Here are a couple more on Sigma6′s website.

Thanks again to Sigma6 who came down from Geneva to do the visuals, and Zac our mini model for the juicy Flyer.

See you this month, with the infamous RCTC from Nantes !

So they came to Bristol to perform at our A/V clubnight “Cuisine”, and played together for a couple of hour on a semi transparent screens installation over the crowd (designed by another brilliant Swiss VJ: Lego_man).

They are great producers and have a very special taste for urban slices and industrial architecture visuals, playing efficiently with light, depth and immersive visuals.

Here’s one of my favorites Sigma6′s production, and a live performance:

Creative Space by Florian – Sigma6

Sigma6 Live – Le Zoo, Geneva

More videos on Sigma6′s website, youtube and myspace.

When you arrive in Zurich by train, the very first thing you discover from the city is a massive light installation hanging up the ceiling of the train station.

It looks like a big 3D matrix made out of ping-pong ball, where each ball is like a pixel, and can be controlled independently, so it can be used like a 3D screen, and display abstract minimal animations, low-res videos or 3D scenes, which makes it the world-wide first three-dimensional, bivalent color display.

It reminds me the small Led cubes I’ve seen at 23C3 in Berlin, but this huge version has 25000 “pixels” (10 x 50 X 50) which can light up in more than 16 million colors, and is 3.3 tons heavy.
I was in Zurich in may for the Tweakfest festival [view blog post], and there was a smaller (1000 pixels) version of the installation in the festival hall.

It’s fascinating to discover new displays, and this installation adds a third dimensions to all the visuals displayed, and creates a very interesting depth: move around while you’re looking at the structure, and the same visuals will look different from another angle..
I stayed staring at the installation for about 20 minutes, and they were nice visuals, quite minimal and simple (but sometimes with a mess of colors, or old school patterns), I guess they’ve been created by some programmers. I discovered later that there’s actually a program, with some details and explanations about each sequence. I really would have loved to see this one.

I’m not sure if designers, animators and artists can submit their visuals and animations, but it could actually be very interesting to see how people can use this amazing x, y, z media.

I was also fascinated by the idea itself of being able to create 3D light displays.. Imagine the same installation, with transparent “pixels”, made with much smaller lights in a dense matrix (and I’m sure the nanotechnologies will permit to achieve this in a near future) and then you’ll be able to display real holograms. I’ve been studying the idea for a long time, and the hologram secret would be a 3D matrix of self-emitting light nano pixels floating in the air.. Let’s wait and see what the Future brings us.

The Nova project, has been created by ETH Zurich, and will stay in the train station until September 2009.

More details and pictures on my Flickr, and on the media architecture blog.

———————

FRANCE:
———————

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..

———————
SWITZERLAND:
———————

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.

———————
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:

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.

———————
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 Reactable, used live during the concert: