AVIT05::The Rest
So AVIT is over for about a week now and I am slowly recovering from this emotionally, spiritual and physical intense week. I am sorry that I could not follow up on my daily entries but there were so many things going on in parallel that I rather followed personal instinct to go with the flow then sitting in a dark corner on my own and making an entry. I hope I remember most of the stuff that went on. I stopped on Wednesday afternoon preparing the VJBlog PDF....
I think I went out into this muslim street half hour walk from the Custard Factory with Manuela Leu (heiligenblut) VJane from Munich just to be immersed into a very strange black only culture for about half an hour. We ate at an Indian-Persian Fish and Chips Fast Food restaurant which served tasty massala - well - fish and chips. After that we went back and straight into the Theater where the 4X4 by Exceeda was going on. It was 4 sessions with each 4 video shorts in music clip style - political, mentally, spiritual provocative and in between a 45 minute VJ interlude. I had a lot of reality distortion during the viewing and the works shown where sometimes out right amazing and sometimes very shitty. One of the 45 Minutes VJ interludes that I really enjoyed was the one from VJ Solu. She worked her own NATO+0.55 patch (we were guessing what software VJs are using and I was right twice ;) like I have seen noone else before and it looked outright gorgeous. If you ever have the chance to see her its a must.
After i wandered a little around the gallery seeing elektroschroeders bedroom installation (very lovely) I went back to the hotel to prepare for my narrative lab lecture the next morning.
Waking up much too late I went to the Maverick. A satellite house to the custard factory. On the way there I found an original banksy in some side alley - having found one in Brighton two years ago as well made me kinda of happy and feel that this will become a good day. Arriving at the Maverick at around 11 it was clear that I was not the only one who couldnīt get his ass out of bed as VJ Anyone who was supposed to have his storyboarding for VJs lecture around 10 am was just starting. So I had a seat and actually learned a lot during this lecture as it was far away from a traditional storyboarding approach and was provoking a lot of thoughts in my mind on how to incorporate this - thanks Ollie from here for that. The small room quite filled I took over and presented - very nervously - my CTRL-V VJ story and all thoughts surrounding this project. It was much deeper then what I presented in Berlin in December as I had to go on for an hour rather then 20 minutes and was really getting into the nitty bitty of my thoughts and experiences during all this time that I spend with CTRL-V - production and performance wise. I think I could help people understand my approach and hope I saved some from making the mistakes I made. After that I took the time out and wandered with Peter, Willow and a half naked transvestite friend Adam to an old abandoned church and then to the black neighborhood - which was kinda dangerous people shouting at us and we felt a little lost in between them. Sadly I was not able to use Michaels camera (I was to stupid) so most of the pictures from this strange trip are lost forever. Back a quarter after 7 pm we went straight into the theater to watch Lara, Paul and Toby - the head organizers of AVIT Birmingham and the main promoters of the narrative labs have their collective showcase - though Tobyīs iMac crashed half way through it still was a refreshing approach to narrative storytelling in a VJ context and I thought had some great moments - mainly interloop narratives - going on. The style would not fit into a normal club - more in a bar or a theater as it was mainly to bright and had some difficulties catching up to the music - but overall very astonishing.
After that the Shaanti night was going on and we stayed insight the custard factory - grabbing some food and eating it in the Theater Lobby. Then we wanted to go out into the office for a short time and when we came back they wanted us to pay an entry fee. Well people knowing Peter and me can imagine what we thought and how we reacted. We left the place. Sadly I could not see the Japanese crew vjing and also missed Ollies set - hopefully another time another day.
Next day - Saturday - getting up late I prepared my set for the night all morning - getting in late for the Work in Progress Session moderated by Lara in the Theater. I went in there and it was my turn right away after Rafeal.
Just one diversion about Rafael. I never got his card so I hope I can still get in touch with him as our approach to narrative VJing differs on some points but we seemed somehow connected in our way. I was watching his set in the Mixlab the day before and was very impressed. He has a rather nonlinear approach and it opened my eyes. Very sad that I could not talk to him more. I got on stage and was very surprised about my confidence in front of so many people in the Theater and think that those who missed my first narrative lab presentation could get a glimpse of CTRL-V now. A good discussion aroused if narrative visuals are working in clubs - a discussion that was put forth on the night on a visual level - especially with hfr labs who really impressed me with their abstract visuals - more on that in a minute.
After getting some food in some strange indian restaurant down the street we came back just to find the main stage which michael&todd, hfr lab, toby/spark, vj oxygen and me was playing was already set up. The setup was BAD. Really BAD and people who know me can imagine how I reacted - very angry. The two plasmas where good but a mirror beamer installation for me was not suitable nor for anyone else - especially because the beamers did not even fill the screen and were badly adjusted. On top of that was the fact that the VJs were put BEHIND the screen BEHIND the stage not seeing the audience at all. Well a very "vivid" discussion arouse were SleepyTom almost hit me. Luckily this time it was not only me complaining. We removed the desks a little so we could at least have a glance to the crowd and installed a different beamer and it looked much better - even if far from perfect. The night started out with toby - who I only got a glimpse of as I needed a shower and some short rest. When I came back I could watch Michael and Todd make their very Californian (they both come from California but have never met) colorfull set to the Californian DJ (they also never met with him!) kraddy. Very lovely contemparary technological surf vibe visuals to great beats. After them hfr lab catch the attention from sourrounding VJs when they opened up their powerbooks and it was clear that they would perform a pure FinalCut Pro Set! Yes the only software they used during their very abstract beautiful set was final cut pro mixed with a V4. Crazy but it worked. After that lovely VJ Oxygen worked the beamers with a style mix between Solu and me which I loved a lot. Great black and white masks with meaningful video source content and always on the beat. Then it was kinda my turn. Canīt remember much of it other then I felt a thousand eyes staring at me working. I was very concentrated and the pressure fell of when I realised that the music from the live act the lawgivers was perfect for CTRL-V and I was deep into it finishing right with the music - Have you hacked your world tonight? You canīt believe how happy I was afterwards. It could have been a better show if I would have been on stage and got some vibes from the crowd - I would have not been so tired during the end but generally yes I think I made my point of narratives in a VJ concept. Overall this stage on this night was a cutthrough most styles you see in VJing today and I think the selection of people playing here was totally great.
Somewhere in between Peter introduced Michael and me to the head organizer of the Drop Beat not Bombs and also to the founder of Indymedia.org. That was before my set and I could not really concentrate - which is a shame. I really would have love to philosophically talk with them a little more.
Getting some much needed sleep and then trying to get some late breakfast inside town Sunday morning we all met at this obscure bar near the Custard Factory. All the Core AVIT people that you see at every AVIT mixed with a lot of new faces tried to relax and socialize and get their raffle prices. I won nothing - which didnīt surprise me at all. Todd won the V4 - giving that he paid for his plane ticket from california on his own he really deserved it the most in the round. After some tearfull goodbye Toby, Willow and me went straight to Nottingham for our next gig. Arriving there it was clear that we were playing behind the screen again - something that you seem to have get used to in the UK - in that regard the Berlin VJ scene is much better - if not perfect as well. The gig was for detonate with LTJ Bukem and London Electricity playing there - great night if I wouldnīt have been so tired. Bad hotel room sleeping on the floor and a little money more we went back to London with a short stop in Nature that was MUCH needed and refreshing after all this concrete city grey street shit of the last week. In Tobys new home in London we fused back with Michael, Ray and Dave from Vidvox, David and Paul and Lara and relaxed a bit the rest of Monday. On Tuesday after some joint breakfast and some talking sessions we went to the AppleStore to see the Vidvox Grid Pro presentation. There we meet up with Yo Hann from a Kanarian Island that was interviewing and documenting the whole AVIT thing for his own sake and he introduced us to Bianca. Also there was DJ kraddy from the DropBeats not Bombs night as well as Clarissa young VJane start up from Heidelberg and appearing DrEskaton a VJ that I have known on VJforums for some time who is very knowledged when it comes to OSX patch programming. So we rounded it all up with some food - actually the group split up some went to get a burger some went to get some tai food. The Tai food group was somehow spiritual unaxplainable here on the blog and with all this energy I barely catched my plane on Wednesday and came back as exhausted as I was never before.
It now all feels very surreal and dreamlike ......