Cycling 74’s Max/MSP/Jitter forum is a not just a resource for Max/MSP nerds doing Max/MSP nerditry, but an archive of new media art, ideas, algorithms, discussions and general mayhem. One gem caught my eye during a recent discussion: a YouTube video performance using nato+0.55. What is nato+0.55, you ask? Nato is one of the first, usable, extensible “new media” video systems ever. It helped bring real-time video manipulation to consumer computers, and thus was part of the birth of modern VJing. Ed.: Vade’s not exaggerating; some people still swear by nato, dissatisfied with Jitter and the like. -PK

Nato pre-dates Jitter by a few years, and was designed and sold by a narcissistic, rampant female AI / forum-trolling-as-performance-art spambot / Che Guevara inspired/reclusive futurist programming group/classic Ferrari-driving Dostoevsky character Netochka Nezvanova, aka NN, integer, antiorp (the list goes on). Get all that? I highly recommend this Salon article for some internet archeology on NN; it’s a fun read. Is it wrong to secretly lust after a meme?

But back to the point, KDaG_nato+0.55 is raw, in-your-face, f***ed up and just awesome. The user interface is the performance (McLuhan may have loved this), there is no distinction between the video screen, and buttons, patchcoords, preview screens, menus. It’s just beautiful, and reminds us how important a user interface can be, how it effects our aesthetics - or, how it can *be* our aesthetic.

Now go break stuff and report back!

Ed.: Okay, so now we know what turns vade on. I can’t get quite that excited — maybe I just need more coffee — but I am impressed. Other nato creations out there? -PK

In January I had a chance to catch up with Deborah Johnson, who was touring Australia at the time with Sufjan Stevens. The morning after their show in Brisbane, Australia we recorded an hour-long discussion of the show, and seeming to cover the whole gamut of visual creativity and performance. I’ve finally managed to transcribe this epic from audio to text.

Deborah: I would really like to see our show from the audience’ perspective.

Jaymis: I would have loved to have shot some video. There are some really beautiful moments. Did you notice that there was quite a bit of the crowd cheering visuals?

Jaymis: No?

Jaymis: I noticed that there was a couple times when you did something, nothing else was happening, and people around me were “yeaah!”, and not just the people I’ve conditioned to do that, either.

Deborah: ~laughs~

Jaymis: You’ve obviously got a good aesthetic happening. I’ve seen on your website as well you have that kind of drawn aesthetic. Do you do the illustration yourself?

Deborah: On the website?

Jaymis: In the set, you have images that come up: Stars, growing vine objects…

Deborah: Those are all based on drawings, they’re all drawing programs that are written in Director. I work with a programmer, and we’ll be like “this is what I want to have happen”, and he writes an algorithm to make that happen.

Jaymis: That was my next question: How do you do your particle effects with the stars which are drawn on, stay and then fall. So that’s Director?

Deborah: Yep.

Jaymis: Peter would be very excited that someone’s still using Director… So that’s then rendered out to video clips?

Deborah: I mean, the dream is to be able to make them instruments that I can play live, but…

Jaymis: Director’s getting a bit old for that kind of thing. You might have to go with Processing or Quartz Composer or one of those fun things.

Deborah: I really would like to learn Processing. Recently I feel like I’ve become more of a curator, art director.

Jaymis: As video gets bigger that’s what you have to become; you can’t do it all anymore.

Deborah: For this, I knew what I wanted to happen, but I knew that I would need some help. So I started working with a programmer named Siebren Versteeg, who’s an awesome artist in New York. It was great because in Sufjan’s music there’s just so many layers of stuff that happens. My skills were limited to be able to create something that’s just totally generative and so massive, there’s no way that I could author that stuff. So how do you just get a source concept and send it out over an animation.

One thing that I worry about is that it becomes too… Say with Processing or that kind of work, people associate it with screensavers?

Jaymis: Very true. Well I guess that growing vines is one of those things which is quite ubiquitous with that sort of thing. Obviously you’ve got a particularly cool little spin on it and it works really well in the context of what’s happening on stage, but “something growing” is a very standard…

Majesty Snowbird, Live Visual from CandyStations on Vimeo.

Deborah: Exactly.

Jaymis: I think the other thing is that if you become too focussed on one particular tool, then that influences your output as well.

UK touring visualist Deepvisual (who is currently kicking around the UK with The Orb) has posted a 3-minute overview into his touring rig.

There’s a lot of great tips packed in to 3 minutes of video, so pay attention. I wish someone had told me “take some chocks along to help angle your projectors” before I wasted countless hours over the last year searching around various venues for scraps of wood.

I swear by baluns, which allow me to use readily-replacable CAT5 cable for video runs. Also an inexpensive power inverter is a great addition, to keep your laptop, mp3 player, and phone charged on those long drives between cities. I’d love to hear from other gigging visualists though: What’s your secret touring sauce?

Apple’s iPhone — and the significantly more affordable, doesn’t-have-to-be-a-phone iPod Touch — are essentially pocket-sized, intelligent multi-touch controllers. Hooking them up to visual software as controllers simply requires some app on the phone to transmit data, and some way of dealing with that data on the computer side. We’ve already seen this a bit on Create Digital Motion, and we’ve been covering some of the specifics of parsing data with Pd (Pure Data), the open-source, tri-platform patching software, on Create Digital Music this week.

Here’s the basic setup:

On Your iPod/iPhone

You have two options of software to use on your iThing. (You’ll need to “jailbreak” your device, as these are not — and may never be, for all I know — approved Apple apps.)

1. mrmr by Eric Redlinger of Brooklyn (top right):  open-source, editable control screens (requires Mac-only software to edit). See our interview with Eric, including some examples with Quartz Composer.

2. akaRemote.app by Masayuki Akamatsu of Japan: not open-source, not editable, but comes with a set of useful control templates, and you can transmit data to the app. See our look at a recent release. Upcoming Mac-only visualist app 3L has its own special akaRemote-based bridge called i3L, which also runs on iPhone/iPod Touch; see our look at i3L with artificial eyes.

On Your Computer

While the iPhone and iPod Touch have Apple logos on them, all of these apps send OpenSoundControl data. That means any OSC-compatible software will work, which is gradually including more visual software, as well as modular apps like Quartz Composer, Max/MSP/Jitter, Pd/GEM, and vvvv. (I love saying that last one … vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv. Okay, moving on.)

Of all of these, Pd is the one solution that’s free, open source, and runs on any platform. That means it’s also a viable candidate for translating incoming OSC data to more broadly-compatible MIDI. (i3L has you covered, as it uses a MIDI bridge.)

We have not one but two sets of tutorials / example patches for working with Pd on Create Digital Music, using a patch like Cesare’s, pictured above:

Control Music and Visuals with iPhone/iPod, Free Via Pd

Tutorial: More iPhone/iPod Touch Control With Open-Source Pure Data

So, Is It Worth It?

I usually don’t ask that question, preferring instead to report on what other folks are doing. But it is always worth asking yourself — and it is an entirely personal question. I’m not totally convinced in the case of these devices that I’d want to buy one solely for VJing, but then, what makes this so cool is that it adds on additional functionality to a device. (Too bad Apple is being so uptight about third-party development, but at least there’s an SDK — and plenty of hackers ready to break Apple’s rules.)

My own preference remains squarely with tangible controllers and tactile feedback, especially as some of the advantages of multi-touch are diminished by the iPod/iPhone’s diminutive size. But I absolutely see the argument for using these. What do you think, dear readers?

As we strive for more immersive, cohesive shows, DMX is a great tool to have in our visualist kit. Whether a full theatre lighting rig or just a couple of dimmers and a strobe in a club, the ability to plug in and take control of an existing rig means that lighting can now work with your projections, not compete with them.

One very exciting piece of gear brought to Perth last year by artificialeyes was the uDMX USB DMX controller. The uDMX is exciting in a different way to gear such as the VJX16-4 or the VMS, rather than being a new and more VJ-friendly take on existing tech, it very common concept - the DMX controller - distilled down to its tiniest, purest form, and then open-sourced for good measure.

The Anyma guys have managed to fit all of the DMX control circuitry inside a regular XLR jack. This makes the uDMX about as compact as it’s possible for a DMX controller to be. As DMX uses regular 3- or 5-pin XLR jacks for cabling, you can literally grab the uDMX, some spare mic cable, an adapter or two, and then get your DMX on straight away! The uDMX-Midi Interface Software (Mac) is extremely simple, monitoring a MIDI input source and converting (scaling from 0-255 to 0-127) either Note-on or CC messages into DMX messages. These are sent through the uDMX on the same DMX channel as the MIDI message controller or note number. It also has the ability to offset messages, which gives a simple method of scanning around DMX channels to find out where lights and other gear are located without following cables or looking at jumpers. Anyma have also released a Max/MSP external (Mac, Linux and Windows), PD external, and a command line utility (Windows, Mac and Linux).

artificialeyes are keeping us updated on the impending release of 3L (current status: Soon), and while I’m still in “getting my studio in order” mode in the lead-up to the “2008 massive VJ geek-out and CDMoFest” and unable to play with new toys, CyberPatrolUnit has posted some great demo videos (and followup), showing us some of the places that 3L may be able to take us.

3L and Lemur at LAX from CyberPatrolUnit on Vimeo.

Exciting? Maybe a little. I still have lots of 3L video to edit from Perth last year, and I’ve promised Michael that I’ll have some videos ready for the official launch. Stay tuned!

Bjork lays on the spectacle in a new music video for “Wanderlust,” and the results are quite gorgeous, even in advance of a promised 3D version. If you had the misfortune of trying to watch it in Yahoo’s world-premiere, horribly-overcompressed video early this week, give it another go. (I’m glad I waited to post this rather than have to show that! Yikes!)

As of press time, Motionographer has a high-quality QuickTime file so you can watch this in all its glory.

The results are a real multimedia extravaganza. The painterly wonderland in the surrounding world is clever digital graphics and computer 3D, though made to look organic, while foreground beasties, costumes, and prosthetics are all real-for-real. Here’s the timelapse of it all coming together:

The cast of thousands includes:

• Directors Encyclopedia Pictura (Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfritsch), who got the music vid world buzzing earlier with their video “Knife” for Grizzly Bear; see further commentary from blog Shots Ring Out
• NYC motion graphics firm UVPHACTORY, seen before working on My Chemical Romance’s “I Don’t Love You.”
• Damijan Saccio led the CG team from UVPHACTORY. I don’t know who he is, not that that means much. Damijan, say hi if you’re out there…
• John Weissberger and Vanessa Waring did the puppetry; Circus Minimus member Jessica Scott was lead pupeteer
• Chris Elam, whom I do happen to know personally, was choreographer

… to say nothing of the stereography work which we’ll be seeing soon.

Now, the odds of any of us ascending to Bjork-like budgets tend on the slim side, but I do like the convergence of the pro digital motion scene with the artsy puppetry - making physical stuff crowd. I know at least a couple of the people on the dance/puppetry side of this project, and I also know making that convergence work is a tremendous challenge, artistically and technically. The challenge remains making it come together in lower-budget projects and with the often more-challenging realm of live performance.

How to get free 3D specs for the 3D version [bjork.com]

Making of video timelapse on Facebook

Lighting designers rely on DMX in a similar way that electronic musicians use MIDI; it’s the glue which binds their performance together. Many older (as in age, not experience) VJs I meet have come to live video performance through a profession in lighting. Younger visualists tend to have been attracted to the artform through work or study in film and TV, or a love of electronic music and culture. These people (like myself) may know that DMX exists, but have no real experience with the protocol, or the gear it controls.

So when artificialeyes demoed the VMS system for Peter and I at ByteMeFest in Perth last year, I was struck by how simple this step into the lighting world could be. Todd and Michael were using off-the-shelf VMS projection units and controlling them with a clever little open source USB DMX controller called the uDMX, which includes software to translate midi messages into DMX.

So when it came time to plan for the 2008 album launch tour with Bobby Flynn, my desire to expand the impact of our show (while keeping to an extremely restrictive budget and baggage allowance) put a moving video system right on top of my list of possibilities. In the end we didn’t have the cash to invest in VMS, but taking Peter’s previously tried route of mating an inexpensive Rosco iCue robotic mirror with the projectors we already had in our rig was a simple backup plan. For around AU$1000 each (around $600 in the US), plus a trip to the hardware store, we now have two functional (if currently rather ugly) DMX controllable video moving systems.

The era of the visualist has come to an exciting point. From a relatively fringe activity, we have seen tools and techniques develop quickly over the last couple of years. The idea of a VJ as a performer is steadily gaining more public mind share. Along with this growth, hardware and software concepts from both new and established developers are helping to further expand the possibilities we have for production and performance.

One of the most exciting groups to enter the VJ consciousness recently is Vixid. They’ve been working on their VJ mixer - the VJX16-4 - for several years, and it finally started hitting the market in 2007.

Unlike the other semi-recent entries to the vision mixer market - Numark’s AVM02 and Pioneer’s Big Expensive Thing - the VJX16-4 isn’t just an incremental upgrade to the basic task of "mixing between two sources of video". Vixid have designed it from the ground up to be a considerably more advanced way of working with live video.

Fortunately, Michael and Todd of artificialeyes were available to guide us through this exciting and slightly confusing new world. We shot many hours of video with the ae guys at ByteMe Festival last December, including plenty of time with the VJX. First up: An intro and overview to this superb piece of kit. The video runs for 10:30. Considerably longer than we’d intended to make these CDMtv videos, however we believe the Vixid is such an important and potentially influential piece of hardware - and such a big investment - that you’d want to get more detailed information rather than a superficial overview. For those who are impatient or feeling texty I’ll follow up the video with some of my first impressions and thoughts.

The Light Surgeons are an eminent, inspiring AV UK collective whose latest work, New Adventures in Folklore, fuses documentary filmmaking, live music and visuals in an “eye-popping performance of epic proportions”. They kept a blog and posted many gorgeous photos and video excerpts (see embedded slideshow and video below). See their main site for more inspiring videos from their works Thumbnail Express and In Passing. More photos in their Flickr.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Blindsider Video:

Music produced and arranged by Scanone
CGI Animation by BlinkinLab

Featuring: Emskee, Dezmatic , Atypical, Nobs