I (like many) have always wanted to guest program rage. In order to do that though, I’d first need to become famous. And that requires a lot of time and effort that I could instead be putting towards jumping up and down in front of my laptop making strange noises (true story). Happily, I’ve been invited by ACMI to come and talk about animation, music videos, tech hackery and all the things I do when instead I should be going out there getting famous. I’m gonna screen some of my work as well as some music videos that have pressed the OMG button in my brain. Like these ones:
It’s happening Tuesday, April 3rd, 6PM @ Studio 1, ACMI (Federation Square, Melbourne). It’s a free event but you do need to book here. come! say hello and ask me things!
… and we’re back. while I was blog-absent some fun things have happened. VIZZable was the 10th most read story on CDM last year. It’s exciting news for a little set of plugins in the relatively obscure Max for Live video scene and encouraging that others are as interested in using Ableton as an audio-visual environment as I am. Big shout out to the great folk on the Jitter in Max for Live group!
Sound 2 Light
Some documentation of last years Sound 2 Light has arisen. Sound 2 Light was a tech/media arts event held in Hobart where artists are partnered up and given a small period of time to come up with an installation or performance. I was partnered up with venerable techno producer Sam Gregory and we created a 20 minute AV piece revolving around strange hybrid animals all mapped onto four, large rectangular panels. I also put together two smaller installations: “Homunculus II” a teleoperated robot visible at the start of the video and a colourful, kaleidoscopic, audio-reactive projected piece that evolved throughout the night. Watch the video below and see if you can spot such things. You can also listen to the live broadcast that went out on the night.
Stereosonic
Last year I was also lucky enough to VJ the Bass Arena at Melbourne’s Stereosonic. It was the longest set I’ve played so far – about 9 hours – I used the opportunity to try out some new masking and feedback techniques as well as the usual fare of Live camera feeds, glitches, datamoshing and rainbow meltiness. Whilst playing for Danish electropop singstress Lucy Love, her manager approached me and asked if there was anything wrong with the video signal. I gestured to my PS3 controller as if to say, nope, it’s OK, It’s supposed to be like that and before I could launch into a deep discussion of how visuals, when tightly synced, can reenforce sound and give it more impact he said “Don’t do that”. I quickly pigeon holed him as a square whom I usually enjoy confusing but to keep him happy I kept the rest of the set less interesting/confusing. Anyhoo, some videos of the day have popped up on youtube. Datsik was particularly awesome.
Next…
A few Zeal shows are popping up in Radelaide in the coming weeks as well as some remix projects to get back into the music side of things. I’m building another controller similar to Archaeopteryx but this time for feet:
I’m also exploring Augmented Reality with a view to put together an immersive AR installation at some stage in the future. I hope I’m not alienating all you normal people as this is possibly the geekiest video I’ve uploaded to date:
Alrighty, you’re up to date. I’m back to blogging and tweeting so sit tight, there’s more soon.
i may not have been blogging terribly often the last few weeks but that’s because i was making this! it’s for james annesley’s virtual proximity – the track’s called suburbia. dig the album here.
the clip was made using a combination of stop motion animation and projection mapping and i put together a little video describing the process. dig that below.
And then I made this. It’s called Archaeopteryx, it’s a MIDI controller designed with VDMX in mind and I think it’s pretty hot. I’m going to make a run of similar, smaller controllers called The Sleep Crime so if you’d like to get your hands on one shoot me an email. But for now here’s how this one came into being. Continue reading Archaeopteryx: a DIY MIDI controller
much is happening. earlier this week i released an update to VIZZable, my set of video plugins for ableton live. it’s a big update with fancy new features like GL optimisation and autoconnection(!) the auto connection code is thanks to chris gough from the jitter in live google group. if you’re into video and ableton live and maybe even max/msp, you should join us to help us test and make various awesome things.
if you’re in melbourne, you can see these plugins in action along with some button pressing, singing and jumping around when i play live at plugnplay next thursday the 28th of april at the kent st cafe, 201 smith st, fitzroy. i think i’m playing with vdmokstati, jean poole and others… bit short on details at the moment… but it’ll be awesome, i’m sure. the day after that (friday 29th) i’m playing at the builders arms with time shield, the leafs and sun blindness. i’ll also supplying visuals for the leafs and sun blindess. check the fb event! and the poster:
in other news, the dudes at projuice have thrown up a little write up about me which makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy. projuice is a media creation showing airing on abc at the moment – it’s really great seeing tutorial style programming making the airways especially since it’s pretty much favorite sort of thing to watch on the interwebs. that and videos of baby sloths.
in other, other news, i’ve been inspired by this, this and this and have decided to build a midi controller (i’ve undertaken a similar project in the past). i’ll be using the guts from two korg nanokontrols and a usb qwerty keyboard and it should end up looking a bit like this:
My good friend Subsketch has started a podcast and this week it features me talking about all things Zeal thusfar. He’s done some tricky editing to make me say things i never really said… check it out Y’all! Oh yeah! Give me that podcast!
While you’re at it, check out all things Subsketch. He makes tremendous stuff. It is worthy of your attention.
peeps have been quick to jump on my new little max4live project Vizzable which has been great.
I put together a quick live set to take this audiovisual automobile for a test drive:
this is going to be the format of the new Zeal live set except expect some acoustic guitar, live sampling and words that sound nice but don’t mean much.
The pretty colours are provided by a Novation Launchpad which is sequenced/animated in Ableton Live. This track and the rest of the album are still free. Go get it.
UPDATE:
I’ve uploaded the MIDI file used to run the clip. If you have a Launchpad and want to see the clip in glorious real life download this MIDI file and play it in your DAW of choice with the Launchpad selected as your MIDI output.
Zeal is 27 year-old Melbournite, Robert Jarvis. He makes anticon-esque indie-pop-tronica, animated music videos about cats in space and software that enables you to do all sorts of stuff.
Elsewhere...