Joshue Ott/superDraw +Ezekiel Honig live at monkeytown from superdraw on Vimeo.

I’m very excited about the music lineup we have planned for this Friday in New York at the CDM-curated evening of live audio and visuals – but the visual lineup should be a big draw, too. If you’re in New York, come say hi (and if not, hope to have more details on these projects for the rest of the planet soon):

• Joshue Ott creates live visuals with his homemade superDraw generative illustration tool
• Paris (Voltage Controlled) and Don Miller (No Carrier) create glitchy, lo-fi visuals from custom-created 8-bit visual software on Nintendo and Commodore systems
• vade and Mary Ann Benedetto will visualize and reinterpret geeky things (possibly the Linux kernel, data packets, or both) using custom code and Quartz Composer stuff — we should even see a free release of some of those tools in time for the gig, so stay tuned to CDM
• Bill Jones creates live cinematic worlds inspired by sci-fi noir

Where: The Hotel Pennsylvania, New York City (map); head to the main door, on your left is the entrance to Penn Pavilion and you should see a table there.

When: Friday, July 18 2008 – performances run 11pm – 2am

Cost: US$10 at the door. First come, first served. (free if you have a conference badge)

We Are Hacks: Music and Visual Performance at HOPE, NYC – Preview

http://www.thelasthope.org/

Facebook event page (RSVP if you’re coming! Also on Going.com)

Above: one of my favorite videos from superDraw (Processing-based) by Joshue Ott above, though it’s even better to see it in person with the live drawing capabilities. Below: all-custom 8-bit-style software generates visuals, via Paris.

Function Field System - PureData/GEM from Paris/VoltageControlled on Vimeo.

It’s a small release number, but I expect Modul8 users will want to pay attention to this one. New in 2.5.5 are various fixes and improvements, most notably restoring Flash SWF support removed from QuickTime. I hope other VJ apps will be able to do the same.

Also in this update:

• Swatches, color picker for layer colorization
• Transformation knob for layer field of view
• Audio fading with layer opacity (neat idea!)
• Unlimited size for multi-output windows
• Media triggering by name
• Lots of other small fixes and features

Modul8 2.5.5 Feature Details

Read on in the forum, and you can find the fix that allowed GarageCUBE to restore Flash support: "Modul8 is using the Flash plugin of Safari, so you could load any file that loads in Safari. " Now, that sounds to me like even Java/Processing support could happen via the same hack. Any takers?

Let us know how the update works for you, ye Modul8 users.

Korg has just publicly shown this trio of tiny USB controllers in London, and they look very tasty indeed for live visualism – small and thin enough to fit along the lip of a non-pro MacBook or 13” PC laptop, but with advanced assignment features, scene editing, and other features. That keyboard would go nicely with the new GrandVJ’s MIDI assignment features… and that could leave another laptop routed into a mixer with a bigger controller. No word on pricing or availability, but we’ll be watching. Full details on Create Digital Music:

Korg nanoKEY, nanoKONTROL, nanoPAD: Super Tiny MIDI Keyboard, Controller, Pads

The VJ and live visualist of the future isn’t just about DJ metaphors and what happens in clubs. It’s about a convergence of new interface technologies for dealing with visual material in a more fluid, flexible way. It’ll change not only visual performance, but how we express ourselves in digital visuals, as well — something we’ve already seen happen with non-linear video editing and vector and bitmap graphics software, but taken further.

Vade points us to a couple of glimpses of technologies being researched now that will help enable these changes.

The successor to ArKaos VJ, a staple in early VJ application history, is nearly here. GrandVJ just hit public beta.

GrandVJ is a complete, from-scratch rewrite of the app, with some new features — but still a nod to the simple, one-screen interface that made the original popular. You can now download a working demo, beta build (with some watermarks on output and other limitations) for both Mac and Windows. I have to say, I like the music keyboard interface and drag-and-drop-everywhere philosophy. At the very least, this could become the beginner-friendly VJ app a lot of people have been looking for. (That is, if it’s successful, I may have an answer for the "where should I start with VJing for something simple — and I don’t have a lot of time" question I get a lot, particularly on the music side.) It’s also got some generative and Flash-playing tricks I’ll be looking into. At the same time, I think it will be worth some constructive criticism. This field is also getting crowded — and users more demanding.

Watch for a more detailed preview from us soon, but in the meantime, you can go ahead and give it a spin and let us know what you think:

ArKaos GrandVJ Public Beta 1 [ArKaos Users Forum]

Previously:

ArKaos Rebuilds VJ Software From Ground Up: GrandVJ

eMotion - Basic particles tool example from Adrien Mondot on Vimeo.

We saw eMotion last year — it’s a Mac OS-based 3D tool for particles and visual effects, with physics modeling, Wacom tablet control, input from sensors and OpenSoundControl, a text engine, and integrated Quartz Composer support. In other words: it’s a friendly tool for making pretty motion imagery, designed to be usable by performers.

Creator Adrien Mondot has new videos up and a beta available for download. (An Intel Mac running Leopard is required.)

eMotion on stage from eMotion for Animation on Vimeo.

More videos, including screencasts on features like forces and Quartz Composer:

Vimeo screencasts

Details on the software and a download link:

eMotion

The description is a bit hyperbolic ("a new way to define movement"?) given that a lot of this is indebted to 1970s "augmented reality" research by Myron Krueger and physics simulations by, well, a lot of people. (Particle systems were specifically invented by Bill Reeves of Pixar in the early 80s. Ahem — Khaaaaaaaaaan!) I don’t think that takes away from the coolness of this — on the contrary, I think acknowledging historical lineage helps demonstrate why the new, accessible, personal rendition of that is valuable. But there is a lot here that’s done very well. It’ll be fantastic to watch it develop.

Likewise, it’s interesting to see these tools (and vvvv, also mentioned today) working with proprietary, platform-specific technologies. There are certainly some advantages to hooking into the Mac’s Core Image and other app development tools (see Quartz Composer, VDMX, etc.), or Windows’ DirectX (as with vvvv). I think the challenge for people interested in open, cross-platform development is to make things just as usable and visually consistent with OpenGL and cross-platform APIs.

Beatesthesia Custom Visulizer from olly gore on Vimeo.

Beatesthesia is a new open-source, cross-platform VJing/music visualizer application programmed in Processing. It sports some interesting design decisions, including an audio-reactive user interface. Its an interesting idea, and is certainly pretty and definitely novel. At first glance, I didn’t like the blinking UI; it struck me as being far too distracting, but, after second thought, it’s a pretty decent way of conveying content and disambiguating a UI elements purpose. Well done. Check out the Vimeo video and home page to get a feel for its capabilities.

Beatesthesia strikes me as being more of a music visualizer than a fully featured VJ application, but it’s open source, which means it will grow as it pulls in a dedicated user base. Beatesthesia’s website also hosts shared projects, so you can explore other users visualizations. [Ed. For what it's worth, it looks like more than just a visualizer to me -- especially as you start to edit the ways in which it works and make more elements "performable" -- and if you don't like this specific implementation, you could certainly code your own in Processing! Anyone performing with this or building something similar, let us know. -PK]

This retro-inspired color-on-black loopset is a great starter pack. 282 Megabytes worth of 640×480 PhotoJPEG Quicktimes.

Preview of the loops in action in a live set to Fabric 38 M.A.N.D.Y.

Created by VJ Fader using the 3D-Stroke After Effects Plugin.

Download Page || Direct Download

video mlr clone demo from themoves on Vimeo.

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of using the Monome, the popular open-source, button-bestrewn controller device, for visuals and not just sound. But I haven’t seen any examples in person. Via comments on Monday’s Live + Isadora story, here’s one example by Joshua Nugent. The software is inspired by MLR, the sound sample-rocking patch that comes with Monome. In fact, that’s one area in which I think the Monome hasn’t gotten enough credit — a lot of its popularity actually comes from its software design, not just its elegantly-minimal hardware design.

I tend to do visuals differently, so I’ll have to finish my kit, finally, and post some software examples. And yes, while this is done in Isadora, there’s nothing saying you couldn’t use other software tools.

Bonus points for including Bush dancing in Africa. Now someone send poor Josh a screen and some windowblinds.

More on this project on the Monome forums, including instructions:

how about a video version of MLR/64step?

I’d love to see more Monome examples, so if you’ve got them, send them in!