Dubspot LA

Visually speaking, it's rare that I get to do whatever I want these days. It seems the lighting companies have taken over the visual budgets and the larger festivals have their own ideas how the visuals are going to go down.
So this Friday July 23rd. I'm excited to do whatever I want.
You're all on the guest list. (with a small donation)

Dubspot LA: 2011 Showcase & Humane Society of the U.S. Benefit
King King
6555 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA

Super Hero Street Fair July 10th (It's going to be Riot like)

-One big wall.
-3 VJ stations
-5 projectors
-Too many sound systems
-1 Super Hero Fair
1000's of spandex clad wannabe heros
The Wall

The VJ Station area
From Dusk to Midnight Super Hero Street Fair shed's it's Batman beacon directly on the VJ.
The command center will consist of 5-6 projectors and 3 VJ Hero stations. Bring your superhero mix and project extraordinary visuals. Super plasmatic power and radioactive video signals will be provided courtesy of Video Salon from dusk to midnight.

Where ordinary VJs project extraordinary visuals!

Contact vjsuperhero@gmail.com
To reserve your spot.

Facebook F8 Developers Conference

April 21st 2010 SF CA

F8 Installation wall. Facebook Developers Conference 2010 from VJ Culture on Vimeo.

It took two months to pull this together. A team of 10. 5 from Facebook and 5 from my team. Full credits at the end of the video.
Facebook wanted to create a large scale projection that simulated the effect of the war room in War Games. (Notice the tic tax toe?). 12 picture in pictures, because that is all the Spyder system could handle. Actually, I had to create a few more Picture in Pictures and cheat it using Modul8.
The two outside windows were processing sketches created by Wayne Fan and Gleb Denisov. The far right window was a schedule and map of the conference. The arching lines were a visualization of the movement of attendees. The attendees were issued an RFID chip that they could register to their profile. Numerous RFID readers were placed around the venue. As the chips were scanned the data was sent to the processing app which then visualized the movement.
The chips could also be used to transmit photobooth pictures to attendees profile page as tags. All the attendee needed to do was touch the reader with their RFID chip and the photobooth did the rest. This portion of the project was headed by Facebook's Everett Katigbak and Ben Berry.
Additional windows included satellite tracking visualizer, tic tac toe, global facebook visualizer, 3d waveform visualizer by Mr. Doob, maps to the after party, realtime photo updates by a roaming photographer (Steve Maller) and the qualla bear which was intended to be a place holder but when CEO Mark Zuckerburg saw it, he suggested we keep it.
All the Spyder System control was handled by Creative Technologies Bruce Wheaton.
The full credits are listed here.
Credits In Alphabetical order
Ben Barry
Bruce Wheaton
Everett Katigbak
Gleb Denisov
Grant Davis
Julia Lam
John Taylor
Lee Byron
Mr. Doob
Raquel DiSabatino
Wayne Fan
Xarene Eskandar

Beatport Beach Party WMC Miami 2010

www.vjculture.com
One of my favorite parties of the year. Beatport brings out the sun, fun and stellar DJ line up from artists around the world.

Beatport Beach Party WMC Miami 2010 from VJ Culture on Vimeo.

At times I used Modul8 to split the screen between the front DJ booth and the screen behind the DJs.
Dealing with marketing peeps and brand management can sometimes be a challenge at sponsored events.
One particular brand wanted to see their 1 minute DVD loop up on the screen for the first 45 minutes of every DJs set. I had to inform this person that most of these DJs were only playing 45 minute sets. Additionally, this brand wasn't even the title sponsor.
Any marketing managers reading this blog... The best branding comes when the brand contributes not only financially to the event (that gets their foot in the door) but brings added value. Red Bull does this well with their branding infrastructure, i.e. DJ booths, tent structures, tables or, Heineken's 360 visual dome. Having a 1 minute DVD looping for 45 minutes does just the opposite. Guests are getting a negative brand experience at that point.
Needless to say, they didn't get the 45 minutes of Clockwork Orange, eye popping logo injections. Instead I worked it in on DJ change overs and track breakdowns.

NAMM and the death of the VJ

www.vjculture.com
NAMM didn't kill the VJ but, it did leave flowers at its grave.
Wow, not a lot to see at NAMM this year. For the past 3 years there has been a decline in hardware/software directed towards the VJ/visualist or even video DJ.
Was video too complicated for musicians/DJs? Did the music industry not see quantifiable sales on video related products? Maybe they feel its better left to the LD to handle cuz the VJ isn't gettin the love.
One notable piece of hardware out there. Denon has released a new DJ mixer DN-X1700 It has vlink, Roland's fancy name for MIDI premapped for you. Connected to the Edirol V8 and you have full control over the mixer. Tap in the BPM on the X1700 and it adjusts the V8's BMP. All the DJ mixers in the past would slave the video mixer to the mapping on the DJ mixer. It would cross dissolve on the fader whether you liked it or not. Now, with the X-1700 you can create a MIDI layer that turns the DJ mixer into a MIDI controller only. Slap those faders around, twist those knobs and only control the visuals. Turn off the MIDI layer only feature and you are back to controlling the audio. This is great for DJ and VJ applications as well.

Denon didn't have much of a presence at NAMM. You had to go past a food counter, up a set of stairs that made you question whether you belong there or not and then into a small room that was probably the food court manager's office.
Only other note worthy NAMM showing was Serato's SL video plugin. To the DJ the side note that SL video now supports quartz composer files is no big deal, but to the VJ/visualist (whatever you want to call yourself these days) this is huge. Check out the specs here.
It also mentions support for using the matrox double or triplehead2go card.
Serato is offering a free app that bridges Serato to Ableton live called, "Bridge". For the A/V minded you know what to do with Ableton and MIDI control of visual applications.
Note: Every time I walked by the Serato booth it was packed. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

Gentleman's Gaze

www.vjculture.com
This was the installation for the 2nd exhibition for the Red Bull House of Art in Sao Paulo Brazil.

The Gentleman's Gaze from VJ Culture on Vimeo.

Artist Statement:
The Gentleman’s Gaze is a dual projection video installation exposing one of our most vulnerable human moments, sleeping. The audience joins in the voyeuristic activity as they observe a woman lying on the bed. All the while a gentleman gazes through the bedroom window.
Similarly, The Gentleman’s Gaze implies a male chauvinistic perception of the power structure between men and women through the gaze.
The gentlemen in the window suggests the sense of self-entitlement to stare at a woman. Curiosity draws the viewer into the room to take part in gazing without the woman's knowledge.
For this instillation I hacked a PS Eye camera with a visible light blocker. Mounted a projector and camera above the bed.
Using blob detection via MAX/Jitter the viewer can interact with the women being projected on the bed.
The gentleman in the window is specifically mapped to the window in this room.
I recreated the lighting to simulate the night lighting in downtown Sao Paulo.
There is a subtle sound of a mosquito buzzing around the room. This is realized by the women waving her hand around while she sleeps.