If you’re already in holiday mode, sapped by the shortest day of the year (at least if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere), and looking to kick back with some audiovisual stimulation, this should do the trick. (I know it appeals to me, after 15 hours crossing the Atlantic yesterday.)
The radio show Solid Steel regularly features AV mixes; this one comes via DK and the label Ninja Tune. On the superb German electronic site Partysan: ‘Cymatic Frequencies’ an Audio Visual mix by DK
We start where we ended the last AV mix with the anthemic ‘Hyph Mngo’ by Joy Orbison and a few choice words from Sun Ra. We continue in a future vein with the Eliphino Remix for Kidkanevil, Maddslinky given a Toddla T lick, and the heavy ‘Work them’ by Ramadanman.
Then it’s a Ninja Tune trio and a Big Dada double, James Blake floating over the Altrice remix of Caribou, before turning up the bass to 11 for Bassnectar. The beats stay heavy as we skip through George Lenton and the Jamie XX remix of Gil Scott-Heron, an ‘old skool hip hop’ trio, mixed with RackNRuin and Vent for extra dance floor punch, and it’s a D n B finish with the DJ Marky remix of ‘Wile Out’ by Zinc, Sunny by James Brown tweaked by Featurecast and we end on the sublime Flying Lotus remix for Andreya Triana.
VIDEO-SL is the video plug-in for Serato’s Scratch Live, extending the turntablist / virtual vinyl metaphor from sound to the realm of video. Once loaded, you can manage video clips and control them with vinyl or CD as if they lived on records, a clever rendition of something that would technically be impossible (or at least difficult) in the non-digital world.
Ed.: A reader notes that in fact there are encoded “video vinyl” records; I’m not sure the behavior, however, would be the same as audio – that is, what’s unique here is treating the vinyl video signal as exactly analogous to audio on a turntable. Maybe there is a way to do that, though, if someone can enlighten us.)
You can manage, mix, add loads of effects and transitions (many audio-responsive), for instantaneous audiovisual DJing. The only catch is you need some specific elements in your setup: a computer with a capable graphics card, and a copy of Serato with a Serato-capable interface from Rane. (Clarification: An early version of VIDEO-SL worked only with the Rane TTM-57 SL mixer. Now, you can use a number of Rane mixers and interfaces, and via a supported Rane interface, a non-Rane mixer. There’s also now MIDI support for performing from any MIDI controller you choose.)
But for Serato users with that setup, adding video powers just became a no-brainer. The software is on sale through the end of December for only US$99 (half off the usual price). And if you don’t have a hundred bucks but do have the rest of the setup, CDM can get you one of a couple of copies we’ve got for free. So we can be equitable, just write in comments a brief explanation of why you deserve to get the freebie and what you’ll do with it. If we find an answer compelling (hint: promising to help us share what you do with it on CDM would be a big help), we’ll announce you as one of the winners.
If you’re curious what all the fuss is about, see the video at top, in which French gentleman Joachim Garraud shows you around how he’s using Serato and VIDEO-SL on tour.
Reimagining what musically-dynamic gameplay could be, Pugs Luv Beats combines resource-gathering strategy and creative beat making on a grid. Pushing the envelope with express art direction and a generative musical score meant allowing the artists on the team real freedom in their area of expertise. And that’s where toolchains really matter: free and open source tools here were expressive and fast. They allowed rapid prototyping in which the prototype could itself become a finished product, creative what-if scenarios and invention, and for artists focused on design and music to work within their area and then combine the results.
On Create Digital Music today, we talk to Yann Seznec about the game’s genesis on iOS, and in particular about how libpd (now on GitHub with a new version) blew musical possibilities wide open.
Here, the developers provide a look at their creative art, which both reveals some of what they saw in their head and how their process worked (particularly prototyping gameplay.) They’re working with a number of tools regularly covered on this site:
OpenFrameworks (the elegant, Processing-inspired, C/C++ framework for Mac, Windows, Linux, and now iOS and Android)
Last week, the world quietly saw the 150th anniversary of the birth of French filmmaker and illusionist pioneer George Méliès. A short list of the techniques he either personally pioneered or for which he was an early adopter:
Stop trick / substitution
Multiple exposures
Time lapse photography
Dissolves
Hand coloring
Forced perspective
Sadly, because of the hand-coloring technique used and the 16 fps film rate, too few of us get to know the way the works really looked. Poor copies of copies are run at the wrong speed (25 fps), producing a jerky, comical fast-forward effect the filmmaker never intended, and without the lush, painterly color palette they deserve. (That means the YouTube videos here should be viewed as reference, not a real indication of the work.)
But make no mistake: by introducing many of these techniques, Méliès is to many modern filmmakers a profound figure, and what was once seemingly dated or quaint is now increasingly inspirational in an age again comfortable with exploring fantasy and imaging technique.
He could, without any real hyperbola, be called the father of sci-fi/fantasy cinema, or more broadly, cinematic special effects. A master of in-camera effects, his imaginative, baroque style has a mirror in the modern experimentation with tech like Kinect and 3D, with hackers and visualists and VJs who again embrace the evocative illusion and sensational sensory effect.
Against the sun-streaked, palm-silhouetted skies of Miami, Florida, generated software murals create a layer of intricate virtual architecture atop a flat canvas of Frank Gehry’s hall for the New World Symphony. LA-based Casey Reas (known to many as co-creator of Processing) worked with Tal Rosner to product shifting generative murals in what I think is a triumph of digital expressionism.
As the architecture itself is collapsed into cubist/abstract fractions of time, the building itself echoes ever-shifting structures, a silent but vibrant commentary on the urban landscape.
The images themselves are stationary in the sample, but Casey shares with us some video that captures those stills in the 365-composition montage. More images and statement by the artist below.
We’re living in an age of the Neo-Baroque/Neo-Rococo, in which technique creates marvelous illusions, when technique and thought can create dazzling effects. And as the technology matures, that work begins to evolve genuine playfulness. It’s not enough to see the novelty: that novelty is now conveyed through real wit.
At least, I feel fuzzy, optimistic thoughts like that when I look at work like a series of spots for the Sony PS3. Friend-of-the-site Memo Atken is involved, alongside FND and Flat-e, with the wonder, mixing real-time projection mapping with head tracking and camera tracking (both at once) for a sort of live match-moving-like effect.
But… well, just watch. I hope we’ll get to talk to Memo, Flat-e, and FND soon. Credits and a teaser description of how it was done below.
And consider this: the combination of sensing with projection is to live digital visuals what a technique like perspective was to painting centuries ago. It’s a calculated illusion, but it could be the basis for an entire body of work, both a marvel in itself and a springboard to new art.
Mapping Festival is a real-world hub for visuals, a place where photons against surfaces and human visualists converge in the physical realm, and not just online. So, we’re very excited to see what happened in 2011 – and to look forward to 2012. We’ve been watching some of those videos in the past two months:
Today, we have three more videos, showing movement and choreography, audiovisuals against dance and projected on cloth, and a stunning Kinect-powered workshop.
It’s almost too late for you to get involved. The deadline for submissions has been extended to tomorrow, Friday, December 2.
Peter Kirn
Jaymis Loveday
Matt Ganucheau
toby
joshue ott
michaeluna
vade
dan-winckler
Momo The Monster
songcarver
dj-rndm
nathanal-lcaud
christian.ryan
craig-dorety
Surya Buchwald
Kyle McDonald
Annapurna Kumar
Sofy Yuditskaya