Laser Tagging @ the Stunt Awards 2007 After Party

www.vjculture.com

Laser graffiti on a building in the Paramount Lot.
The 2007 Stunt Awards After Party on the Paramount Lot was produced by Keith Gecor Decor and Grace Entertainment/Red Bull.

I was asked to produce the laser graffiti that has been showcased by Graffiti Research Lab. The code was open source and available for "Processing". Jacob Tonski basically rewrote the whole code and added some extra features. In the pics, notice the small squiggles at the bottom of the laser tagging, just below the bird.

By pointing the laser at these icons you could change the brush strokes thickness and color. To the left bottom of the screen is a small box. When the laser beam hits the box it erases the screen.
Guest were invited to come up on the platform and give it a try. As in most cases the kids picked it up better than the adults.

We used a red laser because there were 9 other lasers ranging from 40watt to 3watts projecting all over the 2 block radius of the NYC section of the Paramount Lot. If other lasers hit the area we were tagging it would have conflicted with the tagging we were doing with the hand held lasers. So Jacob isolated the color to just red.
Lasers were provided by Creative Laser Media & Design
Keith Greco Decor created the environment and building projections. Keith wanted a 70's theme. He told me, "Think Burt Reynolds, Hooper, Smokey and the Bandit, Starsky and Hutch, Muscle cars and groovy patterns". That was a tough theme to come up with for the laser graphics.

It was a 3 day install for the lasers, Andrew's team consisted of 9 laser experts. If this were a real city it would be impossible to install all these lasers inside buildings. However, in Hollywood anything is possible.

The buildings during the daytime
The buildings look just like any other building in NYC. However, on the inside they are designed for lighting and rigging. We couldn't have asked for a better environment. We could even pull power straight off the street lamps with a 120 edison plug.

Inside the buildings on the NYC section of the Paramount Lot
Here is some of the other artwork.

And then there is always VJ Culture and his damn flowers

Tokyo and Visualux

www.vjculture.com
April 28th- May 8th Lightrhythm Visuals invited me to spend sometime in Tokyo, for Visualux @ Super Deluxe and another one off event.


This was a partially to support the VJ Book 'vE-jA" Book written by Xarene Eskandar.

What an incredible time... both Ben Sheppee from Lightrhythm and Shinji (Visualmixer)really took care of me. Shinji put me up in the super swank, designer hotel "Claska". Ben made sure I had a good time and was able to navigate the subway system in Tokyo.

(Missed Connections- You girl with straight dark hair and gorgeous almond shaped eyes around 5'4" with expensive hand bag)

The famous Shubya intersection and station
It was Golden Week while I was there. Basically 3 holidays in one week so most the country takes the whole week off. Everywhere we went was extremely crowded. Tokyo itself is crowded, now add a holiday to that.

Even the parks are packed
The first event was Visualux, an evening combining presentations, hardware/software demos and A/V performances. I performed with Ian Hartley a true master of audio.

Grant and Ian

Photos by Chiemi
Also performing was Shinji; (Visualmixer) and Jon Schwark of Lightrhythm Visuals demoed the new VDMX 5.

Plus, a brief presentation of the 'vE-jA" book. The place was packed and for a Monday night it was unprecedented.

Super Deluxe

We were featured in Pingmag thanks to Chiemi.
The next Visualux is June 4th w/ VJ Anyone.
The next gig on the Tokyo tour was an event at Club Asia in Shubya.

Club Asia




(7:00PM)
This was a party that started at 4:00 and ended by 10:00PM. By 6:00PM the dance floor was packed and you would think it was any given dance club around the world on a Saturday night at 2:00AM. The audio talent was a little lacking, but it was a fun event none the less. My new moto: "Don't let Models DJ". That's all I'll say.
Ben and I also checked out Hifana, w/ DJ Kentaro and Pharcyde from LA.
I'd have to say the scratching and A/V set DJ Kentaro laid down was one of the tightest sets I've ever seen.

and this one

The content was just okay, but it was an amazing mix of VJ GEC and Kentaro on the DVJ and korg entrancer.