vj

thats the invert button, in real life.

franz and fernand in grid world

highlight of mapping was seeing franz’s ‘euphorie’ performance in the flesh, or rather, in the light. its yet to grow to a cohesive, flowing performance, but just to look into their laboratory was quite the experience. its the band you’d expect to see if a bladerunner nightclub scene were filmed, but that somehow makes it sound like its derivative: quite the opposite.

mapping finally broke beyond performances and gallery to make a serious go of some kind of joint project / residency. pitching up after the d-fuse performance, i got to hang out on the night before their big evening. the timeline stuck to the wall was a recent innovation, apparently… made me smile.

may wouldn’t be the same without the annual pilgrimage to the excellent mapping festival. fourth time running now, having played as part of narrative lab performances and workshops, then journalism, and last year doing a workshopped kinetxt performance. this time, its as part of d-fuse, performing particle.

as i write this, i still haven’t got the shots of mapping from d-fuse hq, but just found this one on the internet. its by mapping’s genius photographer ork, check out his portfolio of mappings past and present.

personal reward, beyond a morning spent sipping coffee in a cafe overlooking the crescent beach of gijón, was seeing plaid perform itsu live, with the pleix video behind. its just a perfect track with the perfect video.

before us, “zan lyons vs bladerunner”. a film remix of bladerunner raises the cliché alert, but to see such good material transformed so well into a whole new aesthetic experience, thats double good. i couldn’t see it all, but what i did was really beautifully abstracted away, 99% shadow with scorching audio-visual flashes. oh, and violin.

aaah, a proper theatre. well resourced, good tech crew, and a lovely auditorium for the audience.

…and laboral is full of nice details as well, from the modern sophistication of the cloakroom ticket rack in LABoral, to the tiling and signage around the theatre.

to spain for laboratorio de electrónica visual with d-fuse in full wives and girlfriends mode - who wouldn’t, seeing the venues. this was the central quad of laboral, complete with church hosting one performance space to the left, and the entrance to the theatre where we were performing particle to the right. laboral is simply the best setting to have a festival i’ve ever seen: a full campus of venues stretching from this architecturally beautiful and technically top-notch main space to modern art galleries, workshops, labs and allsuch spread around the perimeter.