the blog of makemassair

Back in January this year I was commissioned to produce a short audio visual ambient inspired piece. This was premièred at the Tate Britain on the 8th of the month. Some of you were lucky enough to come down to the awesome venue and gallery and see what me and my fellow artists had produced. (more details here).

The event Digital City will be screening the complete 12 shorts originally shown at the Late at Tate Quiet Voices event on the 27th March. It sold out really quickly (quicker than I could advertise it lol) but they have 3 tickets to give away, read on:

COMPETITION: We’re chuffed to be sold out, but also gutted that so many who’d like ot be there are unable to, so we are giving away 3 pairs of tickets. All you gotta do is answer this:

Q: Name one of the live acts that played at the first ever Digital City up in an industrial loft, 5 years ago, this march.

Hint: www.digitalcity.org.uk

Please sent your answer to info@digitalcity.org.uk . We will pick the winners a week before the event on 20/3/10.

more info about the event:

It’s taken us over a year to find this absolute beauty of a venue, but Digital City and Names of Nothing return to our secret party roots for a very special night in an utter gem of a warehouse- a secret venue in east London, very close to Hackney Wick.

—————————————————————————————–

….now look what we have in store for you:

Digital City’s 5th Birthday Party (from 7pm):

Digital City will be transforming the venue into a world of screens, where VJ, film and art installation share equal platform with the beats, and will feature:

Active Optics: An interactive video feedback installation. Accompanied by chilled tunes and quality grub

Quiet Voices films: Curated by former Big Chill visuals resident John Rixon. Expect beautiful aural soundscapes and lush cinematic projections to experience, absorb and get lost in.

• Echaskech: Live AV set from the purveyours of arguably the best hypnotic technotronica since the demise & resurrection of Orbital
• DJ BarryDark (techno-electro set)
• Tentonatom Live & DJ set
• DJ Remote (warm beats and glitch set)
• VJs Mach V, Dr Mo and Parallax

—————————————————————————————–

DC will be followed by Names of Nothing (until 7am):

Names of Nothing is an underground night and DJ duo.

Famous for their huge inner-London wood raves, Names of Nothing specialise in parties in different places- be they legal or illegal, indoors or outdoors. Their events revolve around a love for music and music alone and as such Names of Nothing try to maintain that not many people know who they are. It is not for commercial gain and has just built up via reputation and word of mouth over the years.

12 short films exploring and responding to the theme of Quiet Voices:

• RayV: 3 Steps, 3 min 18 sec
• Alex Pearl: Lodgings, 4 min 19 sec
• Annabel Dover: Imperial, 4 min 8 sec
• Bonny John/soundtrack by Input Junkie: A cloudless sky, 7 min
• Animat: A promise of snow, 7 min 36 sec
• Sounds for the Ground – video by MachV: First Light, 5 min 47 sec
• Another Fine Day: Buckets & Spades, 11 min 36 sec
• Emily Richardson: Redshift, 4 min 9 sec
• Lulu Horsfield – soundtrack by Amy Mallet: one hundred, 5 min 6 sec
• Phoebe Rixon – soundtrack by Enrico Coniglio: Mothlight, 2 min 31 sec
• makemassair: Sevenzero, 5 min 40 sec
• Lucy Wilson: 5:48, 5 min 40 sec

“Echaskech may sound lush and atmospheric but this is ambience with teeth…as a live proposition, Echaskech toughen up into a true armoured dance animal with crunching beats and vicious synth snipes as standard…with the addition of Mach V (visuals) Echaskech become a truely immersive audio-visual experience where melody and groove are prime directives.”

DJ Magazine (Fantastic 4 – Hottest four names in dance music)

Coming up on 25th Feburary 2010 (next Thursday) I’ll be donning my elusive VJ gloves and giving up an evening of video visuals alongside VJ Air and VJ Bridd. Between the 3 of us we’ll be covering rooms 1 and 2 and the actual awards ceremony itself. Some of the sets performed will be broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on Annie Nightingale’s weekly show.

Musically, being the International Breakbeat Awards, you’re looking at an evening of breakbeat based sound. Some of the lineup I know, some is new to me, either way I’m looking forward to a great evening of visuals, bass, beats and catching up with some of the scenes old and new faces. It’s going to be a long day as we’ll be setting up in the afternoon and going through until 6am and beyond (once you factor in taking down the equipment).

In Room 2 we’ll be using a mapped style of presentation which is something I’m keen to try (having always projected my work as 4:3 or 16:9 rectangles). Room 1 will be a more tradintional setup.

if you’re heading down for the evening, be sure to come say hello to the visual crew. I’ll be sure to get some video recordings with my Flip Video HD as well as some stills.

Thursday 25th February
Breakspoll – The International Breakbeat Awards
fabric London
Breakspoll assemble a collection of cutting edge artists and breakthrough producers that have delivered exceptional music in 2009 – alongside some of last years Award winners, and of course, the 2010 Breakspoll awards ceremony.

Across 3 Rooms:
The Breakspoll Awards – presented by Janette Slack & Ken Mac
Afghan Headspin vs Pixel Fist ft Stapleton MC
Apply The Breaks
Ben & Lex
Bombstrikes pres. Mooqee & Pimpsoul
BSD
Cut La Roc vs Peo De Pitte
Deekline vs Keith Mackenzie ft Sporty O
Elite Force
Eshericks
Farace
Featurecast
Flore ft Rodney P & MC Chickaboo
Freestylers vs Ctrl-Z
Future Funk Squad
High Rankin vs Gella
Left/Right
Karl Sav
Krafty Kuts vs A-Skillz (4 decks)
NAPT vs Beat Assassins
Quadrat Beat
Shut Up and Dance
Smash Hifi (ft Martin Hoerger & Leeroy Thornhill)
Specimen A vs Pyramid ft Miss Trouble & MC Incyte
Swifty B & LockUp ft C.A.$.H MC
Vent
9B0

I’ve mentioned this before and I can’t quite believe it’s happening this Friday, 8th January 2010, but it is and to say I’m excited is quite the understatement.

I was commissioned by the Big Chill festival’s visual curator John Rixon early in 2009 to produce a short audio visual piece based around the theme of Quiet Voices. John was really interested in my Downbeaten Exploratory series of mixes I produced in late 2008 and early 2009 (of which I will be doing new ones in 2010, grab the first 2 here) and was aware of my editing and video production work. I’ve been to a few Late at Tate events before and the quality of work blows me away, so to be asked to provide a piece for the event is quite an honour.

My piece, sevenzero, is my interpretation of ambient. It’s not really background sound, nor is it stuff that demands your complete attention. In my opinion it nestles somewhere in between. Comprised of footage filmed on location in Scotland with sound produced specifically for this piece.

If you can make it down, feel free to come over and say hi.

Quiet Voices, curated by former Big Chill visuals resident John Rixon, is an ambient audio-visual feast. Featuring Roger Eno and Dom Theobald, Jon Hopkins, Laura B and Graina, John Rixon and Simon Wild, Animat and Alucidnation. Together with a short film programme exploring the nature of ‘quiet’, expect an evening of beautiful aural soundscapes and lush cinematic projections.

Auditorium
19.00 & 20.30
12 short films exploring and responding to the theme of Quiet Voices.

RayV: 3 Steps, 3 min 18 sec
Alex Pearl: Lodgings, 4 min 19 sec
Annabel Dover: Imperial, 4 min 8 sec
Bonny John/soundtrack by Input Junkie: A cloudless sky, 7 min
Animat: A promise of snow, 7 min 36 sec
Sounds for the Ground – video by MachV: First Light, 5 min 47 sec
Another Fine Day: Buckets & Spades, 11 min 36 sec
Emily Richardson: Redshift, 4 min 9 sec
Lulu Horsfield – soundtrack by Amy Mallet: one hundred, 5 min 6 sec
Phoebe Rixon – soundtrack by Enrico Coniglio: Mothlight, 2 min 31 sec
makemassair: Sevenzero, 5 min 40 sec
Lucy Wilson: 5:48, 5 min 40 sec

Ctrl Alt Shift is a documentary exploring VJ Culture.

With Interviews and Footage from

The Light Surgeons
D-Fuse
Hexstatic
VJ Anyone
Addictive TV
Vector Meldrew
and Fatamorgana

Multiscreen setup for the ending party of the Scopitones’ festival 2008.

Real-time motion graphics made with vvvv.
VJ : Digital Slaves and Desaxismundi.
DJ: DJ Pone, Yuksek, Surkin, Dj Orgasmic.

This is some other work from Digital Slaves and Desaxismundi, enjoy. Please can we see more of this in clubs in the UK, rather than the stereotypical video clips you sometimes get lucky enough to see when UK club nights bother with booking visuals. (there are of course exceptions ;))

Oct 2008 – Manufacture des Tabacs – Nantes

Real-time generative HD motion graphics broadcasted on 3 screens, using vvvv’s clustering system on 3 PCs with a final resolution of 3840 * 1024 and fully audio reactive at 60 fps.
Gfx : Desaxismundi and Digital Slaves

Stunning engineering as I’m sure you’ll agree.

At the Swiss Center of Technorama, artist Reuben Margolin worked with museum staff to suspend some 450 aluminium rods by 256 wires and connect 3,000 pulleys and sliding bars. The resulting specimen uses pure mechanics—not computer-controlled servomotors—to create almost limitless figurative shapes.

Found over at Cool Hunting.

UVA  (United Visual Artists) recently performed their latest work on their 4th tour with Massive Attack. Being a fan of their work it’s only fitting I highlight this to you lot.

UVA created a new stage set, with a wide, sculptural LED screen as the centrepiece

You can see more pictures from this on the fabrikproject website.

Daito Manabe stimulates his facial muscles with small electric pulses, synced to music or he can do it the other way, flexing his facial muscles to create sound.

Found on the Today and Tomorrow website

Deaf Center + Claudio Sinatti mixedmedia performance
NODE festival, Modena / June 2008

Although short, this is a lovely piece, both audibly and visually. Both elements working in harmony with each other that makes me quite jealous I wasn’t there in person.

Links
NODE Festival / Claudio Sinatti

These guys have consistenly impressed me.

AntiVJ is a visual label initiated by European-based artists whose work is focused on the use of projected light and its influence on our perception.

Clearly stepping away from standard setups & techniques, AntiVJ presents live performances and installations where projection on volume, visual mapping, tracking and augmented reality, stereoscopy and holographic illusion are providing to the audience a senses challenging experience.

AntiVJ teaser featuring recent projects by Aalto, crustea, Emovie and Lego_man:

++++ Le Mans (France), August 2007
3Destruct Louvain la neuve (Belgium), June 2007
Inode Nancy (France), December 2007
Light up Bristol Bristol (UK), December 2007

More details on www.antivj.com
Music by Monolake