Waw, I haven’t posted anything here for ages !!
We have been well busy with the label since January, and haven’t had a chance to post reports of any of our recent performances, but I think September is a good time to refresh the blog and keep you up to date !
We’re still in the process of editing footage and putting together the pictures and videos, but here are the few projects that I want to introduce here:
Performances and installations - Grote kerk: a light and sound performance in Breda cathedral (NL), january 09.
- Tour des Convoyeurs: outdoor installation in Montreal (CA) old port, for Mutek in May 09.
- Nuits Sonores: Stage design and live visuals in Lyon (FR), May 09.
- Enghien: a mapping performance for Bains numériques festival near Paris, in June 09.
- Sondgo: a mapping performance for the opening of a futuristic building, near Seoul (Korea) in August 09.
Projects on Tour
- Principles of geometry + AntiVJ, a stereoscopic show (3D projections, visuals by Joanie Lemercier, Simon Geilfus and Desaxismundi).
- Murcof + AntiVJ. Visuals by Simon Geilfus
AntiVJ labs: Research and Development
- AntiVJ Mapping Toolkit !
- Stereoscopy + tracking prototype*.
*we will showcase the prototype at the Watershed event on Thursday, check video below.
So we keep ourselves quite busy, and we are really excited about the next upcoming events, as we will present some of the label’s projects in Bruxelles, Paris, Rennes, Talliin (Estonia), Brazil (3 gigs tour), and Sonderborg, (Denmark).
We will soon announce more about all these projects, and details about future events will be available on the website.
AntiVJ showcase at Watershed
By the way, we are doing a showcase in Bristol this week, to present these recent projects and the different things happening on the label, so if you’re around South West UK on Thursday, please come and meet us at the Watershed: http://www.watershed.co.uk/exhibits/2028/
This event will take place at 1800hrs (not 1700hrs as advertised) in Cinema Three.
We are doing a talk, in an informal way, so feel free to ask questions, and also a presentation of our new stereo + tracking prototype, (tickets are limited, so hurry up).
After loads of travels and events abroad, I had a chance to get some rest for a couple of weeks, and stay a bit around Bristol.. I also realized that I haven’t played ‘at home’ for a while, so I was really pleased when I’ve been asked to do some visuals for a Dubstep night at the Croft, which is the place where I did my very first VJ set when I moved to UK, back in 2004.
The organisers were more after a “stage design” rather than a simple screen setup, so it was the perfect occasion to get further in the “live painting” experiments that I did in June.
If you know my work, you’ve probably noticed that I’m obsessed by minimalism, straight lines and geometry, but in the past few months I felt a bit stuck in cubes and grids, (especially after a big project in Shanghai last October, where I stayed in a room with 2500 cubes for 3 weeks) and I wanted to explore new patterns and shapes, so I started drawing more, and playing around with 3D softwares.
I’m fascinated by the work of Martin Böttger (tsaworks), and the way he deconstructs simple 3D objects into organic and very dynamic shapes, and he also works with different mediums (animation, but also paper cuts, sculptures and installations). I’m sure many of you already know his Tractor video (recently featured in the onedotzero tours), but I also discovered recently his kluster_raum installation and his other works, and I just realized that I’ve been deeply influenced by him on this project.
Here’s a very short video of the preparations (I did many tests and sketches in order to find an interesting shape) and of the actual event: I painted during the afternoon and finished the painting during the night, and then I did an hour of live visuals during Shackleton set.
Thanks a lot to Shackleton, Nicolas Boritch for his help, and Woody for filming.
EXYZT CUBE INSTALLATION:
At the end of last year, I’ve been blown away when I discovered Etienne de Crecy live installation at Transmusicales festival (Rennes / France), not that I’m particularly a huge fan of de Crecy’s music, but I found the “stage design” very impressive and unique.
The show is an hour of visual mapping and projections on a big cube, while de Crecy is playing live electronic music, and triggering the lights and visual sequences, standing in the middle cube, inside the installation.
The setup is very effective, they used semi-transparent material to give more depth to the projections, and all the content is perfectly mapped to the structure, and produced with a very specific technique, to give the impression that the cubes are actually in 3D, and to create depth and volume.
In fact there is only one projector, and all the magic comes from the clever setup and the quality of production.
I found out a couple of weeks later that the brilliant Parisian crew Exyzt produced this installation (they are a team of architects, designers, geniuses technicians etc..) and after seeing their work a couple of times (at mapping festival), I wasn’t so surprised, and I couldn’t see anyone else doing such a great project.
THE KILLERS RIP OFF:
Waw, that was quite shocking !!!
A few days ago, I discovered a video of the american band “the killers” performing at the MTV EMA.
Same installation (with a few more cubes), same lighting effects, same content: rotating cubes mapped on the structure, with all the exyzt effects: same movements, rotations, even the same 4 colors have been copied from de Crecy’s set performance.
The only differences are the TERRIBLE mapping (not a single line is aligned properly), and hearts, equalizers, and other badly designed 2D visuals added to exyzt’s original content. Of course the result probably impressed most of MTV’s audience, but compared to the original piece, there was something fundamentally wrong in the Killers show, and it couldn’t be exyzt work.
LEFT: Original mapping by Exyzt – RIGHT: mapping failure by the Killers (click to zoom in)
This video might be offline soon, as Viacom (the owner of MTV) is trying to make this clip disappear from youtube (many copies have been removed already).
THE STORY:
It’s not that often when mapping installations are brought to mainstream audiences and TV shows, so I wanted to know more about this, so I contacted Franz from Exyzt, and Lauren (PR for the Killers) to get their inputs on this.
Franz confirmed that the MTV show wasn’t done by Exyzt, and in fact the MTV staff contacted them after seeing de Crecy’s installation to get a copy of it for “the killers” show. Of course this wasn’t possible, for obvious artistic and legal reasons, but the crew offered his services to create a new stage design for the American band.
MTV and the Killers probably didn’t want to be creative, and Exyzt never heard back from them, until they saw the Rip off of their work on TV.
Lauren never replied to my emails, so I don’t have the killers version of the story, but I guess they might be well ashamed now after doing such a bad thing.
We don’t know much yet about the company who accepted to reproduce the installation, but I doubt that this story will make them a good publicity either.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW ?
Lawyers are on the case to make the Killers pay for what they did, (remember kids, killers always get caught ). It’s a real shame to see great ideas stolen by big companies, and this might happen more and more, so it would be good to get this case known as much as possible, so maybe big bands will think twice before copying visual artists’ work next time.
Please forward this link to press, magazines, myspaces, blogs: http://blog.antivj.com/2008/exyzt-installation-ripped-off-by-the-killers
Crea composite and AntiVJ teamed up to produce a short ”son et lumière” show for Nuit Blanche Bruxelles on the 4th of October.
We’ve been commissioned by pixlmusic to create a 20 minutes piece to be performed twice during the evening. The content is a mix of 2D / 3D visuals, and also a part with mapping and architecture related projections.
This project was really interesting on the technical side, as the schedule wouldn’t allow us to produce everything on site as we normaly do, so we had to develop a new technique to do the mapping completely remotely, without calibrations or tests on the actual building before the production.
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a Crea Composite / AntiVJ coproduction:
Since the launch of the label, everything is going even faster than before, and we have loads of new projects, ideas and bookings coming up..
I’ve been exploring new fields recently:
- Dome projection, in Bristol planetarium, with the mexican producer Murcof, and the 360° projection format is very immersive, even more than I expected, so I think I’ll carry on with this technique.
- Stereoscopic projection, with polarised filters and silverscreen (same technology as Imax3D), to make visuals appears in 3 Dimensions to the audience. This is also a fascinating technique, and we are investing a lot in this way, and we’ll do more dates soon for the stereoscopic tour, with french band “Principles of Geometry“.
- More experiments, with lights, DMX and perception.
I also did an interesting experiment the other day, I miss a lot painting, as I used to do draw a lot and do graffiti / stencils before, but I’ve been too busy with projectors recently, and a commission for an exhibition in Bristol brought me back into acrylic paint..
I’ve been asked to do a short live performance for the closing of an Art exhibition, and I wanted to use the mapping technique live painting and perspective, so I quickly put together some visuals inspired by a sketch from the light Artist James Turrell.
I’ve been away from this blog for a while, busy with new projects, editing videos, preparing the new year, and I didn’t have a chance to stop until now..
Great news, I’m proud to announce that we’re about to launch AntiVJ, a new visual label, which is a platform to produce projects based on the visual element. This project is a collaboration with some artists I really like. We became friends and realized we are sharing the same ideas and vision of our work, so we decided the collaborate more put a name on it.
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.
Here’s a short video : AntiVJ Teaser 08 featuring recent projects:
++++ Le Mans (France), August 2007 3Destruct Louvain la neuve (Belgium), June 07 Inode Nancy (France), December 07 Light up Bristol Bristol (UK), December 07
A new very exciting project ! Some Bristolian creative agencies are teaming up to produce and project moving images on the council house building during the week before christmas.
So we are in charge of the technical management, sourcing the playback hardware / software and I’ll also produce an Audio Visual piece involving multiprojection mapping.
Tech specs:
Here are a few few technical details, the biggest mapping I’ve ever done so far.
- 6 * 20 000 lumens projectors, to project on the 160m x 10m facade.
- We’ll use high res visuals: 1024×768 on each projector, so the output image is 6144×768.
- To stream such High res format, we’ll have 2 “killer” media servers, to run very large video files.
- We’ll use the VJ software Arkaos 3.6 to control the video, with multi output and Midi support, we’ll be able to synchronize the visuals together and stream Gigabytes of video very smoothly.
- VVVV will be used to sequence and root midi MIDI signals between computers.
Schedule:
If you are local, and interested to see how the mapping works, you’re more than welcome on College green this Sunday from 6pm.
The projections will run everynight, from Monday 17th to Friday 21st, 6.30pm til 10. I will do the live A/V performance at 9.45 every evening, so don’t hesitate to come along.
This event is free.
What a Summer ! Never thought I would be that busy during my usual holidays period, but it’s been a very dense and exciting few months.. Here are a few reports, photos and videos of some of the highlight of the tour:
Paris: Elysée Montmartre.
Very nice gig, I was doing a VJ set for my friends Loo and Placido, the bootleg alchemists.. The start was a betty stressy, and I had to run in Paris streets trying to find a s-video to composite 30 minutes before it starts, and climbs 10meters above the stage whle the doors were opening.. The venue was rammed, and it was a great experience to play on very different style of music. My camera died this night, but I just found a couple of pictures on flickr (thanks antifillon). Dijon: La vapeur.
We did a smaller gig in Dijon at La vapeur the next day (great venue and people, and amazing catering), in a smaller night, but still a nice experience. Have a look at L&P’s website, in the download section ! I really like Eleanor ridgy’s reggae version, sounds like Paul is high..
Bourges: Printemps de Bourges. Quite a big mainstream pop / rock festival in France. I was lucky enough to do a mapping installation, and project on the inverted staircases of the entrance hall on Saturday, for the Electronic night (unfortunately my camera was still dead, but I’ll try to post a video soon).
I’ve met there the RCTC, a VJ team from Nantes, who did a big video installation in the main room, driven by the amazing VVVV. More pictures of the night, with Joey Starr, TTC, Justice, Agoria..
Zurich: Tweakfest. Very nice Art / media festival in Zurich, with many different things happening:around the TechnoPark. (panoramic picture)
- a fascinating conference by Steve Wozniak (ex apple n°2)
- an installation by e-toy, called Mission Eternity: a massive LED pixelated screen inside a container, with lowres animations and pixel art played on 5 of the container’s sides. When you first come in, after registering your details, a friendly “agent” will explain you the concept of this “metaphysical adventure”..
A beautiful medium, but unfortunately no interactivity, no relevant visual content or anything exciting.. The life/death and memory concept is very interesting, but it’s a shame that the installation itself (the LED sarcophagus) doesn’t add anything really.. It’s just amazingly beautiful pixels. (i should do a proper post about this).
- A very interesting 3D screen created by Nova and called “Lightsculpture” hangs in the Zurich station hall, and there was also a smaller version of it in the festival’s hall. Read the full post.
- Many others things, like a Multitouch screen interface, a VJ set and workshop from the great sigma6 duo,
I did a mapping in the main Hall, another workshop, some projections on building and a light version of the A/V set “flight to Kyoto” (sadly without Damien Schneider this time).
Thanks a lot to the friendly organisers. More pictures on flickr.
——————— SPAIN: ———————
Barcelona: Sonar festival I wasn’t actually playing there, but I had a nice week of holidays with Sun finally. The festival itself was a bit dissapointing compared to my first one 2 year ago, but it was still ok.
Richie Hawtin did an great set again, with some nice minimal visuals from Ali Demirel on a massive LED screen, and nice work from the Pfadfinderei team as well.
Nice afterparty on the beach on Sunday, but much smaller than before
During the festival week, I discovered an outdoor club called Kubik, made with big luminescent cubes, controlled by DMX. I’ll do a more detailed post soon.
——————— UK:
———————
Manchester: FutureSonic festival Nice interactive / media festivals, I did a simple mapping installation on a brick wall and on a canvas, at the Uni Cafe. I’ll try to post some pics one day.
Nice stuff going on during the festival, really enjoyed TTC in english, and awesome live from Sleeparchive.
Reading: Glade festival
I’ll never manage to do the report it deserves.. Incredible weekend, a bit hardcore with the floods and mud, but we were safe at the top of the VJ booth, with Aalto supporting the visuals for the great overkill tent lineup.
Thanks to VJ Meno who just sent me a short video souvenir:
I also had a funny crowd surfing time dressed as a chicken with scotch egg.
Bristol: Bloom festival
Almost the first sunny weekend I spent in UK over the summer, which was already a very good start.. Very nice location, on the top of a hill (we could clearly see dozens of Ballon over Bristol, as it was Birstol Balloon festival). Very nice ambiance, and really nice to hookup with some great VJs (Syzygy, FataMorgana, Fade in Fade out..). I had a short VJ set that went ok, very nice crowd.
Actually very dissapointed by the “A/V acts” I’ve seen, Coldcut (boring youtube quality mashup with big MTV logos) and Eclectic Method (mashing up MTV music videos as well).
Northampton: Shambala festival
Would be to long to explain. Best festival in England this year. Human size, chilled out, rave in the forest with massive disco ball and DJ booth in trees, poetry and slam, theater, sculptures, visuals, glowing ballons floating in the air and Love.. Only the best of what “hippie” means.
——————— IRELAND:
———————
Dublin: Electric Picnic.
I did the visual installation and live visuals for many hours every evening in the Next Dome, with a nice bunch of people from Bristol.. Even after 2 days of technical setup (I hate seting up screens in circus tents, with nowhere to hookup thing..) it was a nice weekend !
The ultimate highlight was Bjork… I managed to film a bit of her concert. Outstanding !
The team behind the VJ Software “Modul8” organised in Geneva the third edition of Mapping, their audio-visual festival: a great audio lineup (including the amazings Birdy Nam Nam) and a very dense program, with exhibition, VJ sets, talks and workshops.
The festival took place mainly in 2 venues: the BAC (Contemporary Art Builbing) with installations, ehxibition and talks during the day, and le Zoo, and great club for events during the two weekends.
A great atmosphere, and a very good opportunity to meet other visual artists, and talk with a very unusual audience at the BAC (kids and grannies..).
I did a Workshop about the Wiimote to Midi, a VJ set for the D&B night, and a mapping on some large cubes built by Cube3, from Geneva.
Here are a few pictures of the Cube mapping (some of them with Clandestine from Montreal):
My highlights were: 3Destruct AV installation by Lego_man and some friends, an immersive 3 dimensions piece, very impressive and a real experience.
Exyzt did a nice installation at the Bac, and an interesting VJ set with Wireless live cam.
Clandestine did a nice A/V set with pheek, with hypnotic minimal geometric shapes, messing up with color perception, and retinal persistence..
I finally have a bit of time these days to post some news about the tour.. It started really well with a VJ set for a Breaks gig at the Batofar in Paris, where they had an all new video setup, thanks to the resident VJs, Qualityscreen and VJ Eye. I only managed to take one picture, as I was pretty busy trying to get my wiimote to work..
Then after a few days in Rennes, my hometown, I headed to Lille for Paysages Electroniques, a great festival founded by 2 VJs, Céline et Jérôme from zelabo. The audio lineup was pretty cool, with a Mutek night with Akufen, also Yuksek, Cuizinier, and the visual booking was wicked, with probably the best VJ lineup I’ve seen so far (or at least my favorite).
Among the highlights:
- The Audio visual performance: Aviorama from MFO (his vjset at clubTransmediale in January was already impressive) his a “must see” in the few good A/V acts. The 12:3 Multiprojection was also very effective !
- Sanchtv, performed for the first time on a superwide 4 screens setup. He also solved the technical problems we had when he came at cuisine #4, by buying a realtime-processing monster, which allows a 4096×768 render at 60fps with vvvv. Here are his Blog posts before and after the festival.
- Aalto and Ratsi played on sunday, both with their very personnal style and self-produced material, and did a great use of the 2X 8:3 format (thanks to the vga scaler) and did a “jam” at the end, mixing and melting their visuals..
I did a mapping installation, using some strange furniture of the club to project on. It was actually a bit tricky, as the room was very bright during the day, but I finally managed to do the mapping and work on some minimal visuals. My first installation with projections of all the sides of the cubes, I’ll probably carry on this way, to actually “skin” object..
Huge thanks to zelabo for doing such a great event and for the perfect organisation !
). It’s a real shame to see great ideas stolen by big companies, and this might happen more and more, so it would be good to get this case known as much as possible, so maybe big bands will think twice before copying visual artists’ work next time.
