The nicely-growing Digital Tools blog has an excellent interview with visualist Paris Treantafeles, who works with lo-fi 8-bit-style visuals using tools he’s built for GBA and the Linux-powered Gamepark.

Interestingly, while a lot of people will dismiss the 8-bit movement as “nostalgic” — implying it’s just 20-somethings pining for their Mario-playing childhoods — Paris’ inspiration was originally vintage analog synthesizers. And synthesizing graphics is his main interest:

I concentrate on creating graphics from scratch. That’s pretty much all I do. Other people like using movie clips and manipulating them, but from my point of view it’s a good exercise to see what you can do when you have to create everything from scratch. It gives you an appreciation to form and color.

Hally // Blip Festival 2007: The Videos from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

The synthesis/sampling argument I think is very much related to the way electronic music is produced. I find that focusing on either one can be a good exercise — see our friend Troels sampling Coke bottles, for instance.

It’s nice stuff, but I do hope, particularly here in the US where the VJ/visualist scene has had trouble gaining broader recognition, that we start to see other styles on genres forming more coherent “scenes” in the way 8-bit has. Of course, what has happened for people like Paris is he’s found strong advocates in the musicians, which seems to be a key element (and has helped strengthen the visual work done outside chiptune music, as well).

Pikilipita is a wonder: the developer has created a VJ app that runs on Windows XP and GP2X (Pikix), and even Game Boy Advance cartridges (Pikilipita Advanced). The apps have been getting feature enhancements and other good news lately. Let’s start out with the GBA stuff — which you can now get pre-loaded on a real GBA cart for use on your Game Boy or GameCube with player:

I’ll do my best to release Pikilipita Advance on real cartridges before summer 2007 if at least 100 people are interested in this product.

Its price shouldn’t be higher than £25, 35€ or US$ 50. If you think you’ll buy one, please get in touch with me using the contact form below.

Update: cartridges should be ready at the end of June!

(If you want to order the carts … presuming there’s still time/availability … check out contact info on the site.)

Pikix, the software for XP (yawn) and GP2X Linux-based game console (yay!), has also been getting new features, each dubbed with zany names that put Ubuntu to shame: Fat Dolphin, Delicious Marmot, and most recently, Cheesy Caribou, which adds features like this:

1. New version of the Kouky2x codec: better compression rate: files are 20% to 50% smaller than with previous codec version
2. USB keyboard compatibility (via cradle)
3. Special effects: extreme contras, negative colors, zoom, hue colorization
4. Video in and out points

Nothing earthshaking for your fancy-schmancy computer-based VJ app, it’s true … but can you fit your VJ rig into a space this small?

Pikilipita VJ Software

An incredible amount of stuff coming up here in NYC:

VJ Book: Paul Spinrad’s new The VJ Book is packed with interviews and how-to information and ships with a DVD full of VJ samples, mixable content, and demo software. (Paul and I got to work together on an upcoming issue of Make Magazine, which you’ll be hearing more about soon.)

VJ party Wednesday: It’s a book launch party edition of Eyewash, the live video series. I’ll be VJing with Korg hardware and Quartz Composer-generated visuals, along with the book’s DVD creator Melissa “Miixxy” Ulto (previously on CDM). Jay Smith from Livid Instruments will be demoing the new Tactic M2 wood-paneled VJ control surface (see previous story). I’ll be trying to steal it from him. Watch your drinks, Jay.

VJ: The Movie Video Out documents the history of VJing and live video art from the 1960s to today. It’s premiering in the East Village November 11, but if you clamour hard enough, it may come to your town, too.

Music Player Live: Les Paul is keynote speaker for this weekend full of of music stars, gear, and instruction. The crew from Keyboard, EQ, GuitarPlayer, BassPlayer, and Frets will all be there. Catch my live video and VJing for musicians seminar Sunday, if you can, but there’s plenty of other good stuff happening.

Game Boy Music Saturday: There’s a major lineup Saturday night of Game Boy and chiptune musicians at Manhattan’s The Tank (which is still looking for a permanent home). Performers: DAVID SUGAR (UK), RECEPTORS (US), HEY KID NICE ROBOT (US), M-.-n (BE), GLOMAG (US), BUBBLYFISH (US), OMAC (US), NULLSLEEP (US) and BIT SHIFTER (US).

Now, attention rest of the world: aside from Paul’s VJ book and the movie, we want to make sure you get to enjoy some of this, too. So, New Yorkers, aside from my own feeble attempts to photograph and document these events, if you’re going and want to help, please drop me a line. And certainly say hello; I’ll buy you a drink or steal you some video hardware.

Okay, aspiring VJs: not happy with the pre-coded solutions out there? Wish you could code your own stuff via a free tool? Check out Processing, a free cross-platform tool. The pay-off: how about 1680×1050 imagery, running at 20-40fps on a lowly PowerBook G4?

Robert Hodgin is featured doing just that, armed with four silver USB knobs (Griffin PowerMates) mounted, glowing blue, on a custom Plexiglass surface. Watch his hypnotic visualizations for GameBoy musician BitShifter, then download the source. More links:

Processing as a VJ tool (project videos, documentation, source, and other info)

Flight404 featuring an insane number of PowerMate tricks

And yes, the master of all things Processing, Chris aka Pixelsumo got to this before I did. Watch his site for regular references to Processing.

How many people’s resumes include both a gig with the Phillip Glass Ensemble and posing nude for Marie Claire? An evening with new music virtuoso Kathleen Supové is not what most people expect from a solo piano recital. Her show this week finds her flanked by laptops, plus three projectors running childhood slides, live digital video, and the manic pianist from the Lawrence Welk Show, as she crawls in wearing a pink leopard-skin bodysuit narrating on a wireless.

If anyone can turn the grand piano into a digital instrument, it’s Supové. She was so enthralled by the capabilities of Yamaha’s MIDI-enabled player piano, the DC7, that she’s commissioning a body of work for the instrument. Collaborations with electronic composers, often involving microphones in the piano, blend the acoustic sound into an unpredictable, thunderous wonderland of colliding sounds. “Multimedia experience,” though, isn’t just about technology — rather than the usual parade of pieces, her concerts tend to absorb performance art rants into the mic and other “theatricals.” Her obsessive-compulsive commisioning of composers has brought pieces for her by everyone from Xenakis to Zorn to Bubblyfish (best known as a Game Boy player) and, well, me.

I’ve got one more evening with Kathleen at The Flea; I’ll certainly miss it. She certainly suggest a broad range of possibilities of what playing can be about — I hope emerging, younger players take note.

Sorry for the light news day, but I’ll be back next week with lots more coverage, shifting from game systems to how to use game hardware in your own music, more on interactive musical clothing, and other goodies! In the meantime, here’s my next project: -PK

How does a musician go from classical pianist to Game Boy musician? Ask composer / sound designer / sound engineer Haeyoung Kim, who makes 8-bit music under the name bubblyfish. Check out Haeyoung’s site for lots of articles on her and Game Boy music-making in general, as reported by everyone from MTV to MSNBC.

Here in New York, Haeyoung and I, among other composers, will be reimagining pianistic possibilities at a concert by downtown pianist Kathleen Supove, Tuesday through Thursday at 7pm at The Flea in TriBeCa. Piano duet with Game Boy? Check. Electronics generated live from the piano? Check. Video projections on the surface of the piano and live VJing? Check. Even Schroeder would be proud.

For those of you in NY, drop me a line if you’re going to stop by; for everyone else, I’ll be back with some tips learned from the tech in this show.