Friday
12 May 2006 - Lux2006
VJ and Video Art Conference in Seville, Spain
Posters
for Lux06 were all over the city - we must have seen hundreds
of them. We realised that this event's a big deal for
Sevilla.
It's
a big deal for us too. Our most important VJ performance
so far... performing in front of a load of the world's
best in an amazing, historical venue, with our own choice
of music (all Western Australian). Talk about performance
anxiety.
As
Ellen wasn't performing with us on the Friday, she took
the task of documenting the performance and venue. Our
minds were elsewhere - it was only afterwards when we
looked at the video and photos she'd taken that we realised
how much work she was doing too. We were so lucky to have
had her with us, or we would have been so caught up prepping
for the performance that there would be no documentation,
apart from the desk mix and video stuck on a tripod during
the actual performance.
I
have to admit, we were a bit disappointed when we
were
told we'd be on inside the church in the earlier sessions,
rather than on the main stage outdoors with the later
acts. As it turned out though, we scored big-time with
the church option. It was an amazing venue.
Centro
Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo (The Andalucian Centre for
Contemporary Arts) is a complex of buildings that includes
the former Carthusian Monastery of Santa Maria de las
Cuevas de Sevilla - founded in 1399! The Monastery had
a hospital that was among the best in the world, where
Christopher Colombus was once a patient. During the Napoleonic
Wars, the monks were expelled and French troops were stationed
in the buildings. In the mid 19th Century, an English
businessman acquired the buildings and converted them
into a Porcelain and China Factory (hence the huge smokestacks)
- which operated until 1982. The buildings were renovated
and converted to house exhibitions for Expo92, and in
1997 it became what it is today - one of the most unusual
and beautiful Contemporary Arts venues imaginable. No
amount of money could buy something this unique, and the
cobbled-together character of the building with bits and
pieces from eight centuries of constant use is a very
appropriate context for Postmodern art.
When
we first walked in, we thought... oh no, what a tiny screen...
But then once the tech-checks started, we realised that
bit in the middle had nothing to do with the size of the
projection.
Oooooh,
that's BIG. We liked it muchly.
We
didn't have a lot of room, as there were four performers
using the stage and all of us needed to leave our equipment
set up. We were using a full rig with a DM2 each, so we
ended up with some of our gear piled on top of each other.
There was a TV camera crew from Mexico filming the event
- I wonder if we'll be on Mexican TV?
We
got all set up and then... disaster. Jasper's Resolume
wouldn't load. At all. He restarted his computer, but
still it wouldn't work. We didn't have the Resolume installer
with us, as we'd never had this problem before. Perhaps
it was the stress of performance anxiety flowing through
to the laptop?
Anyway,
Jasper had one last idea - to delete the Resolume Settings
file. It worked, and he could load it up. It meant that
a lot of his settings were wrong, which made performing
a little more difficult - but at least it worked.
As
we were setting up, we realised just how many people were
interested in our DM2s. We were originally going to do
just our video-painting style for Lux, but changed our
plans when we'd seen which piece they selected for the
exhibition - one of our archival, scratch-up party pieces.
We were right to include scratching in the set - Jasper
even finished the set off with a simple live-scratch of
an Astaire & Rogers dance scene.
The
other thing we realised during setup was that the amount
of light meant that we had to use bright clips to show
up properly - so we went for a lot more brassy-looking,
less-subtle clips. As it turned out, due to tech issues
we were on nearly an hour after we were mant to be, and
it was fully dark - so we should have stuck with our originals.
But.. that's what you get when you can't get a rehearsal
in venue before an event.
After
setup, we were supposed to have dinner with the other
VJs - but as we were on early, we only got a short time
to meet n' greet. Anyone and Motorboy were really nice,
and a guy from D-Fuse was very cool too - he was also
a vegetarian, and we were amused by the main course we
got - chunks of raw onion, iceberg lettuce and tomato,
with blister-packs of oil and vinegar. It was all the
more amusing as the entree was beautiful - fresh asparagus,
grilled with a parmesan and cream sauce. Ellen said her
chicken was very nice, but even that was accompanied by
cubed veges from the freezer. Considering that this was
the only meal we've eaten in a restaurant in Spain, we
really didn't know what to make of it. I wondered if it
was because they have a Tapas culture here... lots of
small dishes, and that the English-style of eating large,
defined single-plate meals very quickly at particular
times of day just doesn't suit their social, gregarious
lifestyle. Of course that's a huge generalisation, based
on one restaurant meal :P
The
performer who was on first was a Spanish VJ. We think
his name was Videotone, but don't know much about him
and didn't get to talk to him. We really liked his work
though - very abstract. Some of it appeared to be algorthim-based,
and he worked to an ambient, spacy sound-art piece that
really suited the venue. Sadly, we didn't have enough
tape to get all of the performances but it was all being
documented by the organisers, so hopefully we can see
more of the work later.
It was our time to go on, and still quite light. There
were very few people in the venue yet, all the VJs were
still at dinner, not many of the punters had arrived yet
and there were just a few organisers sitting in the pews
to watch us. We were a bit disappointed, but at least
glad that Jasper's Resolume was working. But then.. they
faded up to us and instead of our output, it was just
big, coloured abstract blobs. It looked cool, but there
was no way we'd be able to hold a sit-down audience's
attention for 45 minutes with coloured blobs!
The
techs first of all thought it was our equipment, despite
the fact that it was all working fine at the tech-check
an hour earlier. We didn't have an output monitor, so
they had to grab one of those to plug into our desk before
they believed that our signal was fine and that the crapification
was downstream. There was a huge, complex video desk/matrix
switcher, and a 10,000 lumens projector - which I think
was all hired, so the tech didn't really know the equipment
very well. I tried to get across that it looked incredibly
zoomed, perhaps the guy before us couldn't go second-screen
and so had been zoomed on a small area of his screen as
his output.
Anyway,
it look about three quarters of an hour before they found
the person who had the remote for the projector, which
obviously HAD been zoomed after our tech-check. We'd been
sitting on stage all that time, embarrassed that people
might think it was our fault. Although, as one of the
techs pointed out, it was really good for us, because
it had got dark. Also, the place had filled up with people
- including all the other VJs, so they got to see our
work.
It
wasn't our best work, as we'd changed what we were using
at the last minute to try to suit the conditions better
- then they'd changed anyway :P We did OK though, and
managed to show a good selection of what we do and used
a really wide range of music by Western Australian artists.
We did:
Dom
Mariani and the Majestic Kelp - bright purple and
green Go-Go girls (kat)
One thing that has really struck us this trip, since this
is the first time we've had to play for 45 minutes to
a sit-down audience, is that a neat jump from one track
to the next is REALLY difficult in Resolume as it currently
works. Even by playing tag and alternating tracks between
us, it's difficult to get all the settings and decks just-right
for each track in time. Every single track that we played
live wasn't as well done as when we did it for DVD, or
when we do longer performances where we use similar effects
for a full set, with minor adjustments throughout. To
jump from one look to a completely different look in a
short space of time is very difficult, as there are so
many settings and each one needs tweaking for a few minutes
to get it to work just right. What we need is the ability
to save ALL the settings for a particular track, and then
just load them up - eg a Patch.
After
us came 1n0ut, who I think an Austrian duo - two guys.
I really liked their piece at the exhibition, it was ambient
and soft, quite painterly. Looked a bit like electric
Sheep in places, but abstracted and mixed with organic
footage. Very mysterious and intriguing. At the live performance
though, they used images of eyeballs and did some live-cam
stuff of hand gestures. It was very in-your-face and looked
like raw steak a lot of the time. The techniques were
very cool though, even though the content was a little
stressful and made us a bit squeamish. The sound was WAY
too loud - glad we brought ear-plugs, but I really liked
their music. I don't know if it was their own.
Nokami
from Canada was on next. We'd met him earlier with his
entourage, and he seemed like a really nice guy. His work
is predominantly video, but cut-up to look like stills
flashing very quickly. They look decayed and old, which
adds a nostalgic appeal. He was working with a sound artist,
who I think was local but I don't know his name as unfortunately
there were no programs and so none of the musicians got
credited :(
We
realised why we were in the church rather than the main
stage - it was all at the 'Arty' end of VJing, and suited
us much better. The main stage was far more club-culture
VJing.
Main
Stage by day:
By
night:
We
enjoyed VJ Anyone and Motorboy's set very much, but then
we were so tired that when we were offered a lift back
to our apartments with all our equipment, we jumped at
the chance. Raquel's partner Hanin kindly drove Caroluna
to her hotel, and then us to our apartments. He's a great
guy, really intelligent and funny. As we've finally found
people here that we can talk to, we're realising how similar
the Spanish sense of humour is to the Australian. Sort
of wry, self-depracating and ironic. Even when we can
only half-understand people, we get their little jokes
and jibes. It's made such a difference, we're enjoying
it so much more here now we have some people to talk to,
and can find out more about local culture and the way
of life.
A
few more snaps outside the venue:
Ellen,
Jas and Kat with one of the organisers, our new good friend,
Raquel.
