Google Voice

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Skills edt. POP 08 May 24th

www.vjculture.com
It's been a month of production. Now, this weekend May 24th we will create environments for 4 rooms at Skill's POP 08. Tiesto again is headlining.
You can find out who all the DJ's are here.
It's the VJ's that are going to rock this party
Simplistiks WI in the DnB room
Brotherhood of Light SF in the Breaks Room
Opticus LA in the House room
VJ Culture in the main room
Plus, we will all be mixing it up in each of the various rooms.
Here are pics from last year.
This year's show is at the Cow Palace in S. San Francisco
18,000 capacity.
Our largest screen yet. 30x40ft + a LED wall for the main stage.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Video installations outside the Getty

www.vjculture.com


May 9th-10th at the Getty Los Angeles Freewaves curated 18 video art pieces in conjunction with The Getty's California Video exhibit. The videos were projected around the gardens of the Getty center.
The execution of the installations was done very well. Massive 10k projectors on truss sticks strapped down in creative ways, a program guide with maps of the Getty complex with locations of each installation, a theme of dualities, culture and nature.
I found myself walking the Getty gardens thinking to myself, "This is so square" (or at least 4:3 maybe 16:9) I was hoping to see a more conscious placement of the videos on the projected surface. Maybe taking the video outside of its rectangle box and projecting the pieces as temporary art pieces specifically designed for that surface.
Instead it was just the novelty of viewing video outside in the gardens. Mind you this is still more interesting than 80% of the video art pieces exhibited inside the Getty for the main exhibit.

Video art, as exhibited by some of the leading world museums today raises the question. "Is everyone who posts a video on user generated content sites a video artist? The quality of production, performance and narrative exhibited at these museums is not that different from what you see everyday on these sites. Granted, most of these pieces are a historical reference to the work produced two and three decades ago. But if the museums continue to focus on the historical video artist, viewers may well believe that there isn't much difference from what they see on youtube and what exists in the museum. The difference of video art vs painting is the level of technology involved. It's arguable to say that a strong video art piece is not about the technology, it can stand the tests of time. This is true, as a video artists myself I battle with the ideas that I could never produce the same level of production the movie studios are knocking out everyday. Yet this is what the viewers have come to expect.
Fortunately the current trend in design is not slick, well produced videos. It leans more on clever ideas and storytelling than technical production. Much like the strong video art pieces. This is great for video artists right now, but it is a trend and to the general viewer indistinguishable between what is online and what deserves to be placed in a museum.
For video art to continue evolving I believe the video pieces need to have a stronger focus on site specific installation. At "California Video" I was really moved by two pieces, Jennifer Steinkamp and Bill Viola's The Sleepers. Jennifer worked her installation into the architecture the museum and created an environment. (Or maybe it was the other way around). Either way her piece encompassed sculpture, architecture, painting and movement.
Video art today needs to stand out from all the viral videos, user generated content and random video captured in black and white with the shaky hand labeled, "Art". It needs intention with where it will be viewed and thinking outside of the 4:3 or 16:9 box.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Beatport Stage at Remix Hotel during WMC ०८

www.vjculture.com
During Winter Music 08 Remix Hotel and Beatport hosted a stage at the National Hotel.
Edirol and I curated 12 VJs to perform over the 4 days.

Big Screen Images of San Francisco provided us with a 13x9ft LED screen for day and nighttime visuals. Everyday from 2:00PM to 9:00PM VJs and DJs rotated through the stage.
Heavy hitters like Ritchie Hawtin, M.A.N.D.Y., Bad Boy Bill, performed on the stage.
Edirol provided us with the unreleased P-10 Presenter and V8 video mixer, in addition to the CG-8 and PR-80. They were also kind enough to pay the VJs for their performance.
The video is a highlight of the 4 days. Most of it was shot on my little digital still camera. Thanks to VJ demencia for the extra footage.
The VJs that performed were:
Benton-C NYC
DVJ Optikal South Beach
Justin Kent Miami
United Vision NYC
VJ Culture SF/LA
VJ Demencia NYC
VJ Dubassy London/Marseille
VJ Omni Orlando
VJ Psyberpixie Miami
VJ Shakinda Ireland
VJ Tek LA
VJ V2 LA

Here is a link to the interviews from Remix Hotel. In this video I'm talking about the curating process.
Out of the 4 days, this was my favorite track.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Red Bull Art of Can 360 green screen shoot


www.vjculture.com
Currently working on Red Bull's Art of Can for Houston TX. The gallery opens July 12th and Larry and I are working on the 360 rotations of the artist's work. We shot the 360's in Houston at VT2 studios. Some pieces were too big to do 360 rotations.
checkout the final pieces at
In this picture we had to use all the green screen material we could just to create enough coverage for this piece.

This shot provided by Larry shows our setup. Some of these pieces required elaborate lighting and masking because of the highly reflective material of the can. Green screen spill and reflection can create huge headaches in post. Some of the shots required shooting through glass and still getting a clean key. The final product was rendered to flv as a alpha channel.