hunting down.

The Act of Killing  

Via Wikipedia entry of Act of Killing:

The film focuses on the perpetrators of the Indonesian killings of 1965–66 in the present day; ostensibly towards the communist community where almost a million people were killed. 

Invited by Oppenheimer, Anwar recounts his experiences killing for the cameras, and makes scenes depicting their memories and feelings about the killings. The scenes are produced in the style of their favorite films: gangster,western, and musical.

The name “Anonymous” appears 49 times under 27 different crew positions in the credits. These crew members still fear revenge from the death-squad killers.

From film synopsis on Act of Killing website:

When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders. They helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese, and intellectuals in less than a year. As the executioner for the most notorious death squad in his city, Anwar himself killed hundreds of people with his own hands. Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of a right-wing paramilitary organization that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers, and they are happy to boast about everything from corruption and election rigging to acts of genocide.

The Act of Killing is about killers who have won, and the sort of society they have built.

In The Act of Killing, Anwar and his friends agree to tell us the story of the killings. But their idea of being in a movie is not to provide testimony for a documentary: they want to star in the kind of films they most love from their days scalping tickets at the cinemas. We seize this opportunity to expose how a regime that was founded on crimes against humanity, yet has never been held accountable, would project itself into history.

And so we challenge Anwar and his friends to develop fiction scenes about their experience of the killings, adapted to their favorite film genres – gangster, western, musical. They write the scripts. They play themselves. And they play their victims.

via Wikipedia entry for Indonesian killings of 1965–66

 “the CIA denies active involvement in the killings, though it was later revealed that the American government provided extensive lists of Communists to Indonesian death squads.”

The Act of Killing Trailer:

The Look of Silence

Synopsis via Look of Silence website:

“Through Oppenheimer’s footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The documentary focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions. This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.”

The Look of Silence Trailer:

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Muchos Gracias, Mexico!

Teaser video for an upcoming videoclip featuring the visual highlights of the late 2014 Cumbia Cosmonauts tour of Mexico.

The video will help launch the Mexico Remixes EP (coming soon via cassetteblog.com), which will include remixes by Bumb Ay, Yelram Selectah, Malacopa Bros, HNRY + Sonido Satanas – and  The Ghost whose remix of Cumbia Sampuesana you can hear above.

Full video coming soon…

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So Mexico morphed into MOFO… and now it’s late January 2015. Anyways. Here is some documentation for what happened in Hobart, the Mexican samples will have to wait a little longer.

I was in Hobart to do triple-Screen Video Projections at ‘ Faux Mo‘, which is the afterparty venue each night for the MOFO Festival, connected to the MONA gallery in Hobart, Tasmania. It tends to be eclectic – here’s the program.

Highlights included doing video for – the Frikstailers, (rad Argentinian duo), ZA! (Barcelona crazies!), Chupacabra (Hobart based Latin American band),Vulgargrad (Russian-gypsy-punk!), The Osaka Ramones (Aka Shonen Knife doing Ramones covers), Mad Professor (dubb-b-b), and The Bird– and getting to animate the illustrations of Hobart artists – Tom O’ Hern and Dane Chisolm.

Video-wise, I was running a combo of VDMX and Millumin to trigger, manipulate, sequence and map the videos to a mainstage screen, and two side-wings. 

(click the image below to see a larger version)

Other festival good-times while wandering:
– some of Tim Hecker‘s set had me transported, Zammuto (ex-Books) have a pretty engaging and fun audiovisual live set, playing on Robin Fox’s laser-organ was surprisingly engaging, Filastine + Nova delivered a very tightly crafted audiovisual set, there was some impromptu whisky-bar parkour  by Jamin, Keith Deverell‘s beautifully shot film installation used mirrors and a walk-through screen very effectively, and finally managed a few moments inside the inflatable labyrinth by Architects of Air, before departing. Thanks Hobart!

Click through for a photo-slideshow below, or browse directly.

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I’m going to Mexico!!

Am super excited – it’ll be my first time in any of the Americas.  From Nov 26 – Dec 22 I’ll be wandering through Mexico City, Oaxaca, Tijuana, as well as Cuernavaca, Metepec and a few other places in between.

[[UPDATE >> Would you like me to send a MEXICAN POSTCARD to your letterbox?  ]]

I’ll be doing live-video for the Cumbia Cosmonauts tour  (you can help the Cumbia Cosmonauts tour crowdfunding campaign below, + get assorted Mexican goods in the mail… postcards, marketplace mixtapes, tshirts etc) – and outside of that I hope to be holidaying through Mexican landscapes, crazy butterfly reserves, Aztec ruins, mexican wrestling matches, visiting unusual rooftops, haggling about weird vintage Mexican Masks, practicing my duolingo Espańol (si, level one!)….

…and where possible, doing some live video projection + filming outdoors with any Mexican artists / film-makers / performers.

Love to hear from anybody with Mexico-tips, or weird filming locations / fun people to film / project with etc

And aye, flying across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico means going via Los Angeles – so it seemed insane not to be spending my first few days in the United States on the way back.

Love to hear any Los Angeles tips – places to visit/ good rooftop filming locations / people interested in outdoor projections –  or Death Valley trips?

Help support the Cumbia Cosmonauts tour:

And here’s my low-budget Cumbia Cosmonauts video-clip from back in 2012:

The post Hola, Mexico! appeared first on skynoise.net.

Chancha Via Circuito – a favourite listen in recent years – has a new album out – Amansara (Wonderwheel Recordings). I first discovered his enchanting atmospheres and mixing on his wonderful  ZZK Records mixtape  (promoting his previous album Rio Arriba). His music seems to thrive best in mixtapes (see also Mixtape Cumbiero European Tour 2013 and a mixtape at Testpressing for new album ), reminding at times of early Future Sound of London and their wandering from soundscape to rhythm and back again. There’s a warmth to this music, and despite a slower tempo, there’s a momentum to it all as well. Recommendo!

Recent Chancha Via Circuito interview with Jace Clayton
Chancha Via Circuito MTV interview
Chancha on soundcloud,
Chancha on facebook,
Chancha on twitter

Oh and a special shout-out too, for Paula Duro, who makes the enchanting artwork for Chancha (and featured in the backlayer of the collage above), as well as much of her own cool stuff. Check out her playful cosmic palette at flickr.

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So I’ve been reading a lot lately. And swimming in words returns me to writing. Or at least – some words about books.

The infinite shelves at Goodreads are responsible for the bulk of the book orders above (want to swap recommendations?). I don’t know what took me so long to finally join Goodreads, I’d long been finding it tricky to get interesting book recommendations (particularly – good fiction – compared to say music or movies). Amazon has a decent catalogue, but I’ve found it unreliable for recommending new fiction of interest. And while I prefer the hand-curation of say – the Brainpickings bookshelf, the McSweeney’s Journal or DJ Rupture’s Mudd Up Book Club (includes a pretty great collection of sci-fi set in non-anglo cities), each of those are a pretty limited lense.

Anyways, I seem to have my reading for the next while sorted, which is also going to mean some more words here over time.

And if you’re not already aware of the second-hand booksellers below, this is where I found the bulk of the above:

• Book Depository (my first choice – best range, generally cheapest overall to send to Australia)
• BetterWorldBooks (good range – but seems deliberately deceptive in the way they offer ‘free postage ‘ – they show cheap prices after a search, but every single time, clicking on a book found in search, shows up as a much higher price, when you want to buy it.)
• AbeBooks (better for rare, hard to find books)
• ((Oh and BTW – Booko – gives a price comparison for all of the above and Australian secondhand outlets.))

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“Millumin manages video on stage for theaters, video mappings and interactive installations”

– Millumin.com

As real-time video software continues to evolve, we’re starting to see some really thoughtfully considered applications – such as Millumin, by Philippe Charaund, software dedicated to “create and perform audiovisual shows”. In part, Millumin is possible because of today’s easy re-routing of video between applications (thanks to software such as Syphon on mac and Spout on PC), which has enabled some developers to focus on specialty areas, and allowed others to provide ways of usefully integrating different parts of a video workflow.

Where does Millumin fit in?

While there are a lot of real-time video tools and specialities available, Millumin’s great strength is as over-arching software – and providing useful ways for co-ordinating and controlling other software ( eg triggering and manipulating clips inside VJ software, and recompositing, mapping and sequencing that video with Millumin, easily jumping between very complex compositions).

Millumin will especially be of interest to those seeking to sync media in tightly curated shows eg syncing video with important theatrical cues, conference cues, or a specific sequence of events in a music show. Aside from the time-based controls, it’s also a pretty effective piece of mapping software – which includes a built in capacity to edge blend between projectors.

In other words, Millumin provides good control over time (sequencing) and space ( compositing and mapping). It’s a unique recipe – while there are other apps that offer more advanced portions of what Millumin does – eg Vezer‘s sequencing and timeline options, or Madmapper‘s mapping controls – there’s nothing else that quite manages to do what Millumin does.  QLab is probably it’s closest competitor, with the strengths and weaknesses of each meaning one or the other will suit your workflow better.

Millumin’s Workflow? 

From their site guide:
1. Drag-and-drop files from Finder to the Dashboard, and click on the cells to play them
2. Use the Workspace toolbar to move, map, warp, mask … to rotate and scale the layers directly in the workspace.
3. Change blend mode, add effects, transitions and more from the Properties Panel
4. In the Library, manage your files, Syphon servers and inputs
5. Create a Composition, then organize your media in time with keyframes
– includes ability to play compositions within compositions ( like nested compositions in After Effects)
– Also like AE – includes adjustible keyframes – change opacity, position, scale or rotation change over time to specific values.
– cue points can be added.
– pause on cue points
6. Import this Composition into the Dashboard + switch between complex compositions easily.
7. The Magic Key is [SHIFT] : maintain it to multi-select and snap items

Features?

Control of time / sequencing: Millumin’s key-framable timelines will be warmly familiar to everyone who has used video editing software, and tends to find such functions missing within VJ software. Most VJ software will show a timeline / playhead for each clip – but much more rare is a capacity to place many clips along a timeline, and easily add cue points, and easy linear arrangements. Example nice touch? Drag and drop a clip onto a timeline, then drag the end of it to auto-loop as long as you need.

Room for improvement? There are lots of little user interface quirks that could be removed / better designed. Admittedly this is partly because Millumin reminds so much of video editing and compositing software – which brings a whole bunch of fine-tuned expectations – and sets an unfair benchmark – relatively new software made by one person could hardly be expected to match the resources and foundations of established editing and compositing software.

Control of space / compositing:

Video compositors will find it a pleasure to be able to create complex compositions, and nest and even animate these comps within other comps. In this respect Millumin is the closest thing to a real-time After Effects that exists. Sequencing and switching between various comps is trivial to implement…

.. and these ‘presets’ / ‘dashboard selections’ – can be triggered from other software using midi or OSC – eg the M1-m10 presets built into a VDMX control surface window below.

Millumin can also take in as many syphon inputs as can be thrown at it – which integrates it well with VDMX’s capacity to send out many. All of these can be composited differently in Millumin’s compositions, allowing for a huge amount of flexibility and convenience. (Snap below includes sequined ninja in oyster cave footage used at recent Dark Faux Mo festival in Hobart.)

Control of space / mapping:  

Millumin features great controls for multiple outputs, and features multi-screen edge blending and feathering of masks:

Room for improvement? Being able to work better with multiple projectors that have different aspect ratios to each other.

Visual Effects?

As a standalone application, Millumin has a limited range of visual effects. On the other hand –  deep syphon integration means easy piping in of video from other software, for sequencing or compositing, and quartz composer integration means being able to easily add customised QC elements, effects and compositions to any of that video piped in.

Requirements:
– Mac OSX 10.6 or later. (PC version in the pipeline)

– 599€ (VAT not included) = A license for Millumin on 2 different computers. for 2 computers . Educational and rental pricing available by negotiation.

Verdict:
Millumin is very thoughtfully crafted software, with a nicely expanding feature set. And while it’s missing refinement or lacking more detailed control in a few places, it continues to develop and evolve into a fantastic and versatile tool for live video, especially with multi-screen compositing.

Other Millumin Resources: 

Millumin Tutorials:

Realtime Videomapping with After Effects
MilluPlug, collaborate with everything
Split a Layer
Compositions & Cue points
Dynamic Mask with a Matte
Kinect Mask
Mapping & Warping
Mapping Keyframes
Mask & Fill layer
Custom effect with Quartz Composer
Render compositions to MOV files
Processing, Syphon & OSC
Control Millumin with TouchOSC (on iPhone or iPad)
Edge blending with Matrox DualHead
Audio routing with Ableton Live
and lots of examples showing how to take VJ software into Millumin..

Millumin discussion forum

Millumin feature suggestionbox

Special shout outs to

– Lotech (NZ) for inspirational use of Millumin @ Splore – each VJ could send a signal into the machine running Millumin, which effectively let them play on a pre-mapped structure, and for ongoing feedback about Millumin over time.

– Jem the Misfit (NZ/Aus/Ger) – for highlighting how creatively Millumin could be used for compositing.

The post Millumin Review appeared first on skynoise.net.

LOGLINE: The story of legendary cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s staggeringly ambitious but ultimately doomed film adaptation of the seminal science fiction novel DUNE.

SYNOPSIS: In 1974, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose films EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN launched and ultimately defined the midnight movie phenomenon, began work on his most ambitious project yet. Starring his own 12 year old son Brontis alongside Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine and Salvador Dali, featuring music by Pink Floyd and art by some of the most provocative talents of the era, including H.R. Giger and Jean ‘Mœbius’ Giraud, Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel DUNE was poised to change cinema forever.

“For me, Dune will be the coming of a god. I wanted to make something sacred, free, with new perspective. Open the mind!”
– Alejandro Jodorowsky

Finally got to see Jodorowsky’s Dune recently (with long-time fan, and comic-book genius, Gregory Mackay, who is is great for detailing the sordid history of sci-fi illustration). It’s an incredible story of an incredibly audacious and film…. and although that feature never got completed, the documentary shows how lots of the creative energy involved was rewarded elsewhere later.

Jodorowsky’s Dune – plays at the Melbourne Film Festival in July 2014.

Backgrounder?

Alejandro Jodorowsky : “I ask of film what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs. The difference being that when one creates a psychedelic film, he need not create a film that shows the visions of a person who has taken a pill; rather, he needs to manufacture the pill.”

El Topo – a metaphysical western.. ( see also, ‘acid western’ ), catapulting Jodorowsky into the cult director spotlight…

Holy Mountain – another quest for enlightenment, with vast and ambitious set designs… thanks to an increased budget of $1million from a Beatles business associate (John Lennon was a huge fan of El Topo).

Following the success and acclaim for Holy Mountain… his next wish was to adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune, as a psychedelic space opera, a spiritual film for transformation…  And in 1974 French producer Michel Seydoux offered to finance the start of it.

Amongst the formidable artistic army gathered to make Dune :

• Moebius (storyboarding, visual design: Jodorowsky later executed lot of the Dune ideas within comic books with Moebius ..)
• H.R. Giger (set and character design)
• Chris Foss (legendary sci-fi illustrator)
• Dan O Bannon (sci-fi screenwriter, went on to write Alien, Invaders from Mars, Total Recall.)
• Pink Floyd (to provide the soundtrack.. ) and a cast including..
• Orson Welles
• Mick Jagger (lips in space!)
• and Salvador Dali (as the mad emperor of the universe, who insisted on helicopters, a burning giraffe and “an Emperor’s throne / toilet made from intersected dolphins, the tails forming the feet and the mouths to receive piss and shit separately. (He thought it terribly bad taste to mix the two.) .. and $100,000 an hour to sit on it”)

So the world’s greatest ‘psychedelic space opera’ never got made…  but director Frank Pavich did a great job of teasing out the possibilities, ably assisted by the subtle storyboard animations of Syd Garon (director and animator of Wave Twisters, yo!). More importantly though, the director was able to reunite producer Seydoux with Jodorowsky (after 30 years!), and Seydoux not only co-produced Jodorowsky’s Dune, but also went on to produce Jodorowsky’s first film in over 20 years: Dance of Reality (another incredible film!).

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Coming soon to WIDE OPEN SPACES, MAY 2-4, ALICE SPRINGS, 2014.

A series of short live cinema interludes – (5-10 minutes each & performed during band changes, twice per night on Friday, Saturday and Sun.)

Each live cinema piece will explore footage and soundscapes from one particular landscape, juxtaposed with a range of audio-reactive animated characters and objects, mixed and mutated live.

Float briefly in the ambience of luscious forests, lunar-like New Zealand volcanoes, underwater coastal life, and the desert (from footage shot during WoS 2013).

(See also: Pattern Machine AV performance @ WOS 2012, Desert Engines AV performance @ WOS 2013 (with Suckafish P Jones)

The post Desert Cinema Interludes @ WOS 2014 appeared first on skynoise.net.

((UPDATE: video workshop was archived on youtube, and is viewable at the bottom of this page))

David will be delivering the workshop from New York, with high bandwidth streams of both a video-conferencing computer and his VDMX video output for workshop attendees to view. ACMI will be providing laptops with VDMX pre-installed, although people are welcome to bring their own.

This is an incredible opportunity to hear about VDMX from a core developer, and get inside knowledge about real-time video manipulation.

Tickets are limited for the workshop, +pitched at a video-artist friendly $25. Book via ACMI.

(Drop a line if they sell out, we can reserve you a spot if you bring your own laptop.)

The workshop will also be youtube streamed and later archived online (See link at bottom of page):

Comments can be left by online viewers, and there will be a dedicated section at the end, where online questions will be answered by David.

VDMX WORKSHOP WITH DAVID LUBLIN: 12-3PM, Sat March 1st
(12-3PM A.E.S.T. – online viewers, check your time difference)

12-12.30  Introductions / background
12.30-2 “Video fundamentals taught with VDMX” – by David Lublin (via NY)
2-2.30 Questions + Answers / with workshop attendees + questions from online viewers.
2.30-3 Workshop discussions / experiments / troubleshooting /feedback

Pre-workshop advice: have a browse through the extensive range of VDMX tutorials that’ve been published in the last 6 months, there’s a real wealth of VDMX knowledge available: introductory tutorials, arranged by topic // and a full list of tutorials including lots of novel uses and recent enhancements. See also: VDMX developer blog / VDMX online forums.

Bonus Round: Check out  David’s midi dogs + game of phones).

The Archived Video
See below – or click here to view in youtube, and read the comments contributed by the 50+ concurrent viewers.

The post March 1: VDMX Masterclass @ ACMI with David Lublin, Vidvox, NY appeared first on skynoise.net.

- Photos from Boinga-Bob's Temple.

Scattermish and myself recently tackled the Lilydale to Warburton rail trail,  a 40km stretch of bushland cycling, an hour outside of Melbourne.

“Rail trails are shared-use paths recycled from abandoned railway corridors. Rail trails link big and small country towns and meander through scenic countryside just as railways did in the past.. Railway engines have always had difficulty climbing hills. The steepest grade of a railway line is never more than 1 in 30.. no sharp rises and no sharp bends, just sweeping curves and gentle undulations.. abandoned rail lines make superb pathways for walking and riding.” – Rail Trails Australia.

The ride itself is awesome – it’s a gorgeous, mostly tree-shaded ride, with plenty of great views, though Warburton has no station, so you need to plan for an 80km round trip from Lilydale. The Warburton end makes it all worthwhile – with the cute bicycle themed Cog Bike Cafe greeting riders at the end of the ride, and just nearby… jutting out from the trailside foliage – the temple of Boinga Bob, a sprawling marvel of DIY architecture and evolving artwork installations.  I’ll let the temple photos speak for themselves.

Boinga Bob was home at the time, and is quite the interesting character. He happily entertained a few guests with tales of his extensive adventures on various islands and mountain tops over the years. Currently though, he is facing a battle with the local council who want to destroy his temple. Drop him a line if interested in helping, or join the Facebook group to save Boinga Bob’s temple.

Below, a 5 minute interview with Bob about his temple:

Next up: The Great Victorian Bike Trail.

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Above – a motion graphic medley made from clips I created recently for each song of Audego‘s latest album, Beneath the Static and the Low. It’s pretty gorgeous music, listen for yourself – bandcamp / soundcloud / itunes. The Audego brief: ‘retro-abstract motion graphics we can project behind us while we play’.

This was the first time I relied Quartz Composer so heavily for making motion graphics – it’s great for prototyping ideas and developing them quickly, and can be recorded in realtime too (with syphon recorder). I also used:

VDMX – for real-time clip triggering, compositing and effects
TV Paint – for generating some animation textures
After Effects + Premiere – for compositing, effects and editing.
Madmapper – for arranging projection of motion graphics onto surfaces
Canon 7D – for filming of above projections.

(See also motion graphics for Audego’s previous album, Abominable Galaxy.)

The post Audego Motion Graphics Medley appeared first on skynoise.net.

Most interior design students are already highly visually literate, great at quickly visualising their ideas in many ways, and unlike most video oriented people I know – are fantastic at working with materials and constructing models. As well as adapting very quickly to the world of projected video, they also bring along considerable materials testing, research and construction skills.

This semester though, we added interactivity as a requirement. In addition to learning video editing, video composition, animation, and projection mapping – they needed to think about how they would include some simple lo-fi interactivity in their projects. It’s quite satisfying to report that they responded wonderfully to that challenge, and I’m happy to share some of those efforts below.

Right Here, Right Now (Sem 2, 2013 – elective studio with Caroline Vains and Sean Healy – Interior Design, RMIT.)

(Course Document  (PDF) and readings / 12 weeks of related blog posts).

Pictured above –  the crowd-pleasing bicycle powered installation by Jimmy Liu, David Dai and Nick Hsu. (‘Team Brothers!’ ). A series of reflective gears were connected to pedals and a bicycle seat, causing the carefully mapped projections to reflect around the space. This was a nice evolution from their earlier experiments which included tight geometric mapping sequences, and three dimensional arrangements of laser-cut paint splashes.

Part of the pleasure with this studio – is seeing how different skills and ideas merge, and evolve, over time. For example, Hexin Bi used his experience from scuba diving as the inspiration for his audiovisual installation, rigorously analysing the rhythm of his underwater breath…

.. while Jacinta Birchmore explored repetitive forms and texture, beginning with the intricate model below, before iterating through other shapes and surfaces.

Together for their final piece – they continued to explore scuba diving, but took it in a new direction, creating a breath activated installation. Their structure featured a layer of styrofoam balls which obscured the projector light from shining through, unless someone blows through the mouthpiece – which scatters the balls and enables the animation to bounce around inside their mirrored space (a process accentuated by a breath-powered spinning reflector ).  Guest blower: Ramesh Ayyar.

Tisha Sara Dewi, Jing Yang and Ranqi Liu created a beautifully made cone structure, to be viewed from underneath:

Michael Kuo and Ting Jiang played with precision modelling, mapping and hand activated rotations:

Another blending of approaches: Stacy Rich’s topographies and Danielle Bird’s organic textural work..

.. later combined to produce a quite beautiful structure (which unfortunately had a few interactive / mechanical problems).

Tahlia Landrigan produced an intricate response to the music of Nicholas Jaar…

and Fenella McGowan’s structure built from cotton buds responded to projection beautifully, as did Nikita Demetriou’s tissue-paper hangings…

Together that trio diligently combined their efforts to produce a wooden bicycle work – which featured a pair of revolving wooden cylinders, each with precision cut holes, and a bicycle wheel on top for spinning the cylinders, altering the light patterns being emitted from within.

Aside from the prowess with construction, another trait interior design students seem to share – is a flair for dynamic documentation, very comfortably playing with formats and materials to best express their projects. Below, a couple of examples by Stacy + Jimmy.

Below, the projects grouped as part of the final exhibition … (note the bicycle pedals for activating the ‘Team Brothers’ piece at the top of the page).

And finally, studio co-ordinator Caroline, wondering where the semester has gone to…

Thanks to Caroline and the entire studio for a great semester!

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Let There be Light..

Winter in Tasmania isn’t an obvious time and place for a festival, but MONA isn’t your average museum / gallery. And so began in 2013, MONA’s DARK MOFO (Jun 13-23), an annual festival that riffs on the idea of winter solstice with pagan celebrations of light ( + art, fires, lasers,  feasting, etc..). This included:  the Red Queen exhibition  @ MONA,/ performative chefs, Skywhale (a sculptural / sky-breasted hot air balloon by Patricia Piccini), Robin Fox laser performances, and a whole host of other light and projection related artworks…

Oh, You Mean *LIGHT*..

… All of which were made irrelevant by Ryoji Ikeda‘s 5KM HIGH BEAM OF LIGHT INTO THE SKY ( aka ‘Spectra‘).

Simultaneously over at the gallery, Ryoji exhibited his Datamatics work. Really enjoyed this more than expected. It’s a very well documented and promoted work, but none of that captures the oddly calming oceanic presence it has.

Elsewhere, Batgirl battles Ryoji in animated GIF format.

Claustrophobic, Stroboscopic, Light…

The Beam in Thine Own Eye exhibition gathered together a range of works exploring the limits of perception. Zee by Kurt Hentschlager was the most spectacular of these, an intensely stroboscopic smoke filled room, that came with pages of warnings, had medical staff on standby, and completely blurred the capacity to distinguish between what was happening in front of or behind your eyes. There’s a great interview with Kurt here. Other standouts:

Ivana Franke – “We Close Our Eyes and See A Flock of Birds” -A cyclinder shaped room, with central seating, facing out against LED covered curved walls, which proceed to strobe and flash their way through a range of sequences.

Anish Kapoor – “Imagined Monochrome” – An artwork experienced one at a time – because it involved laying down and having your *eyeballs* massaged by a professional eyeball masseuse. I missed getting an appointment for this, but apparently it was fantastic.

.. And Dark (Faux Mo).

DARK FAUX MO, the festival club –  is what I was there for – projection mapping a disused double-storey theatre space each night. Performers included Miles Brown, Super Wild Horses, ZOND, My Disco, Zanzibar Chanel, Mixmasters ( who cooked soup + dumplings on stage while they DJ-ed some tracks), Andee Frost, Rainbow Connection DJs and more. It was a wild space, delightfully decorated, with lots of roving performers – so it came up great in photos. (Eg collage at the top of this post – or see flickr photo set)

 Previously:

MONA FOMA 2013, the summer edition.. held in a Hobart laneway, where I projection mapped animations onto a 4 storey fire escape (painted white).

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“There’s a lot of wonderful possibilities for real-time visual compositing with Quartz Composer. Most existing QC learning resources though, tend to emphasise the generative graphics capabilities of QC. For those with a post-production, animation, motion graphics or VJ background – QC’s composition potential can be difficult to unleash.”

Hoping to make the transition to Quartz Composer a bit easier for the above kinda folk – I’ve gone and made a page  which documents how various animation + post production techniques and processes can be recreated inside QC…

(eg Composite multiple video sources, Image Masking, Pre-framing video into compositions, Working With Layers from Photoshop, Nesting + Pre-composing in AE, Inverse Kinematics, camera paths.. etc).

I’m planning to slowly add to this ‘Compositing with Quartz Composer‘ page over time.. with the hope that it’ll  –

• help non-programmers with video compositing ideas, adapt to QC more easily
• help me wrap my head around QC better (the page features many questions…)
• encourage more experimentation with visual composition effects in QC (alongside the current popularity of using QC to generate graphics)

Would love to hear from anyone with questions (about something that isn’t clear) – or suggestions ( how to clarify a concept better, or other animation concepts that could be included etc ).

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“Whether you dream of live visuals, interactive installations, Cocoa apps, dashboard widgets, or extra awesomeness for your film and motion graphics projects, Quartz Composer will enable you to develop beautiful solutions in amazingly short periods of time…”

“….To make up for all the gaps in video tutorials and forum posts scattered around the interwebs we wrote a book…”

– Graham Robinson (aka Shakinda) + Surya Buchwald (aka Momo the Monster)

A Quartz Composer book has been long desired by the real-time video community, given the combination of its unique capabilities and severely undercooked documentation online. Hats off to Graham and Surya for rising to that challenge, and helping expose QC’s potential for visual artists of many flavours.

These days a book inevitably also means an accompanying DVD of video tutorials (which can also be accessed online by those who buy the PDF, book code needed), and an extended support website (ILoveQC).

Who Should Read This Book?

According to the authors – Maker types /Motion graphics designers, film makers, VJs, artists, interactive programmers, and Cocoa developers. If that’s you – this book will help – “…even the unsophisticated user into creating art projects, visuals for a band or party, wild Preface screensavers, and RSS-powered trade-show kiosks. For anyone with a programming background, the material quickly opens up a new world of visual potential”.

Who shouldn’t? “Advanced Quartz Composer users looking for detailed knowledge about using GLSL and OpenCL, or creating your own plugins in Objective-C..”

How’d that work out for me?

To give some context of my QC understanding – previously I’d been asked by Graham to write a few words about how I use Quartz Composer and VDMX:

“Coming from a non-programming background, I’ve found some of the concepts and structural logic of Quartz hard to grasp, and the engineerish manual doesn’t help much. Kineme.net and the QC mailing list – seem helpful, but also populated by mostly advanced discussions – which tends to stifle introductory questions and beginner problems. So I found myself trying to learn QC by forcing myself to explain what I was learning about it as I explored it.”

This scattered learning approach lead me to writing up these QC tutorials…

Part 1 (Intro and overview of resources available)
Part 2 (Making a split-screen effect)
Part 3: DIY Anchor Rotation FX for VDMX
Part 4: 3D Objects With Video Textures in VDMX
Part 5: Using Twitter Hashtags + RSS feeds in VDMX (now outdated since Twitter changed its RSS feed mechanism.. )

What I found myself really craving was a learning resource that broke down the structural logic of QC, and which explained some of the principles in ways that related to how I wanted to use it as a compositing tool. And this, the ILQC book mostly delivered – using deliberately plain and simple language, and making no presumptions about animation or programming knowledge. A quick glance over their contents page, gives an idea of the book’s scope:

• What is Quartz Composer and Why Should I Learn it?
• The Interface and Playing a Movie
• Adding Visual Effects
• Using LFOs, Interpolation and Trackballs to Move Stuff
• Debugging
• Particles
• Mouse Input
• MIDI Interfacing (Getting Sliders and Knobs Involved)
• Interacting with Audio
• Lighting and Timelines
• Replication / Iteration
• Modelling Complex Environments ( 3D Cities )
• Create a Cocoa App
• Create a Screensaver
• Secret Patches, Core Filters, and GLSL

(‘glance inside‘ / book preview at amazon )

And?

– The examples are well chosen, and build up on skill levels as the book progresses
– The book examples and video tutorials correspond really nicely to see each other
– There’s a good emphasis on concrete examples, while explaining the principles that make it possible
– That said, found myself wanting some more explanations of underlying concepts occasionally
– Gaps? Would’ve liked some more advanced exploration of:

• how ‘timelines’ and ‘queues’ can be utilised within patches
• ‘structure’ and ‘multiplex’ related patches
• ‘render in image’ and ‘rendering’
• the composition process in QC, explained relative to composition software such as After Effects… giving a bit more of an explanation of how the overall 2D / 3D possibilities work, and how they could be utilised / explored in many directions..

This book fills a great gap in learning resources for Quartz Composer.. so hopefully rumours of QC’s gradual demise stay that way, and some of the recent flourishing of QC activity ( as an interactive prototyper / and as discussed on the very active Quartz Composer Facebook group ) continues on.

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