Convergence III

2011.05.28



It's been called the "festival in a building." Get free body work, participate in salon discussions on various topics, sample local wine, see performances, dance all night long and meet new, interesting and beautiful people.

The Convergence is born from the conscious collaboration of a community.

Join us as we bring together shamans of the electronic arts, ancient technologies of embodiment and sophisticated salons of wisdom.


I was really lucky to be invited to VJ for this event. I've done a couple of gigs like this, but this was by far the biggest show I have done visuals for.  Also, there was a typo on the flyer... I normally go by iVVVj as my VJ name, and iEEEj as my DJ name, but vEEEj was printed on the flyer... I actually like this a lot more and have decided to keep this as my VJ name!

The night started off with shamanistic blessing of the space and African style dance and drumming... very Boulder. The night then kicked into full gear and there were workshops, salon style panels, and of course music all night long.  I met lots of new and interesting people and had a really great time providing visuals for the music the night.

Carnivals and Snowstorms

Better late than never...
20110429-30

I've had a hard time coming up a way to summarize the experience of working on this show.  That's not a bad or a good thing.  For over a year, I worked with Daniella Vinitski (a CU PhD. Theatre candidate) helping her to execute the technical aspects of her production Carnivals and Snowstorms.  I thoroughly enjoyed working with her and the team, and we executed a complex show with relatively small amount of rehearsal time within the Black Box Space.

The production played through four different scenes (I. Brilliant Silence, II. Carnival Barkers, III. Apotheosis, IV. Memory) carrying an avant-garde pacing, with multi-disciplinary collaboration throughout.  There were dancers, actors, music and a violinist with live audio processing, alongside a complicated curtain-rigged system juxtaposing a relatively simple set.  All in all, there were a few mixed reactions, but it was very well received.  I really enjoyed the outcome of the final show despite some last minute delays in production, and am proud to put my name alongside these fantastic artists.  In fact, it was one of the most pleasurable shows I've had to work on, as our run and production crew was extremely professional and creative (with a few exceptions, as always).  Videos below and more pictures here!

Shpongletron

201104
The Boulder Theater







So I'm pretty much over this acid-techno type of music, but I am still interested in seeing what these artists are doing visually as well as with their music.  Simon Posford is a world-famous DJ from the UK and tours under many monikers, such as Shpongle and Hallucinogen.

Shpongletron

Cirque Voltaire

20110422
The Meadowlark

So, While I have been focusing on the liminal space between the digital and analog world, I was asked to VJ for Narwhal Birdskull, my friend Maximilian Shiffman's metal band.  The event was called Cirque Voltaire and I was on a constant quest to see who could qualify what kind of an event this was.  I thought it was Steampunk, but the masses have me calling it Bizarro or something along those lines.  Regardless, not my typical scene.

Communikey11!!

20110413-20110417

Opening Night at Bombay Bistro

Wow, it was only a week ago, but time is just flying by.  Communikey, for those of you who don't know is Boulder, Colorado's Festival of Electronic Art and Music.  Check out past year's festivals.  I've been involved for the past 3 years, and attending for the past 4.  This was the fourth edition of the festival, and it was a tremendous success.  My role is to act as technical lead at various venues and assist with tech issues as they arise.

Normal Ones and Jason from offthesky in the ATLAS Black Box
  
This is a fairly media heavy post, so please bear with the loading times :)  And there's lots more after the break and on Flickr and YouTube.

 

Pulshar at the ATLAS Black Box

DAM TYPO! :: Tara Rynders & Maximilan Shiffman

20110325

"In 'Typo', Tara and Max use text to generate movement, imagery and sound. 'Typo' brings together several disciplines in a dynamic environment.  Text drives the performance, controlling video, sound art, and coreography.  While 'Typo' is a technological performance rooted in its time, Tara and Max push the limits of text using it to communicate on numerous levels."

 

Golan's inadvertent contribution

Tara and Max were given the opportunity to perform alongside the Blink! exhibit this past Friday.  This is such an honor to be invited to help out and document, and I was very proud of Max and Tara's performances.  Max performed music and text that was both planned a improvised based on text messages from the audience.
Tara was able to interact with both a Jitter patch (framesub), and an installation by Golan Levin.  This interactive projection creates noise and colored shapes as you cast shadows on the screen.  The shapes are created by closed spaces, like if you made a circle with your thumb and forefinger, for example.  This is a very fun part of Blink! and was a cool addition to the  performance.

Ok, so there's a really awesome video at the end here, but you're only allowed to watch it if you read the whole article :)

A Digital Media Explosion

Well, the end of February and beginning of March certainly kept me away from my creativity time.  Fortunately, now that my employers are all on Spring Break, I've had the chance to work on some music, video, patching, and all kinds of art.

A sample from one of my Glossom collections...
I suggest you try it for at least give it 1 second,
it is interactive and is a unique concept.

My main goal has been to continue to increase my net presence... to I've added quite a few social networking sites to the mix.  Twitter (@iEEEj), Scribd (a site to publish papers), and my personal favorite, Glossom.  This site lets you create a collage of your work (video or picture or text w/ links) in a grid you must conform to.  It is a very interesting concept, and I suggest checking it out if you have any things you want to share on the microwebs.

Additionally, I've been making lots of digital art, both music and video.  I even overloaded my Vimeo upload limit, so I have to wait a week to post "Digital Paint : in 2 movements" (the second video).  So here are a some of the videos that I made over the past few days... I'll give some details after each one.

Fact of Life

This is a sound responsive physical and digital melding. The video is of TriLEDs (LEDs that can output any combination of red, blue, and green). They are controlled by filters that respond to the music being played. There's a little editing at the end, but it was just to keep the piece short.

... Yes there's more; I figure if you're interested I might as well just keep it all on the same page...

iVVVj

I was invited to this online portfolio site called Glossom...  I was skeptical at first, but it is actually very cool.  If you check it out, when you mouse over each image, you can watch the videos they came from.  Check it out!

World premier iEEEj video right here...

Having ProTools on my own computer really changes things for me.  I've been able to edit samples I've brought in from my turntable with a deadly efficiency. And, I finally got around to making a recording that I like, of this song that never really had a name.  Adam called it Zelda Come Home once... I'm calling it Five25 right now until someone thinks of something better.  I also took this opportunity to stitch some jitter stuff together to make the world premier iEEEj (my DJ/musician/electronerd handle) music video.  If you want to download the song or just listen to it without the video, click the link after the break.

Video from back in high school... The Chase Sequence!

Here's a video from back in high school of a chase sequence we did.  Funny story, we did two days of filming, and forgot the box on the second day... so had to come back and film a quick shot of Alex throwing it away...  Still looking for our Maxwell's Silver Hammer music video, crossing my fingers.




Jon Swihart, Alex Mencer, Madden Swan, and myself.

Nature by Numbers by Cristóbal Vila

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

Even if you don't understand the math behind this, the visuals are incredible.  It's amazing how much math there is in nature.  Read more from the artist here.

Balinese Gamelan Documentary

Here is a copy of a short documentary I helped make this past fall. It was created for a course on ritual and media at the University of Colorado, Boulder. It documents the 2010, November 7th Gamelan performance at IMIG music center.

Gamelan is the "why" of life, it is as important as food. I Made Lasmawan instructs the group as well as many other gamelans across Colorado and the US. This film was made in iMovie for simplicity and in collaboration with a group.






Check out the other documentary I made this year The 1996 Ute Mountain Ute Bear Dance.

ATL&S Fall 10 Shows

 These were some of the most technically advanced shows to come through ATL&S in my time.  It was also my last semester here, and my skills were pushed to their limits.  In addition to my usual sound duties, I did a lot of projection work for many of the shows.

There are links to more information about each program.  There are pictures and information in the links.

2010.07.30-31 & 08.05-07

CU New Opera Workshop 

"Sister Carrie", "Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", "Autumn Orchard" 

Leigh Holman, Andrew Metzroth, Hally Albers, Robert Aldridge, Herschel Garfein, Daniel Kellogg, J. Michael Martinez

  

2010.08.27-29

Dangerously Safe

Gemma Wilcox and Liz Barron, Betsy Tobin, Jessica Bynam, David Ortolano

2010.08.10

reConstruction

Ryan Wurst

2010.09.17-18 & 24-25

Disappear Here

Nathan Montgomery, Kim Olson, Ana Baer Carrillo, Jessica Bynam, David Ortolano

2010.10.03

Stockhausen Festival

Paul Miller, Bryan Wolf

2010.11.18

UNA

Katie Key's MFA Dance Thesis Performance

Kristin Dalleske, Autumn Bjustad, Rebecca Holley, Esmeralda Kundanis-Grow

2010.12.12

Bridging Imaginary Boundaries

real-time collaboration between CU, NYU, IUPUI

John Gunther, Synthia Payne, Cole Ingrahm

Bridging Imaginary Boundaries

Broadcast Station

Back in March, Synthia Payne and John Gunther organized a telematic music event "Memory and the Internet".  This was a collaboration between CU, NYU, and KAIST in Korea over Internet2.  Gunther and Payne returned this Fall for another installation of the event, "Bridging Imaginary Boundaries".  I feel these remote performances are truly on the cutting edge of music technology, so I was very excited to have another such collaboration.  For this version, we changed a few things, and collaborated with IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue at University of Indiana) as opposed to KAIST.

Ute Mountain Ute Bear Dance Documentary

Since May of this year, I have been working with Dr. Brenda Romero on an ethnomusicology documentary for the Ute Mountain Ute tribe.  After taking her course in Native American Music, we discussed editing some video footage of an event she had captured previously in 1996.  The footage featured the 'music complex' surrounding the annual Bear Dance including festivities like a parade, powwow, feast, and games.  However, she was still showing it in its raw format, fast forwarding to portions that were interesting.  So, with the help of a UROP grant, we began editing the tapes into an hour long documentary.

Disappear Here - 5 projections at once

2010 ATL&S Innovator award recipients Kim Olson and Nathan Montgomery produced a projection and movement themed show in the Butoh style.  The goal is to "explore the wilderness within and without, the seen, unseen, and the world’s ephemeral beauty."  Nathan began the show in a net hung from the ceiling as a 'womb' (or diaper as some of us called it) and natural elements such as flowers and tumbleweeds were used as props.  The technical challenges for me were tremendous, as I was responsible for synchronizing 5 different projections.

CU New Opera Workshop

Sister Carrie - 3 screen projectio

This was an impressive display of talent by the student performers, writers, and crew members.  At the beginning of the (2) week(s), the operas were read for the first time and performed by the end of the week.  I don't think I need to describe the difficulty of this.  Short operatic scenes were shown each night and each week featured a longer opera.  "Sister Carrie" composed by Robert Aldridge is the story of a woman achieving the American Dream. "Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" was composed by Herschel Garfein.  The second week's performance was the premier of "Autumn Orchard" composed by Daniel Kellog and librettist J. Michael Martinez.  It features the powerful story of Garcia Lorca's imprisonment during the Spanish Civil War.

For the performance, I projected on to three 8' x 24' vertically mounted screens for scene changes.  Instead of using MAX/MSP/Jitter as I normally would.  I experimented with Isadora which was simple enough to manipulate the scenic images created by Andrew Metzroth.  Many of Isadora's tools are helpful (especially for video), however, I would still prefer to use MAX/MSP/Jitter.

Congrats to Leigh Holman - Producer, Andrew Metzroth - Technical Director, and Halley Albers - Stage Manager

There Came a Voice/She

The last few shows of the semester were dual projects. The first two were individual performances involving a number of interesting technology interactions. Jacob Herold’s “There Came a Voice” was a jazz performance with score for electronics and vivid projections to accompany each section. The musical theme of the piece is very memorable, and use of projections was a crucial visual element.

SHE

The second portion of this show was a live dance and video collaboration produced by Esmeralda Kundanis-Grow with video work by Mara Tasker and Nathan Minatta. The show followed a ”Tarantino-style femme fatale” theme and explored the Black Box space in an interesting way. The ceiling grid was used as scenic element and the video was an excellent performance element.

ATL&S Fall 09 Shows

Michael Theodore was appointed the director of the new Center for Media, Arts, and Performance (formerly CAMP). He has brought a fresh perspective to the space along with collaboration with Michelle Ellsworth. As a result of the work involved in such a change, the number of shows this semester was lower than usual.

Gabe's Percussive Toothpicks

Samantha Keehn’s trombone recital featuring multi-media work inspired by William Carlos William was well received. Notable performances were with the Tesla Quartet and blOrk, and the CrumbFest, which the composer George Crumb actually attended. There were also a number of other shows which I was not involved with.  Namely, Mark McCoin's brilliant thesis performance "Gifts from Unknown Islands".  This program featured superb staging, aerial dancing, fascinating projections and performance.  Gabriel Todd was the main performer, emerging from the depths of a primordial beginning, and evolving into a technological being.  At one point, toothpicks were dropped on to his character creating a unique percussive effect.  Michelle Ellsworth performed in a suspended orb surrounded by projections recorded and created live by Mark.  It was even brought back for a two-week film shoot for full documentation.

Filming setup

"We work towards revealing something important, perhaps something about our nature or past that is meaningful, and if were lucky, universal."

~Mark McCoin