the blog of makemassair

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

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

three video edits taken from a VJ performance at Glade Festival 2009 (also on Youtube)
performed July 18th 2009

audio Plaza de Funk – Live at the Brakedown Stage, Glade Festival 2009

for booking + more info makemassair.co.uk

At this year’s Glade Festival I was lucky enough to perform for about 10 hours. One of those was during Plaza de Funk’s set. Of which these 3 edits were recorded during.

Massive shouts to Arran for booking me and Marcello for a great set to perform to.

Lukasz Lysakowski has produced this video: Color Process. It’s part of an audiovisual performance between himself and Eduard Artemyev (who provided the audio).  I’ve highlighted it on the makemassair blog because it is both visually textured and aesthetically very pleasing. In my humble opinion anyways.

Why not leave a comment with your opinion.

I believe (from the information provided on Vimeo) that the video is a combination of the coding languages Processing, and MAX/MSP with Jitter, but with what doing which bit I don’t know (although I am very keen to uncover).

My realtime video work focuses on creating a nonlinear narrative which folds and unfolds in reaction to the interplay between sound and image. Digitization and processing allows for intuitive and spontaneous creation of image-sound scapes. Each video work is unique, situated in time and space, and reflects the ephermal nature of our experiences.

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

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.

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

A dirty, spontaneous approach, result of 4 live recordings, post edited and mashed them fairly randomly, so as the outcome retains a frenetic life of it’s own.

visuals: Morris La Mantia [Lucidhouse]
music: The Noise — Adriano Dodici — Subronic Records

BEDROOM RESEARCH@L’AERONEF, LILLE, 2007
I came across this video from a night last year with the rather excellent Bedroom Research people. Cool sound and cool visual. Check out their site for some free music, of which Monster X is a personal fave.

SOUND
Tiazitch http://prootrecords.free.fr
Milanese http://www.planet-mu.com
Subjex http://www.bedroomresearch.com
µ-ziq http://www.planet-mu.com
Orange Zebre http://www.bedroomresearch.com
Cursor Miner http://www.myspace.com/cursorminer
Monster X http://www.bedroomresearch.com

VIDEO
Tix http://www.myspace.com/tix1982
Deework http://www.bedroomresearch.com
Yamsk http://www.bedroomresearch.com
Legoman http://www.legoman.net
Moko http://www.mokolab.com