For the first time in a while I have a large chunk of undisturbed time, combined with a functioning internet connection.  I thought it would be fun to share some of what I’ve been up to, since it includes some VJ-related stuff.

For those who don’t know, I packed up my stuff in Boston and hit the road to do some traveling a couple months ago.  I’ve managed to spend time in LA, Oakland, and most recently San Diego.  I took my video toys along for the ride, and I’ve been searching out opportunities to do visual art projects when possible.

In Oakland, I visited a space (and a business) called Flowtoys  I was invited over by Flowtoys videographer and “OG” (you can guess what the G stands for) Robb Pope, aka VJ ADD.  I met Sean von Stade, the founder of Flowtoys, a company that makes spinning movement toys (poi, staff), with embedded LED lights.    I found out that in addition to poi (both fire and LED) Sean is also really into lasers – in fact, he built his own little handheld rig with a green laser pointed at a motorized, spinning piece of lamp glass.  I mentioned that back in Boston we have own Sean who likes lasers and spinny, blinky things.  All in all it seemed pretty clear he was a kindred spirit.

It turns out that longtime VJ and former Bostonian Toshi “Dr.” Hoo lives right down the street from Flowtoys as well, so one night Toshi, Robb, and I hung out and played with some hardware and software toys.

I got a chance to see Toshi show off some nice blend techniques in Modul8.  We also chatted for a bit about the audio beat-detection features for automating effects – I’m still not a huge fan of FFT analysis, but Toshi was able to get some nice synchronization at various points.  As usual, a lot depends on the type of music you feed it.  We also booted up Resolume Avenue, and played with some of the audio and video effects.  I’m still wrestling with the question of whether it’s better to combine audio and video triggering in one program, or use a protocol like MIDI or OSC to synchronize independent pieces of software.

Meanwhile, Robb was editing footage from a shoot at Flowtoys.  They make LED movement and dance objects like poi and staff, similar to the ever popular psyhoop.  He took some high-contrast footage (to highlight the spinning glowing poi) and added a bunch of delay effects to give it a nice “blurry trails” feel.

I spent the bulk of the evening trying to construct a “Wii staff” – taping two wiimotes onto the ends of a broom handle, then spinning it around to see if I could control Whorld with it.  It definitely worked – technically speaking – but it didn’t quite pass as a visual instrument.  Could be a matter of playing around with the control code, or it maybe the Wiimote isn’t the right tool for that particular idea.

The original WiiWhorld, on the other hand, was a big hit with some new crowds.  I set it up at a loft party in San Francisco, and then a week later at an afterhours chillout in San Diego.  In both cases people got sucked in quickly, and people started waiting – in that amusing “I’m not waiting, but if you’re done I’ll have a play” sort of way – for the chance to try it.  It was fun to get a fresh response from an entire roomful of people who had no idea what it was.

I’ve also spent some time tweaking a patch I put together a while back to control Whorld with the Korg NanoKontrol.  It’s been about 90% done for a while now, but I need to give it some more polish so I can put together a proper public release.  If anyone out there has a Windows PC and a NanoKontrol, and wants to give it a try, let me know.

I’ve played a bit with Processing – got so far as to install and play with the OK Go “WTF” effect patch written by Memo Atken – but I’ve been doing some work-related coding lately, so the appeal of playing with code-based art has diminished a bit at the moment.

Looking ahead, I hope to get back to the bay area in a week or so, and then drive up to the pacific northwest.  Soon I’ll be heading overseas – it should be interesting trying to figure out what (if any) VJ-related gear I decide to bring along in my backpack…

cheers,
j e f f

p.s. – I’m seriously bummed that i will be missing the Together festival, and the Hansel and Gretel re:imagined show.  It’s nice to see a big visual show with a strong unifying theme – I have no doubt that some really interesting work will come out of it.

Complete details of MGFest09 can be found at http://mgfest.com/

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