Documenting the research and production of interactive network based media. By David Wolf
VJ Bertranol aka Bertrand Gondouin is a Sweden based VJ, video blogger and video software developer.
Through his company Mixnbrew he has developed a number of interesting bits of software including Symtonic A Flash based online video mixer application, Patchouli a video blogging uploader / content management system, and Scramble a granular video synthesis engine.
Good work and good to see the whole video blog / vj / network video crossover thing happening.
Technorati Tags: vj
On Saturday I presented at the School of Applied Communications Graduate Research Conference at RMIT. In the past MA and PhD students have been assessed by their supervisors every six months or so as either not satisfactory, satisfactory, good or excellent. This was the first time the school has run a GRC which allows students to present their projects publicly in front of a panel, answer questions and receive advice and critique from other students and staff. In the past I have been along to see GRCs run by the design and architecture schools who make a big production out of the event, flying in special panel guests and really forcing students to defend their work with tough questions.
I found the process of getting ready for the GRC and presenting to be very helpful, making me look back over what I’ve been reading and doing and what I need to write more about. I made a couple of mistakes in my presentation, the main one was that I didn’t keep track of how much time I had. I was concerned about not rushing through my points without explaining them properly, and at the same time not repeating myself too much, I think I still repeated myself a bit. I spent a bit of time at the start of the presentation explaining my background and my initial ideas for the project. This was good on one hand because it framed my work and the developments I have made. It also put me at ease, since it was very easy to talk about. On the other hand it took too long which meant I didn’t have enough time to go into my latest research and Vidgets in enough depth towards the end of the presentation. For a 20 min presentation I guess you only have time for the highlights.
The general mood of the conference was pleasant and helpful from my experience and the presentations I saw. Unlike the architecture style panels which can be very intense, challenging the presenters on any mistakes or unclear points, my panel gave me opportunities to clarify a couple of points I explained badly in the Q & A session which followed and actually highlighted some links between ideas that I hadn’t identified.
Click image to play (28Kb Quartz Composition in QuickTime wrappper, requires MacOS 10.4)
MPEG 4 - h264 version (1.9Mb) Requires Quicktime 7 or alternative player such as VLC.
Quartz Composition file (64Kb) - Open in Quartz Composer to see how it works or move to ~/Library/Screen Savers/ to use as a screen saver.
Technorati Tags: Quartz Composer, vidget
Today I played live visuals for Legs For Fish at Thornbury High school. Kent Macpherson from the band is a music teacher there and organised a performance / presentation for the kids from music, media and IT classes. We played three improvised AV sets and the kids seemed not to hate it 
As Paul from the band said, it makes you acutely aware of how self indulgent this sort of improvised performance is when are doing it in front of a room full of kids who aren’t necessarily there by choice. Some of the kids seemed to dig it and some asked some good questions. “Why do you do this?” “What does it mean? The pictures just looked like colours and shapes.”
I used the Quartz Vidget I prepared for the Liquid Architecture gig in July as it works fairly well and made it easy for me to show the kids what I was doing without the confusion of showing a huge messy Quartz Composer patch. After each set we took questions. I showed how I can grab any two video files or sequences of still images and mix them together, manipulating colour, brightness, contrast etc. as well as layering multiple copies over each other. After the second performance I showed very briefly how Quartz Composer works by dropping in a video file, connecting it to a Billboard and then running it through a couple of effects.
Looking back at the QC presentation I gave at Electrofringe after this one I realise I should have shown heaps more examples and started much more slowly in Newcastle. Assuming no prior knowledge meant I explained things much more clearly, and I introduced things in a much more logical order (having slept the night before also helped!).
I’ve been back in Melbourne for a week now and have started to catch up on some sleep so its time to reflect on the past couple of weeks’ gigs and event.
On the 27th and 28th of September I performed as part of Kiss my after effects, an experimental video art festival which is part of the larger Melbourne Fringe Festival 2005.
On the 27th, after much last minute tinkering, I provided visual accompaniment for Null Hypothesis (aka Elaine Carter) who played a set of crunchy industrial beats and glitchy tones. Parts of my old Quartz Composer patches refused to work on my new laptop (I think I had a second ‘Video Input’ node hidden somewhere in a macro-patch, connected to nothing which prevented my use of live video in) so I ended up using my old computer with an older patch and copied my newer images across. The set ended up going pretty well, visually based almost entirely on sequences of still images manipulated and fed back upon themselves. I really like the effect of adding in a layer of video feedback over the images so that the highlights bleed out and move across the screen. I’ll post some examples of how this looks soon.
On the 28th I played two sets with Doktorb Robotnik (Adrian Lucas) and Soul Mirage (Simon Gorman), also as part of KMAE / Melbourne Fringe Festival. For the first set I played audio and video simultaneously with Adrian on feedback electronics and Simon on keyboards. I used pretty much the same video set up as the night before and found the task of playing both audio and video a bit overwhelming. I would either get lost concentrating on the audio and realise that I hadn’t changed the video for 5 minutes, or fade myself out of the mix and focus only on the video. It was an interesting exercise but far too stressful to allow for good improvisation. I don’t think I want to try it again any time soon. For the second set I focussed on audio only (playing with ableton live) and felt an enormous sense of relief and freedom in contrast. I was able to listen to what Adrian and Simon were playing much more easily and improvise without having to ‘think’.
After the gig Adrian and I started the long drive up to Newcastle for Electrofringe…
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