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tagged: 20/20

rbn_esc >> urban escape

event, deadlines, stress, allsuch over - time to escape the urban condition, honour the title of my piece. the 2020 crew catch the metro to “the coast”… and the sign even says that. its an escape one-two, in fact… airport or coast. i like.

diary | 05 mar 2006 | tagged: errata of life · vj · 20/20 · name · novak

2020: beauty and horror

its still a bit sharp, but there were beautiful things at 2020 and there was horror. the horror bit was coursing through my veins when after i finally stood up, walked to my equipment, took a breath and proverbially hit ‘play’… the screen, the image, well, it wasn’t right.

i’d soundchecked first, everything had been fine - i even had a dj mixer to tweak my somewhat untested levels on. my ‘cinematic’ visuals were cinematic, and the crazy section certainly was full-on with such a big screen and booming PA. so it was distressing to the core that when mid-event it became my turn, that ideal audiovisual environment turned to a nightmare, my clear, tuned pallette turning to grey fuzz. if you’ve ever seen ntsc on a pal tv, think that. and as you couldn’t really see any of it properly - and you certainly couldn’t read the text, which is central to the experience - all i could do was wince and crash through it all as quickly as possible. to compound things, this meant there was no time to massage the audio as i went along, and so the piece largely became a series of jolts between audio sections. it was so disappointing, on so many levels.

unbelievably, people still applauded and apparently there was still a really positive reaction - though i still haven’t quite got a handle on that. i wasn’t around to hear it first hand, as all my seething mind could do was trace the source of the failure… i had rebooted after the sound/vision check, which kinda breaks the golden rule and meant i was too afraid to try and really troubleshoot as the performance started, but it turned out to be some interference on the cable as it was routed around the stage, somebody must have tidied it up against a transformer or a lighting signal passing nearby with some voodoo frequency turned on when it wasn’t before.

the bottom line though, is that shit happens, there was nothing that could be done, and the work, the commission, still stands. its not cinderella territory here, this has been my ongoing project for two years, and it now exists as an audiovisual whole - a paradigm shift not just for it but my practice. the technology to realise my approach is now there, and my concept and visual production has matured to be able to really exploit the potential. suffice to say, its like having entered the golden kingdom having seen it glimmering over the horizon for so long.

and so a thousand props to the organisers of 2020, for the commission is what it took, and they built an outstanding event on a series of them. their piece was also stunning, a meditation on memory and feelings, and perhaps appreciated even more by myself as it fits perfectly with the narrative lab agenda. andrew and nik - respect!

diary | 04 mar 2006 | tagged: *spark · vj · rbn_esc · 20/20 · name · novak · live cinema

119 clips, 76 scenes, one piece

4.30 am on the day of 2020, and rbn_esc__av is at v1.0.

119 mostly audiovisual vj clips in vdmx.spk
76 scenes in ableton live
7 channels of sound
3 channels of video
one spark

the week has been a blur, 24/7 production is pretty accurate what with two nights without sleep at all, but i’m here in newcastle, noodled some ambient bar visuals back at lumen on thursday and even managed to get the opening gala of the wider av festival that 2020 is a part of. but all that is by the by: i’ve got to the magic 1.0, with less than 12 hours to the sound check, cutting it fine but so happy…if a little tired.

diary | 04 mar 2006 | tagged: *spark · vj · rbn_esc · 20/20 · live cinema

painted green, somehow ok?

breakfast on the day of 2020 at the council cafe set in the manor house cunningly just down the road from the two-up-two-down terraces i’m staying in. no escape from the cctv iconography though, from dreams of cctvs cameras outlined in vj clips to these in the landscaped gardens. somebody thinks painting them green makes them invisible, acceptable?

diary | 04 mar 2006 | tagged: errata of life · vj · rbn_esc · 20/20

no sleep, newcastle and lumen

with the final vj clips rendered and no sleep for 36 hours, hit the train to newcastle. passing durham is one of my favourite scenes, i somehow caught it perfectly at sunset despite being comotose the rest of the time… but that is one confined to memory alone, so heres a final render grab instead.
been worrying about playing a set at lumen, a kind of monthly partner to 2020 that showcases established vjs alongside encouraging first-timers… a social, i guess. turns out, its good to be challenged, as i rediscovered some of vdmx’s flexibility and audio-reactive complexity, not to mention a few clips in the back-catalogue as i went for minimal and refined motion graphics suitable for a bar.
by the time i got to bed, it had been quite a day - powering through content creation on paul’s twin-view G5 tower, hitting the final render, dying on a train but waking up to castles, cathedrals and the dramatic entrance to newcastle, having fine, fine tapas with equally fine fellows of name, a set that surprised me, and all rounded off with the discovery of sailor jerry rum.

diary | 02 mar 2006 | tagged: *spark · vj · rbn_esc · 20/20 · name · novak

vv.mod.midi.hack = a/v ok

you can have a deadline in your head, but theres nothing like it viscerally hitting you as you make your nth cup of tea, seeing it scribed coldly in the best before field of your milk carton. some kind of techo-primordial early warning system. works for me, anyway.
and so it was today that with joy and relief chasing each other round my head, finally watching the pieces of my audiovisual ideal slot into place and the proverbial engine stutter into life, that i saw that date on the milk and thought - yup, its a week from this very moment.

so i now have ableton live with the music cut up and laid out alongside midi clips corresponding to vj clips. that midi control goes to the visuals program, so i can mix the visuals with the material synced to the flow of the music i’m laying down. the sound work laid into the vj clips will then flow back into ableton to be tweaked as part of the audio mix. a rich audiovisual brew, an indistinguishable whole… cinematic motion graphics. fingers crossed.

the two visuals apps i feel are suitable for the long-form video-fused-motion-graphics i’m doing both don’t quite a the midi control i specifically require, but today i got the fruits of a little commission to retrofit my midi spec onto vdmx 4.2, and ye gads its working - i can actually do this for real now! the other contender, grid pro, will smash vdmx4.2 for me once they’ve got two features down, but as i write this they’re not quite there yet - but they’re working on it, and working on it as in right now - we’ll see which app makes it to the post! the picture is the moment of genesis, jdk’s hacked vv.mod.midi piping ableton control into each movie player. oh, and where did jdk code and send this? in a car on a 18 hour journey down america armed with powerbook and gprs phone, naturally.

so now the pieces are in place - music, vj clips with sound effects, sequencer, audio and visuals apps… its time to create the whole setup for real, and time to ensure all the remaining production tasks get finished - a chunk of the performance finished is not the whole thing!

diary | 25 feb 2006 | tagged: *spark · vj · rbn_esc · vdmx · ableton · 20/20