The french strikes didn’t really help (no public transport in France that day), and it’s been a long journey: bus, plane, lift to Rennes (thanks Wahn !!), then driving for 2 hours and I finally arrived safe in Caen in the evening (the 10 energy drinks I had in the car really helped keeping me awake).

There I hooked up with Aalto, Ratsi and Lego_man, who were

taking care of the visuals in the ”Klub” room of this big festival, on a massive installation they helped to design: the big room has litreally been created by building 3 walls made out of big square screens, to create a very geometrical semi closed space. Then 7 seven video projectors were projecting images on the all around, using a multiprojection setup (which means that each wall could have a different visual on it) and playing with the mapping technique, then they could also “map” visuals on the big squared screens and play with masks.

Photo report
Ok, you might find it quite difficult to picture, I guess the best explanation is a set of photos

Technical setup:
- Custom screens and installation.
- 6 x 8 000 lumens video projectors + 1 x 12 000 lumens.
- hundreds of meters of vga and RGB cables.
- 8×8 VGA Matrix switcher, signal amplifiers
- 4 laptop computers (all Apple, running on Modul8) with multi output support.
- 7 different video signals (with a dualhead and a triplehead 2 Go)
- Loads of different Midi controlers.

The result was a very impressive and immersive setup, the crowd was literaly surrounded by amazingly well produced visuals (ratsi, Aalto and Lego_man all have very unique visuals, but with some commons points in style and subjects, and their content blends really well together) and this setup created a very cutting edge experience for the audience.
To be honest the audio lineup in this room was good, but didn’t sound “that” special, and it’s funny to realize that sometimes the visual element is starting taking over the music side, and I’m convinced that many people that will come back for the visual lineup, and because of the great visual experience they had, which left much more souvenirs than the usual silhouette of a dj pushing records.

Video report
Here’s a short video (edited by Lego_man) which might talk by itself :

It’s a bit of a shame that the Lighting was a bit random and didn’t really add anything, organisers might have better switch that off rather than having multicolored oldschool and disco patterns overlaying the projections sometimes, but anywayyyyy….

It was great to hookup with Pikilipita (which actually is from Caen, before he left to London to hack gameboys), grominet and other nice friendly people.

Radio interview
Aalto and Lego_man have been interviewed on a local radio show (at 4AM during the festival), and I was around to show some support while ratsi was busy playing live.
If you don’t fluently understand french, here’s a good opportunity to practice..

Download the podcast. (french only)

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FRANCE:
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Lille: Paysages Electroniques.
(Full report in a blog post).

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..

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SWITZERLAND:
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Geneva: Mapping festival.
Mapping + VJ  set + Wiimote workshop.
(Full report in a blog post) + new photos.!

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.

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SPAIN:
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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.

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UK:
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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:

Glade overkill stage from vjmeno

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.

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IRELAND:
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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 Reactable, used live during the concert: