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Diaryinstant supercool visuals for young people #1: ride the dlr, apply mirror effect. ref cityscan to see it taken the highest level, and arrive as the piece that started it all.
instant supercool visuals for young people #1: ride the dlr, apply mirror effect. ref cityscan to see it taken the highest level, and arrive as the piece that started it all.
diary | 21 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · vj · bbc blast @ serpentine · teaching
not just playing with a live camera feed and kaos pad, but shaping the dance through the control of graphic elements: a simple cross can become a character, a circle shape the movement
diary | 20 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · quartz composer · vj · bbc blast @ serpentine · teaching
working as part of yeast culture for bbc blast on a two week project for young people that encompassed film, vjing, soundscape, spoken word and dance culminating in a performance at this years summer pavillion at the serpentine gallery. frank gehry, no less.
diary | 18 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · vj · bbc blast @ serpentine · teaching · yeast
not just three hot air balloons: there were a gzillion of them, all taking off from the fields in the distance as part of the annual festival. it was really nice to experience a good quality of life for a working age - after work drinks in a calm yet interesting location - and at the same time nice to be taken back to my childhood here - i learnt to sail in that basin there, and such balloons are synonymous with bristol in my mind.
diary | 08 aug 2008 | tagged: vj
atari-esque asteroids. planentarium. geddit.
diary | 08 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · quartz composer · vj · dome · pervasive media studio
spiralling text… not quite as easy to solve as i thought if you look closely.
diary | 08 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · quartz composer · vj · dome · pervasive media studio
patching away… been waiting a long time as a visualist to finally have an immersive output, and here i was at 9am having had no sleep due to the slot coming forward from the evening and a non-cooperating field-of-view, camera placement, and clip plane.
diary | 08 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · quartz composer · vj · dome · pervasive media studio
and the reason for being here, is it has a planetarium next door and antivj headquarters in it.
the pervasive media studio is a good thing, as if a GOOD KING from 1066 and all that had set up a mini-utopia for all stuff interesting to me. the office space is wonderful, taking up all the upstairs of this building right in the heart of bristol docks, and is the kind of place where you can say you’re making asteroids to play in a planetarium, and seconds later you’re being shown the finer points of geometry wars. its full of interesting people doing interesting things. aaaah.
hello nico and co-cuisiner. years ahead of their time, but not quite in the normal dj sense: is this my generation, old man preview edition? the sight made me laugh anyway, somehow felt like those old men you see sitting around on benches in mediterranean climates, amusing themselves with stories of old and watching the world go by.
diary | 06 aug 2008 | tagged: vj
a productive weekend: after yesterday’s dome-fu, spent today working out how to tether a camera to quartz composer and from that made my contribution to a friend’s wedding: a kind of digital signing-book, taking and displaying group photos atop a slideshow of the couple’s history.
also heard that polaroid have now stopped producing their iconic format i’ve appropriated here as a visual device… which while slightly sad though inevitable, makes me wonder just how long the iconic form of a photograph will not just be the polaroid, but any form at all.
diary | 03 aug 2008 | tagged: quartz composer · vj · photomatic
voila. animating, and distorted for projection via the you-don’t-need-a-boutique-fisheye-setup-anymore technique that uses a standard projector and a spherical mirror bought from a security store. all hail paul bourke and the pbmesh patch
diary | 02 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · quartz composer · vj · dome
ah. always a silly gotcha in there. quirk fixed with the realisation that quartz composer uses degrees as its rotation unit, but the maths functions i used for the trig deal in radians.
diary | 02 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · quartz composer · vj · dome
finally making something of a long-talked-about spark project: immersive and interactive visuals in a dome. hoping to start with some basic ‘chuck a ball about in the crowd’ type stuff, and get to a fully playable asteroids or missile command.
first test: can i tile small sprites in 3d space as if they were placed on a sphere? answer here: only sort-of. they are on a sphere, but they’re certainly not in neat rows like they should be, or aligned to the surface.
diary | 02 aug 2008 | tagged: *spark · quartz composer · vj · dome
the serpentine gallery has - yet again - come up trumps with its summer pavillion. while appreciation is subjecting, from the perspective of what could be done with a night-time visuals mesh+projector fest, its a wonder.
which is interesting, as i’ll be part of a two-week arts education project based there. i’m won’t be surprised ‘health and safety’ type concerns will render plans down to a fastfold at one end, but i’m certainly going to try…
diary | 29 jul 2008 | tagged: *spark · vj
steve was followed by label mate and fellow los angelite rena jones. good stuff, and so nice to see and hear a real instrument alongside laptop electronica.
diary | 25 jul 2008 | tagged: vj
steve nalepa over this side of the pond for some festival spots, with a call into london for a chilled gig at the inspiral lounge, sometime home to london vj meetups too. some good people, a nice night, a long night bus home…
diary | 25 jul 2008 | tagged: vj
the led wall was made of the latest barco tiles, and i haven’t seen anything as amazingly made in a long time. they are like a vision from the future, amazing machining, materials, structure, interconnect… and as a theme of tonight, i didn’t quite manage to nail the photo that illustrates what i saw. but hey. gives faith in the world, seeing quality like that.
and here is chris, chief surgeon himself, via the new camera. first outing of camera: mixed bag… see the potential, need to tame it.
diary | 24 jul 2008 | tagged: vj
just finished a week production making the video content for the blackberry bold launch in the uk. while not the first time i’ve made stuff for led screens, its both amazing and terrifying seeing your seemingly perfect after effects composition playing out so big and so bright… any tiny mistake becomes crystal clear. also a test for live camera + laptop, combining band ‘the feeling’ with the neon backing comps. not as sucessful as i’d like, but still good to see and a good proving ground.
we rocked it tho’, with the goalposts changed at the last minute due to a sudden corporate influx from worldwide headquarters we pulled off a really nice balance of brand and bespoke imagery, to the point where said corporate types were overheard talking about ‘messing with the brand’ as a wonderful and mysterious thing: in short, london did itself proud.
diary | 24 jul 2008 | tagged: *spark · vj · vdmx · video-out · video-in · light surgeons
