We’ll have some more on the Robotic Camera thing soon, but in the meantime, check out the Pilot View FPV 2400 kit. It’s not quite the gyro-controlled version (below), but apparently they have a pan/tilt coming soon.

As an intellectual exercise, let’s price a similar setup from aforementioned cheapie online store DealExtreme:

USB 2.4GHz Spy Camera Set: $120
iTheatre Virtual Vision Video Glasses: $149

Ok. I don’t think I should be considering this any further. VJing is an expensive enough hobby, remote control flight would be the end of me.

(via Make.)

As a visualist I have an incessant appetite for gear. The inaugural Plug N Play Brisbane on Tuesday reminded me that it doesn’t have to be this way, however. While I rocked up with bags and boxes of computers, cables, cameras, controllers and hardware, others arrived with a single laptop, and of course were able to put equally compelling material on the screen. Or, to be perfectly honest - more-compelling material, as I struggled to remember which icons were required to get 3L’s automation chains working.

Debilitating addictions aside; everyone present was interested in my source for cheap security cameras, BNC converters, HDMI cables and other necessary items, so I’m guessing that the rest of the community may also enjoy: DealExtreme (disclosure: Affiliate links used, if you buy stuff I get a cut).

DealExtreme has a huge range of, basically, ephemera: iPod batteries, LED torches, cable converters, chargers… The type of things you’d get for $20 in a local shop, or you could find on eBay for $2 plus $15 shipping. DealExtreme matches those deceptively cheap eBay prices, and then proceeds to not charge shipping, which puts everything into the category entitled “Ridiculously Cheap Stuff”.

The range is large and varied. This coupled with a not particularly intuitive search and categorization of the site has resulted in me wasting many hours paging through, but along the way I’ve bookmarked plenty of things which may be useful to the average VJ:

Want to learn how to pull off graphics? Make it work with optical and real for real first. Tron may have been a pioneering moment in computer graphics, but a lot of its unique look came from unique optical effects on a scale not seen before or after. The glowing screen was an actual lighting effect, which is why CG artists have taken such a liking to the film’s aesthetic, even if it was ultimately too labor-intensive to apply to the whole movie. There’s even an analog in the music: Wendy Carlos’ adept blend of big orchestral, choral, and organ textures with synths.

Of course, the makers of Tron didn’t leave out computer graphics entirely. And that makes this fan remake — no CG, and no optical effects trickery, either — adorable and inspiring.

Via Kotaku.

You’re also aware of just how much of this sequence is sound and editing. Erm, not that motion isn’t important — if I were to say that, I should say it on, you know, the other blog. Think synthesis of the two.

Guitar Hero? We want VJ Hero. And the AV Arcade Table, now part of the Boredbrands Digital Funfair, is exactly what you’d want it to be like.

It’s got the hardware — a DIY, cocktail-style arcade table, just the like the one you spent playing Ms. Pac-Man on, slightly drunk.

It’s got the software — a Windows PC running VJAMM.

And it’s got the content — Guitar Hero and Rock Band have rock classics, so this has some classic clips from VJs.

Official description:

The AV Arcade Table is a simple hybrid, a table top arcade cabinet that has been converted to run Vjamm, the best Audio Visual VJ Software by miles! Using the joystick and buttons 2 people can trigger audio visual samples and create beautiful collaborative audio visual collage/ a chaotic mess** (delete as appropriate!).

The Table was originally created for Cybersonica 2007 and was featured as part of “Soundwaves” at Kinetica Museum

Thanks to Eclectic Method, Exceeda, Hexstatic and Vjamm All Stars for supplying content.

AV Arcade Table @ Boredbrands Digital Funfair

Incidentally, reasons to give some props to VJAMM, even in this overcrowded world of VJ apps, and even though everyone went out and bought MacBook Pros last week, it seems:

• Coldcut uses VJAMM. I mean, celebrity matters little to us here, but they do use it well, and that counts.
• The Novation SL line of keyboards supports Automap in VJAMM. (It’s England, so I’m guessing that idea got worked out over a pint — which is certainly the way I like to make deals.)
• They have this cheery slogan on their website: “VJamm3 is the world’s leading audiovisual instrument, the ultimate tool for sound and image mixing, the true 21st century artform, the new hip-hop.”
• This table

Thanks to Gav for the tip — great work, mate! And to all readers of CDM: go for the shameless plugs. There’s no shame in it. We love to see the cool stuff you’re doing.

You’re an incurable font geek and you love sound. Can’t choose? Combine them. The MeekFM synth is both a visual synthesizer for typography, and a synthesizer — it actually sonifies the letterforms you generate. This is synesthesia on such a high geeky level that my mind is blown wrapping my head around it. But I love the approach — and while I can’t search even my deepest serif fetish to work out how anyone would come up with this, perhaps there’s a parallel for other generative visuals. Think synth.

meekfm.org [Official Project Page]

via: The Meek FM Typographic Synthesizer [Synthtopia]

Previously:

Illuminating Lettering as Digital Process, in Elegant, Open-Source Mac NodeBox

Free, Open Source, Remixable Fonts, and Embedding Fonts in Flash 9 / AS3

I used to be resistant to the idea of coding. It wasn’t just fear that I couldn’t do it, though that was part of it; it was also the sense that I wouldn’t be able to get to the actual art and music making if I got too involved in programming. And, actually, that bit can be true. But a group of pioneers, working on projects like Processing, OpenFrameworks, and other intelligent development frameworks, has been working really hard to make code an elegant an expressive tool rather than a hindrance. Processing has reached widespread popularity because it does this really, really well — even if you’ve never programmed before.

I’ll be teaching a three-part class on Processing at Harvestworks in New York next month. If you’re in the area, there should still be openings if you’d like to sign up (and if you’re enrolled, feel free to holler hi here — if I hear from you in advance, I can help tailor the course to your needs).

For intermediate digital artists, even those who have never coded before, we will introduce techniques in Processing. Processing is an elegant, high-level, Java-based tool designed to make coding friendly to artists. We will learn how to create generative art in just a few lines of code, building interactive works in minutes. We’ll also look at some of the deeper possibilities for manipulating data, video, images, sound, and MIDI and other I/O. The emphasis will be on basic sketches that help introduce fundamental coding skills.

Wednesdays, March 5, 12 and 19, 6:30 – 9:30pm
$325/$385

Class page / signup @ Harvestworks

The class will specifically focus on how to make video, 3D visuals, MIDI, and sound work for performance. Making Processing a performance tool definitely involves some particular skills. But I’ll also use this as an opportunity to teach very basic coding techniques so that unfamiliar programming topics can immediately generate something on the screen or some sound, since that’s part of the appeal of the whole tool.

But what if you’re not in New York?

We’ll soon have CDM Labs up, which will include examples from the team at CDM, plus other stuff from around the Web, not only in Processing but related tools, as well. I’ll use this as a playground for the course, so what I share with them, I can share with you. And, honestly, we hope this will help discipline us here to keep coding and keep documenting. More on that soon.

I’m also hoping to refine this course into something that can be offered elsewhere; if you’re interested, get in touch.

More on Processing:

Random sketchbook of mine, the kind of stuff you can put together in minutes

Flickr Processing pool

Processing videos on Vimeo

Processing tag on Create Digital Motion

Official Processing exhibition page

Ed.: It made some headlines on the blogs a couple of years ago, but as we revisit wacky ideas for VJ rigs, well worth revisiting — especially as we’ve been flying a lot. Hello, TSA!

Like destroying beats? Looking slick while you do it? Getting strip-searched at the airport? Then you, my friend, need to get your hands on a MIDI Gun.

midiGun design by Christopher Bauder 2004/05

It even comes with a laser in the barrel. My dream for MIDI Gun v.2? Combine it with a Pico Projector and unleash your visual fury in style. Check MIDIgun.com for the full run-down, and GunsNGuitars.com for dangerous music made with MIDI weapons.

Daniel Wilcox is “Robot Cowboy”:

“A futuristic expatriate American Space Ranger combines wearable computing, midi guitar, and live energy to wander the digi-range as a robotcowboy playing for dying astronauts. This is a lofi-guitar-compu-show with algorithmic balls from a DEVOspud, laptop-stomping idiot wearing exposed electronics.”

Check out Robot Cowboys YouTube channel, specifically : Video Killed the Radio Star Karaoke. In the “Future”, all VJs must wear helmets as awesome as Robot Cowboys. AND IT SHALL BE.

It does not get any better than this folks. I would attempt to write more, but words fail me. I can only utter “awesome” over and over.

See more at Robot Cowboy, check out his “Wearable Audio Visual Unit” project and Robot Cowboy @ myspace. Well played sir, well played.

I’m not sure why we didn’t mention it here while it was “current”, but we did talk about Radiohead’s recent webcast of their album In Rainbows on CDMusic. Even if you’re not in to Radiohead it’s worth watching, as it brings a beautifully varied, personal, low-budget aesthetic to one of the biggest bankers in modern music, it completely changed how I identify with the album. As mentioned in the CDMusic comments, I’m historically a huge Radiohead fan, but have found myself drifting away from their music over the last couple of albums. I paid money for In Rainbows (even though I didn’t have to), listened to it once or twice and then forgot about it, but the Scotch Mist videos made me re-examine the entire album, and it finally clicked for me.

All of this preamble is by way of introducing Adam Buxton, a British filmmaker who says he “helped out” on the webcast, but is billed #2 in the introductory credits to the piece, so it seems he was doing a little more than making coffee.