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

My God … it’s full of screens:

If you really want live visualism and VJing to make an impact, step one is giving your display mechanism a major upgrade. Great content and artistry matters, but without a way of communicating to them the audience — well, you musicians know what it’s like when the PA is crap and you can’t be heard.

Roger Bolton (known to many here as the creator of Quartz Composer-based Quartonian) passes along some of the brilliant work he’s been doing with Pixeladdicts, the UK-based VJ collective, events outfit, motion graphics group, and, well, generally visualist crew. This work with Younger Brother has to be about the most drool-worthy visual rig I’ve seen with live music. The Pixeladdicts site is under construction (such is the problem with having lots of gigs), but check out their YouTube page for more:

Pixeladdicts - YouTube

That’s Pixeladdicts on the install, Inside Us All doing the VJing.

By the way, Roger, if you’re out there, give us a holler — has something horrible has happened to your site/domain, mate?

Cybersonica turns a gallery space into an interactive playground, filled with sound art installations that mine the power of fun in art. Curator Chris O’Shea sends this professionally-produced documentation video from the hip Phonica record store in London:

Cybersonica & Encompass Sonic Art Exhibition [YouTube]

Among the delights inside: suspended disco satellites controlled by Korg Kaoss Pads, motion tracking that translates a performer into a shadow puppet monster (complete with roaring sounds), a liquid, fully-3D interface for making music which shall be known at CDM simply as the hotness, a 3D Etch-a-Sketch for sound, an installation with an interface controlled by torn paper, and even a mechanical contraption that samples visitors onto analog tape (it’s not all digital).

Chris is gradually documenting the works on his blog, Pixelsumo. If you’re in London, don’t miss the programs Friday and Saturday, and do file a report so all the rest of us know how it goes!

When I perform with visuals, it usually involves a dinky projector and a basement club. Not at Optronica, a show running through the weekend in London. Think IMAX:

Optronica is a hybrid of film festival and music festival featuring live audiovisual performances, cinema screenings, installations and talks.

Headlining at the bfi London IMAX Cinema we have ex-Kraftwerk star Karl Bartos with his stunning live AV show, the world premiere of surround-sound audiovisual project ‘Greedy Baby’ from Warp Records’ Plaid & Bob Jaroc, and the UK premiere of DJ Spooky’s solo film remix ‘Rebirth of a Nation’, in which the noted New York turntablist adds new music and meaning to DW Griffith’s controversial masterpiece The Birth of a Nation.

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