It’s always interesting to have a feedback for you – and often we are amazed to see the quality of your ideas and their execution. Recently we’ve got in touch with Phillip Halfmann of German studio Hylas-Film and get to know this collective’s work. As our communication developed, we decided to make a short interview that you can read below.
We hope you’ll find it interesting and inspiring (please do comment below) and encourage you to share your works and projects with us.
So, let’s go:

— What is Hylas-Film?
— Hylas-Film is a small independent film crew of 5 people (Michael Amstad, Volker Langholz, Benjamin Lutzow, Dominik Mader and me, Philipp Halfmann) based in Berlin.

— How did it come about, that you made a music video for Bonaparte that brought you first general public attention?
— It started with us and Arish (King Khan) who had smuggled us into a backstage, where we met Tobias (Bonaparte) and his unique voice. We were immediately hooked for having him as one of the voice actors for our animated series “Circus”. So we kept in contact, and by the time he visited our studio he fell in love with the puppetry world of “Circus”. So the idea of the video for “Mañana Forever” was born.

— You mentioned “Circus”. What is it exactly?
— It’s our longterm project, which we originally founded Hylas-Film for.
“Circus” is a stop motion animated film series about a travelling circus that gets stranded in a mysterious forest.
The members of the “Circus” live together in a sort of trailer park community. Their efforts to escape this place become more and more desperate, but the forest won’t let them out of it`s snagging traps.

— Now I can see that you are German – it sounds like a Brother’s Grimm fairy tale. By the way, you had a fundraising going, is it an all independent production?
— Yes, totally. So far apart from the fundraising we have financed everything out of our pockets.
We’ve got a lot of help from friends and fellow artists we met along the way. Everybody involved is completely dedicated to the project. Some musicians like King Khan, Rummelsnuff and now Bonaparte support us as voice actors for our main characters.
Through this process many collaborations outside of “Circus” happened.

— Getting back to the “Mañana Forever”. Technically speaking, how do you get these smooth camera moves?
— We are using a self-made camera crane our friend Hans Moser helped us to build. He used to be a stop-motion cameraman in former East Germany (GDR). He is retired now. He gave us some tracks too, where the base of the crane fits on. Nothing is computerised or motion-controlled: its all handcrafted by fine adjustments you can make. The continuous backwards movement wasn’t actually achieved by moving the camera, but pushing the floor that the puppet is walking on for one millimetre each frame.

— Since the video is in one cut, what difficulties came with that?
— That was in fact very different to what we normally shoot in stop motion. In “Circus”, the longest shots are about 20 sec. Here we had monster shots of up to 2000 frames. What we did is, shooting each verse in one shot and having invisible cuts to connect them with the chorus. So, in order to time every bit with the lyrics, we had to do a lot of planning and calculating. For example, it was necessary to know when a certain object had to enter the frame in order to be on the right position in time. We felt like mathematicians. here is the link to the preview – hope you’ll like it!

— Well, you’ve done a great job. We are looking forward to see “Circus” episodes! Please keep us updated!
— Thank you – we will!

We continue to report about our most interesting international trips. In the beginning of this year our colleagues from Russian Visual Artists team had become official and the only d3 studio in Russia. As our partners from d3 technologies visited Moscow and told us about Prolight + Sound fair in Frankfurt, we decided that we have to attend this event.

This annual exhibition is a key event in the event production industry. Prolight + Sound is the leading international trade fair for the event-technology sector and covers all products, trades and services. A broad spectrum of workshops, product presentations and discussion events are also held in addition to the comprehensive range of products and services. All big vendors demonstrated their latest equipment and solutions; meanwhile distribution companies showcased their new products in the courtyard of the venue.
The size of the exhibition is very impressive: a straight walk from the main entrance to the last pavilion without stopping took about half-an-hour while the courtyard housed about 20 full-sized concert stages.

Despite numerous premieres of new products for rigging and scenic equipment, above all, we were interested in various visual solutions for show setup.

As an example of an excellent technology demo we had seen, watch this video from PRG. They rented a whole pavilion and set up a huge stage, where they would take guests for a tour and explain how all equipment works and how it was commuted.

The show and the content were controlled through d3 servers. We believe that this demonstration perfectly shows the system’s capabilities.

d3 technologies had a booth, too. They just have announced an update to version R11 software upgrade, already available for d3 2U and d3 4U servers and d3 designer.
This version features: simultaneous playback of up to 12 HD videos (previously only 6), live update of all changes in a project on all machines in the network, new tools for projector calibration, and projection control from several computers simultaneously.
The last feature is especially interesting. If you don’t have enough time to configure a complex projection for some reason, then you can connect unlimited number of laptops with d3 designer into the d3 network and each operator can configure his projector. This resulted in time reduction that is directly proportional to the number of the operators. Great move! Currently, no other system in the world allows for this.

Our partners from Green Hippo have also updated their software to version 3.2. It now supports mapping configuration of imported 3D models (Russian Visual Artists used this feature in beta version for Qatar project), has embedded presets for quick access to configured layers, access to layers on other machines in the network, and features other improvements.

One of the pavilions was used for demonstration of light and laser effects’ generating devices. It was almost impossible to locate where the beams were coming from, but many booths were equipped with closed demonstration zones where you could see different ways of employing such devices.
These demonstrations were, probably, the most interesting part for us. As we are not into distribution or rental business, we would not elaborate onto technical details and specs – this info is available on the event and producers web sites.
What we needed to know is how and when to use different devices and what is to be combined in order to achieve the result.

For instance, TBF-Pyrotec from Germany introduced a great effect of a burning fountain. The operator can control the height of the fountain, its intensity and RGB lighting. It looked very unusual, though mind safety!

Nowadays laser technology offers broad range of creative possibilities, as you could see from a PRG demo video above. At the exhibition, a German company Lasertec-Showlaser has created a zone where laser effects were working not only in the vast space, but on theatrical nets and on water screen as well, which made them seem as 3D images.

Numerous lighting devices were introduced as well. But as we already mentioned, we are more interested in scenarios of their use rather than the devices themselves. Those could be seen in various demo shows. For example, two artists used two simple LED ticker bars for their performance:

Our visit to Prolight + Sound has resulted in new acquaintances and agreements with leaders from different spheres of A/V industry, which is very important to us. But that’s not all – our future projects will definitely feature solutions and technologies that will surprise and entertain. Prepare to be amazed! – as one of the cartoon characters used to say, and stay tuned for our and Russian Visual Artists’ updates!

From 21 March till 23 March this year Belgrade hosted one of the most interesting and prominent European events in new media arts – Resonate Festival. For 3 days Serbia’s capital was welcoming some of the best known and proactive digital artists, creative programmers, interactive designers, film-makers, musicians, VJs, performers and specialists audiovisual technologies, both local and foreign.
We were among them – a small team of 3 people from Audiovisual Academy and Dmitri Morozov (::vtol::) whose performance “An Autonomous Synthesis” AV:in presented at the festival.

Our first impression was as warm as the festival organizer’s reception: after Moscow’s snow and freezing -10, Belgrade greeted us with sunshine and “tropical” +14.
Alas, our weather luck didn’t last long: the next day’s temperature fell nearly to 0, it started to rain heavily and the gloomy sky reminded of a scene from some disaster movie. Fortunately, there were no tornados or falling meteors. Anyway, all the three days of the festival were so packed with events that we stayed at the venue around the clock with the exceptions for partying and sleep.

This year, Audiovisual Academy became a proud Silver partner of the event. As a result of this, we were able not only to record lectures and presentations which were presented simultaneously in different halls of Dom Omladine, but also could conveniently set up a little AV:in station, where we could communicate with our friends, lecturers, artists, visitors and journalists… and there were lots of them at the event! We and Dmitri were giving one interview after another – to WIRED magazine, an Italian TV channel, a popular local newspaper… We were happy to find out that in most of the cases we didn’t have to introduce ourselves: many people would just pop in to shake our hands and thank us for our work.
It was a great feeling and fantastic feedback – now it’s official: we don’t just broadcast into the void. It’s good to know that you watch us, read us, support us, propose new topics for lessons and share your opinions with us. Thank you very much for all your kind words!
That’s enough for the starters – let’s dive into the event itself.

Day one.
‘Chaos rulez!’ – were our first words when we went up to the second floor of Dom Omladine, where the main festival activities were taking place. It was a scene more suitable for a pedestrian crossing in Tokyo’s Shibuya, but not a sight for peaceful and calm Belgrade. Crowds – and we mean crowds – were standing on tiptoes, listening to lecturers, filming the activities, taking pictures on cameras and phones: 16 workshops simultaneously taking place in the same space – it’s not a joke!

By moving from one group to another, we’ve learned how to create digital kaleidoscopes (Digital Kaleidoscope – Richard Difford, Anne-Laure Guiot), tried to make an iPhone game (Intro to building iPhone games with openFrameworks – Zach Gage), realized that bamboo can be used not just for planting in the backyard, but as an interactive visual instrument too (Sensing touch: introduction to capacitive and electrical field sensing – Ivan Poupyrev, Jonas Loh) and finally we stopped worrying and loved the drones (How I learnt to stop worrying and love the drones – Memo Akten).

And of course, we’ve met a great number of friends and new people!

Meanwhile, the main hall held the festival opening with a welcoming speech by no other as a Serbian minister of culture amongst others and featured the screening program of the festival participants.
At Club, one could watch a series of presentations on data-art, use of Unity engine for non-gaming purposes and a talk by Julia Laub, one of the authors of “Generative Design” on creating this wonderful book. Amazing, what a student diploma project can turn into!

After a short break, we crossed our fingers – it was time for our presentation. One of the most interesting Russian media artists and Audiovisual Academy long-time collaborator, Dmitri Morozov aka ::vtol:: came on stage. He spoke about “An Autonomous Synthesis”, a unique concept which sees synthesis as generation of sounds responsible for new ideas, and autonomy as a modern form of asceticism that in this context stands for energetic and personal ascesis, creativity at any place without need for spectators and in direct connection with the location.

In Dmitri’s opinion, the practical idea of ‘autonomy’ is creation and development of energy-independent DIY-art objects. The underlying concept of this are idea of ‘autonomous systems’ – in our case, sound, interactive, and energy systems powered by solar power.

Using his own works as examples, ::vtol:: spoke about the principles of building autonomous audiovisual instruments and art objects powered by the energy of the Sun and explained how to control them. One of his first experiments in this field was ‘Heliosynth’ – a sound synthesizer which transforms energy of light into sound.

Despite the fact that solar energy can be accumulated for use in nighttime, Heliosynth was not equipped with any batteries on purpose in order to create the ‘here-and-now’ effect. The instrument was first presented at Equilibrium festival workshop in Abrau-Durso as a part of Audiovisual Academy educational program.

These ideas were later developed in Dmitri’s works. At the end of 2012, he constructed a complete setup for a musical performance, which he took to the Judean Desert. While being alone and isolated in the desert for few days, he recorded a musical album and documented this experimental performance on video. Its extended version for indoor areas was later demonstrated at CyberFest in Saint Petersburg. Watch the excerpts from those:

The presentation was warmly perceived: Dmitri spoke in front of the packed audience and was awarded with loud and well-deserved applause.

In the evening the main hall featured performances by Valens and Pantha du Prince. Later we moved on to a local club called KGB (of course!) where we stayed till 4 am, talking with friends and meeting new people.

Day two.
To tell you the truth, it was really hard to get up and the weather was not very comforting either. Only few shots of strong Turkish coffee and understanding that we can miss some interesting talks could get us going. After having some Šopský salad and other delicacies of local cuisine, we came right in time for the opening.
This day was also filled with screenings, panel discussions, meetings and networking. During the break between the morning and afternoon programs, we took some interviews. Some excerpts from our talks with Golan Levin

and Memo Akten are below.

All presentations were noteworthy but the most memorable was the closing one by Golan Levin “Blobs, Glyphs And Other Madeleines”, which received a standing ovation.
But the festival went on, and after a short cocktail party during which the participants could chat with each other and with organizers as well, we moved back into the Main Hall to watch a performance by a local Serbian acoustic electric band.
It was really impressive and energetic. But even those few who were still standing before could stay still no longer still after the heroes of the 90′-00’s electronic scene “Mouse on Mars” came on stage. Masters of the cynical beat from Cologne lived up to our expectations and proved for all that they are still holding their ground. A charismatic drummer/vocalist was added to MOM’s traditional duo line-up, with whom their sound gained a new dimension. A mind-blowing performance! Due to roaring requests of the spectators, the band didn’t go without playing few encores.

This could have been a wonderful closing of the night if it were not for our new friends from Belgrade who decided to guide us around local trendy clubs – a trip that definitely added some insights into Belgrade’s nightlife and cultural similarities between Russian and Serbian people, but ended up again in the early morning. Argh!

Day three
Apparently, we have already adjusted to this crazy cycle of learning-working-talking-meeting new people-partying, and actually felt fine.
The only issue we had that morning was – to decide who watches and films what and who stays at our home-away-from-home AV:in booth. It wasn’t easy, so we had to do a lucky draw.

And what would you choose: Cohen Van Balen’s lecture “The Machine Body” or an amazing presentation “Computing Reality” by our compatriot Ivan Poupyrev who these days heads Disney Research Labs in Pittsburgh, U.S.?
What we saw there totally changed our vision of the future again (sorry, Golan). It reminded us of the famous scene from The Matrix movie where Neo had to choose between the blue pill and the red one. Would we choose to live in a gloomy post-industrial future where our resources are used up and the reality is augmented with chips implanted into our nervous systems? Rather not. Would we choose to go back into our customary cozy world denying the new knowledge generously shared by Ivan? No way. Watch this man, he is a new Tesla.
But let’s get back to the festival – in the meantime, Club was hosting a panel discussion “Coding Narratives” with Evan Boehm, Aurlea Harvey, Michael Samyn under the chairmanship of our good old friend and tireless director of onedotzero festival Shane Walter.
Unfortunately, we could not squeeze in, as the entrance was jammed with people, so we could only stay and listen.

The festival was closing by a big party at Kluz club. This place used to be the flagship store of the Yugoslavian clothing brand – or so we were told. Some traces of its former grandeur still were there, such as oddly looking security (was Obama coming?), escalators, marble walls and a gigantic crystal chandelier to top it all – we haven’t seen any other like that one except for the Bolshoi Theatre. Hundreds of visitors and festival participants moved to the music by Jan Nemecek, Dinky, and Monosaccharide around this exotic space while sipping on their beers and chatting with each other.
Somehow we are sure to meet most of this great crowd at Resonate 2014 – no doubts we will come back to the welcoming city of Belgrade next year again!

We tried to embrace the impossible and visit all workshops, lectures, and discussions – and miserably failed. The program was so packed that it was simply out of question.
Nevertheless, we coped well and have filmed most of the events and lectures – which we already have started to publish on our web site!
Finally, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the festival organizers Filip Visnjic, Eduard Prats Molner and Marija Manojlovic from Resonate and Creative Applications collectives and all event team members for their wonderful support and organizing such a fantastic event.
Kudos and see you next year!

Photography – Audiovisual Academy and Resonate (Luka Knežević-Strika/Milovan Milenković/Nemanja Knežević)

Weimar is a little city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. Despite its population of just about 65 000 people, the cities’ cultural heritage is vast and the history can be traced back to 889. In the 18-19th centuries it was an important cultural centre of Europe and has been home to Goethe, Schiller, Liszt and Bach. Bauhaus School and movement were established in Weimar in 1919.
Now, a new videomapping event takes place here and looks beyond the mere geometry of objects to explore the possibilities of reflecting the spirt of the place.

Genius Loci Weimar is an exciting international festival for multimedia facade projections and site-specific audiovisual performances. Unlike erratic claptrap, Genius Loci Weimar approach focuses on an intensive analysis of history, habitat and the architectonical composition of the place.
This focus is easy to explain: the festival founders Stefan Kraus and Hendrik Wendler are addicted to video and architecture and like the mix of history and possibilities of projection mapping to tell new stories in such cultural context.

Stefan Kraus is a media artist and together with Baha Hamdemir they form a VJ art group “MXZEHN – 25 Masterpieces per second” since more then 10 years. With Genius Loci Weimar he wanted to create a festival, where he really would love to play and create art of projection without commercial pressure. Hendrik Wendler is the creator of “MXWendler FXServer and Stage Designer“. Since 2004 his software makes amazing and impressing projection setups possible in theaters, clubs and – of course – on facades. They met at Bauhaus University in Weimar, where they studied architecture in the 90s and have created Genius Loci Weimar as a festival, where international projection artists could tell the story of the place on site and meet other VJ and projection artists.

Stefan and Hendrik organize Genius Loci Weimar 2013 together with 4 team members experienced in theatre, architecture, media and urban design, culture management and urban culture. The events’ symposium and the Genius Loci Club are curated in cooperation with local partners like Bauhaus University and the Gaswerk – a trendy subcultural cultural spot in the classical city.

The festival was launched in 2012 and became an immediate success. The artists come in touch with the festival via the competition. Together with the local cultural network Genius Loci Weimar offered a nice cultural mix between Goethe´s classic and contemporary art. The first projection location was Fürstenhaus, which houses the main building of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.
Nerdworking’s international team consisted of nearly 20 artists and created an incredible historical fairytale “Under an Alias” that shows the multicultural setting of Weimar’s spirit in the past and in the presence. It won the last year’s competition.

Besides the work of the award winners, other works of well-known international projection artists such as VJ Fader (USA), Dirk Rauscher (G), RDV Collectif (FR) and MXZEHN (G) were presented together with talented musicians and local artists at the building and later in the Genius Loci Club. The local feedback from the inhabitants, Weimar’s mayor and the media was great and this year the festival is embedded officially in a touristic campaign called “Weimarer Sommer” and many tourists and spectators coming specifically for the event are expected.

2013 will mark the expansion of Genius Loci Weimar in time and space: three historic facades will be animated. The festival is being expanded to include a program with competition, symposium, workshops and exhibition in cooperation with the Bauhaus University Weimar, “Weimarer Sommer” and MXWendler.

Audiovisual Academy is proud to be selected as one of the festival’s partners and we will be covering this year’s competition and event in our blog and in social networks.

The competition 2013
Genius Loci Weimar seeks for innovative ideas for the facade-projection festival held from 5th-11th August 2013.
Until the 15th of April, participants apply with a 30 sec videoclip explaining the main design concept for one of the facades of the historical buildings: Wittumspalais, City Castle Courtyard, Main-Building Bauhaus University. The three winning artists will be awarded a totaling prize money of 45 000 Euros to create a 10-15 min long high-resolution audio-visual production, which can be presented in the form of video mapping on the respective facades on the evenings of 9th-11th August.

The most important requirements for the Genius Loci Weimar competition are:
• An innovative design in the form of an audio-visual video mapping, with particular observance paid to the Genius Loci.
• An individual, original and sophisticated handling of the spirit of the location with respect to the history and architecture.
• The deliberate omission of erratic gimmickry and showmanship, intrusive clichés, and careless historical retelling.

Read all about the competition and this year’s festival, here:
http://www.genius-loci-weimar.org/program/
http://www.genius-loci-weimar.org/competition/

Get in touch:

Stay tuned!
We would like to thank Maxi Kretzschmar, one of the Genius Loci Weimar 2013 committee members for the contribution of this article and all her invaluable help.

Our selection of videos on the web that we liked.

Jamie Lidell, You Naked – Flat-e

A new video for the latest Lidell’s track ‘You Naked’. A mix of funk, soul and electro with broken beats that remind us of Prince and David Bowie and amazing light design combined with video mapping – although it’s used quite often these days, it looks very fresh here. Back to the Future – that says it all!

Stardust – PostPanic

A new CG film by PostPanic studio about ‘Voyager-1′, which was launched by NASA back in 1977 to do research in the remote parts of the Solar System.
It has it all – fantastic space views, a planet dying out, the feel of loneliness… A truly beautiful work with a deep philosophical concept by a Dutch studio was created in memory of their colleague who recently lost his fight with cancer.

The Future – Alex Goddard

How do you imagine the future? When we think about it, we naturally come up with flying devices, skateboards and robots. But even the boldest of futurologists wouldn’t be able to make this up… Imagine flying Lara Croft, toilet, socks, and even a toast with Jesus’s portrait. A humorous future envisioned by a young British animator and movie director Alex Goddard.

Kenzo – Electric Jungle

For the promo of his latest stunning Resort collection Kenzo have chosen as an art director a movie director and artist from London Mat Maitland – a prominent specialist in creating audiovisual eclectic, who previously collaborated with Beck and Michael Jackson. Will you pass the acid test?

Pariah, Signal Loss – V.A.

A very interesting and technically advanced video project was created by students from Köln International School of Design and, in our opinion, lays the foundation for new aesthetics.
This work employed a Kinect camera coupled with ReconstructMe to scan the human body. Later on, a character from the video was simulated with MoCap-Data.
Despite this, the video itself looks very simple, stylized in lo-fi so much that it hard to believe that it took one week of render on 8 powerful computers for the final project.
Combined with the beautiful melancholic track by Pariah, it creates an experiment very pleasant to viewers’ eyes and ears.

Lego Dance – Annette Jung

The clip lasts only 29 seconds, but it worth every second of it. A great example of stop-motion animation by Annette Jung of Berlin studio Talking Animals.
Curiously, the studio was founded and maintained by the people who went to the same school class.

New York Biotopes – Lena Steinkühler

Another student work by Lena Steinkühler which explores the idea of a possible parallel reality in which New York undergoes metamorphoses with help of ‘biotopes’ (abstract plants and animals), intelligent mechanisms evolving through mimicry in urban environment.

This year, our first business trip was to Amsterdam, which for the seventh time hosted a major international sound and video equipment tradeshow named Integrated Systems Europe (ISE).

One of our colleagues Russian Visual Artists’ producer Nelly Kareva traveled there to attend the show.

Traditionally, some of the largest professional equipment vendors showcase their latest products and demonstrate recent developments at ISE private screenings; meanwhile engineers from China keep changing their camera batteries several times during the day. Each year, the exhibition introduces products that will soon be used not only by professional integrators, but by media artists around the world as well.

This year, for our review we picked few trends, which deserve particular attention. Every year the expo expands, occupying more space while the organizers experiment with new timetables. It is caused by the growing number of visitors despite the fact that this is quite a specialized industry market unlike car shows that target general public. Last year, in three days around 40,000 people attended the tradeshow. And it’s almost impossible for one person involved in the industry to check out all pavilions or at least look through the stands of all companies.

Most part of our review will be dedicated to display technologies, which is more popular among wide audience. Besides, a brand new display is something more spectacular than a brand new commuting box with connectors.

First of all, we were surprised to see such a huge number of transparent LCD-matrix based solutions. Considering the fact that the first pre-production prototype by Samsung was showcased only two years ago at CeBIT, this technology rapidly became very popular. Numerous solutions: from retail products to museum windows – were presented by big manufacturers (Samsung, LG), as well as by small companies which offered products based on different display technologies.

For the first time, the expo featured a stand from RealFiction, the pioneer in serial production of Dreamoc 3D Pyramid. Their product premiered in 2009 at the stand of their distributor in Europe. After its debut, similar devices appeared in Europe and Russia. It seems that the industry people got a bit bored with this technology couple of years ago but still general public is unfamiliar with it. That’s why this solution is still a popular choice for multimedia ad campaigns and widely used in museum installations. By the way, we used a similar device in our recent project for Gillette.

Besides RealFiction, HoloCube and Space3D also introduced other devices with such technology. Due to competition, manufacturers are forced to add new features to their products. Space3D presented a gesture-controlled pyramid. They use Asus Xtion, which is similar to Microsoft Kinect in specs, but cheaper and more compact.

These days, interactivity features are being added into almost all spheres and devices. Christie demonstrated a multitouch solution for their super-popular MicroTiles LED cubes. Their solution is based on simple IR frames, which are produced, by PQ Labs, Lumio, and lots of other companies.

They also presented a ready-made solution by adding interactivity to MicroTiles: a multitouch catalog that allows you to view models, a shopping cart feature etc.

Despite the fact that the IR frame technology is used by numerous interactive display producers (Ideum, uTouch, PQ Labs), it has some serious drawbacks. First, they are very sensitive to surrounding light. Second, display glass surface that is used for touch interaction in most cases not covered with gloss finishing that reduces touch resistance and lowers screen greasing. As a results, working on them is somewhat not easy and the surface can be quite dirty.

‘Projected Capacitive’ technology that was first applied to iPhone in 2007 is much more attractive and user friendly and is now found on most smartphone screens. Each year, 3M increases size of the produced display for the tradeshow. This year in Amsterdam they showcased a new 32” display, which is great but slightly disappointing as just a month prior to that an 84” prototype was demonstrated in Las Vegas. In any case, their displays seem to be the best in the industry. And it’s not just product specs stating a 40-touch support and 10 ms response time. It’s the feel. To put it simply, they are almost perfect and reminded us of Apple products.

Another company that introduced solutions similar in both technology and quality at ISE was a British company Zytronic.

We should also mention growth of the market of projectors with hybrid light sources. A couple of years ago, Casio projectors based on hybrid laser-LED light source were the only solution. This year BenQ started mass-production of non-bulb projectors. Their products are traditionally known for low prices and can be recommended as a good technical solution for media installations.

It’s always great to see some new and unique concepts. This time we were impressed by an LED screen from a major European supplier of display solutions (both for rent and retail) – Lang AG. They demonstrated an LED screen with 1.9 mm pixel pitch, which is the lowest number in the industry so far. It is really impressive. You can see that this super-bright display consists of numerous LEDs only from a half-meter distance.

A German company Tridelity introduced a great autostereoscopic screen. Such displays are based on the concept similar to that we remember from childhood: transforming images that were used with lenticular plastic. From a certain distance you can really see a clear 3d image on the big screen without glasses.

The purpose of this trip was to gather information about the latest products and technologies that we can use in our works, research and projects. We wanted to tell you in brief about the most interesting and memorable ones. Besides, we met many interesting people from new areas who may become involved in the Audiovisual Academy web educational activities in the future. Follow our news updates and sign up for newsletters – some interesting announcements and events are coming soon

It all started in 1852 when the city clergy installed the statue of St. Mary to protect the city from the plague. In celebration on the 8th December, all citizens lit their lampions, put them out the windows, and everyone walked around enchanted by lights. This tradition still lives after 160 years. A huge international 4-day festival named Festival of Lights (Fête des lumières) takes place in Lyon every year.

During this festival the city hosts video mapping performances and interactive installations at some of the most popular and not so popular places. Although ‘not so popular’ is not the right phrase here as the streets are filled with millions of tourists. The most memorable projects were placed on main city buildings. But the most amazing video mapping performance was set in the Old City on Saint Jean Cathedral which kept all spectators amazed for 11 minutes.

If you walk away from the square you could see paintings of such legendary artists as Picasso, Miró, and Mondrian projected on buildings on the waterfront.

We are already used to seeing large-scale shows on Terreaux Square. This year Skertzo team demonstrated really special and unforgettable project with dancers called Highlights.

Although most of the events were held in the downtown, but during this festival the main idea was to use all remarkable buildings and districts of the city. So, Crayon and Oxygen towers in Par-Dieu district were colored with lights. Crayon Tower is still keeping all its lighting even after the end of the festival.

Magic Cube was another interesting project presented by Gilbert Moity on Place Bellecour, the largest square in Europe. 30 bicycles were placed around the monument. Its peculiarity was that the spectators had to pedal those bicycles in order for the interactive installation to start working.

In conclusion, it’s necessary to mention that this year the festival featured at least 100 projects. Lyon is deservedly the birth city of cinematography since the Lumière brothers showed their movie here for the first time in history in 1895. In English their last name means ‘Light’. And for the 160th time Lyon has proven to be titled the French City of Light.

article by Camille Guitteau

In the second part of this article we will continue reviewing software solutions for real time audiovisual performances. The developers geography is amazing, spanning from Siberia to Japan and Brazil. Who said that VJing is a niche culture?
Let’s start from a very popular recently program – Isadora.

Isadora
Isadora is the award winning, interactive media presentation tool that allows you to follow your artistic impulse. Whether you are an artist, designer, performer, or VJ, you can quickly and easily harness the limitless potential of digital media and real-time interactivity with Isadora.
Designed by an artist for artists, Isadora’s welcoming environment invites even those new to the world of digital media to learn by playing and experimenting. Programming Isadora is easy. The user interface is carefully crafted to make both creative improvisation and fine-tuning a breeze. Over 250 basic building blocks can be linked in a nearly infinite number of ways, allowing you to create and manipulate stunning visuals, sonic environments, and media-intensive theatrical experiences. Whether you need to simply sequence and present video clips for your next play, or you want to create a rich, textured interactive performance that respond in real-time to a performer’s action, Isadora has you covered. Created by a composer and media-artist Mark Coniglio for his own live performances, Isadora was designed to meet an uncompromising standard of stability, consistency, and technical efficiency. Users have come to rely on Isadora’s unwavering performance on stage and its stability in long-term installations. A robust set of tools inspire the advanced designer to realize cutting-edge ideas. Notable features include the ability to composite numerous layers of video, a host of video effects possibilities, the ability to output to as many as six separate video projectors, and a powerful offering of input and output protocols. The latter (which includes OSC, MIDI, Serial, TCP/IP, and HID/game controller devices) are essential for works that require real-time sensory input or when you need to control an external device.
Pricing – $ 350 standard, $ 275 cademic/non-profit license
http://troikatronix.com/isadora

Now we are moving off the beaten track to the wilder audiovisual realms.

Visution Mapio
Formerly known as IR Mapio, Visution Mapio is a powerful FreeFrameGL plugin for creating projection shows. You can work not only with the standard screen, but also with any inclines, including cylindrical and spherical and various shapes. 1024 editable areas will allow you to separate videos to cover any space. You can use multiple projectors to organize panoramic and 3D scenes.
Mapio is multi-platform and can be used with Mac or PC. Believe it or not, it was conceived and developed ever since in Siberian city Novosibirsk, mostly by its creator and an active member of our crew in the past, Russian programmer Ivan Ryabov.
Pricing – € 149
visution.com/mapio

Flowmotion
Flowmotion is a VJ software for Mac and PC with trigger sequencer, inverse linking, A/B parameter morph, wet/dry controls, on/off button for quickly turning on or off an effect and reset button for turning off current effect and setting all parameters default to zero.
Pricing – € 135
www.robotfunk.com/flowmotion

Gephex
Gephex is a modular video jockey software. The base visuals can be chosen from sources like video files or cameras. Then they can be modified by filters and mixers. Each modifier has several parameters, that can be controlled by signal-generators, input devices like joysticks, sound cards, or MIDI-devices.
Gephex runs on GNU/Linux, Win32, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD. The effect engine is independent from the user interface, which can be de- and attached at runtime. All effects and media streams are extendible by plugins. Gephex is written in C++.
Pricing – free
www.gephex.org

glitchNES
glitchNES is an open source software project for the Nintendo Entertainment System with controls created with live performance in mind. This software causes graphical glitches similar to hardware circuit-bending.
Pricing – free
www.no-carrier.com/index.php?/glitchnes/

Livid Cell and Cell DNA
Cell is designed for easy playback and performance of real-time video, images, and sounds. An impressively intuitive interface makes it easy to playback images, video, and sounds in real-time. The big knobs and buttons make it ideal for touch-screen interaction and quick learning for people new to video presentation. With its image and playback controls, you can alter the playback, speed, direction, and loop videos, images, and audio files. Straightforward captions make it easy to add messages, lyrics, and people’s names to your video mix. A live camera feed can be mixed with any media, just like any other quicktime movie.
Pricing – $ 89
www.lividinstruments.com/software_cell.php

Cell DNA is a more advanced version with extended functionality. No jokes – this is a very solid software, highly recommended. Check out our video tutorials on the AV:in website.
Pricing – $ 149
www.lividinstruments.com/software_celldna.php

Mabuse
Mabuse is a rather obscure and overpriced VST plugin for Ableton Live which allows you to mashup video using MIDI within Ableton Live. Mabuse is for all electronic music and video makers, musicians, video artists, performers, VJ’s who want to make music, and DJ’s who want to make videos in real time.
It is a very simple yet fully functional A/V tool – you make music and video, all at once on the same machine in real time. Just load up your audio and video loops. Mabuse will do the rest, including tempo detection.
Pricing – $ 135
mabuse.co.uk (currently under construction)

Motion Dive Tokyo (MD5)
From its first appearance in Japan in 1998, the software has played an important role to spread the hybrid culture of motion graphics and music across Asia. In 2003, “motion dive. tokyo” was released worldwide and some updates has followed since.
This software mixes 2 visuals into 1 for live visual performance. You can add visual effects and texts as you need.
According to the description and info we could find on the net, it is an out-dated and overpriced software video mixer providing the basic control over the performance, appealing mainly to those of you who would like to perform on something original. It is as exotic as one can get, all the way down from the Far East.
Pricing – $ 349
www.digitalstage.net/en

Moldeo
Moldeo is an open source framework that allows the development of interactive environments with 2D, 3D animation and video elements as well as digital effects in real time. It’s rather obscure and has a mixed reviews. In our opinion, mainly of interest for code junkies and developers.
Pricing – free
www.moldeo.org

MXWendler
MXWendler FXServer and Stage Designer serves the video playout for theatres, facade projections, video mapping, architectural lighting, clubs, and LED Lighting. Up to 6 outputs from a single system allow amazing and impressing projection setups. Available for OSX and Windows. We have never seen it in action or know of anyone who would use it.
Pricing – from € 180
www.mxwendler.net

Quase-Cinema
Quase-Cinema is an open source VJ software for Mac and PC, developed by Brazilian Quase-Cinema Multimedia Experimentation Lab that works in a partnership with the National Library of Brasília and the Museu Nacional do Complexo Cultural da República, teaching at free workshops for the community. Kudos to guys over there, that’s an amazing pedigree.
Why Quase-Cinema is interesting easy to understand for everyone who knows Portuguese (check the web-link below). Unfortunately, not for us. Good news for English-speaking community though: it has English localization of the interface, so you can download this program and work out how to use it on your own.
Moreover, it looks like Quase-Cinema has a small, but dedicated fan community. We’d like to use one of it’s members opinions taken from a VJ forum as a final verdict: “…looks kind of like oldschool but fancy Resolume on acid”.
It sounds like a compliment, does it? As it’s free to download it doesn’t hurt to check it yourself.
Pricing – free
www.quasecinema.org

Salvation
Harrison Digital Media’s Salvation is a Mac and PC based video processing and visual programming tool. It allows you to mix and manipulate as many video layers and effect as your hardware will allow. It comes with a GLSL pixel programming interface that can be used to create a host of unique effects – along with the multiple layers and individual manipulation of each, this promises practically limitless creativity on the part of the VJ. However, strangely, the output capabilities of that VJ will be somewhat limited, because Salvation neither comes with DV output nor DMX. This is a severe limitation for a software priced at $500.
The multiple windowing approach to the user interface, in turn, makes the software little confusing and cumbersome to use. But simplicity lies in its visual programming environment. It has everything else what you would expect from a professional software in this price bracket: FreeFrame & MIDI support, full LFO and automated mixing options, and SMS-to-Screen+Live-Text-Creation, among others.
They also have 2 channel video mixer called Salvation MX (channels A and B; each can be manipulated) with the output being a composite. Salvation MX is available for an additional $49.99.
Note that its developers, Harrison Digital Media has teamed up with Immersive in 2008 to produce one of the most popular media servers on market – Addict media server based on Salvation engine, and later on – with Avolites Media to produce AI server.
Pricing – $ 500
www.harrisondigitalmedia.com

VIP 5.0
VIP here stands not for a Very Important as you may think, but for a Video Interactive Processor, and it has been designed for real-time based performances. It has been build on Max/Msp/Jitter environment; so you’ll need to download those from www.cycling74.com for Mac or Windows XP. (Vip 4.0 is a cross platform application.)
Worth to check it out if you are an Max/Msp/Jitter aficionado.
Pricing – free
www.artificialeyes.tv/vip

VJ Mode
VJ Mode is a software application intended for visualists and VJs for creating stunning visuals in clubs, venues, dance parties and festivals. The program has many tools and features implemented to control and automate easily and efficiently all the visual process that is needed for a complete performance. A powerful audio analysis engine creates control parameters that are instantly linked to the visual processing units of the software, allowing the user to specifically set a time-based control that is needed to create a show that is desired. Pre-installed VFX units allow the user to design impressive visual styles and also is given the opportunity to upgrade the current effects database by using the Freeframe protocol. Moreover, the user may find selections for setting different transition modes between files and events, automatic configuration and interpolation of the user settings and intuitive storage and selection of files and folders. Other basic features include a real-time audio visualizer that displays a number of different visual-styled waveforms, multi-screen support with up to four screens, total control of the output screens (size, position, keystone, etc), and communication with internal and external hardware and software devices with MIDI, OSC, and TouchOSC protocols.
Pricing – from € 139
www.soniconlab.com

As always, any comments, additions or remarks to this article will be very much appreciated. In the following publications we will review visual environments used by visual artists. Stay tuned!

Here at Audiovisual Academy we have been asked quite often about what software we use or can recommend. Well, it’s not such an easy question as it may seem, as every tool fits its purpose.
So we have decided to make an overview of all the software used by / known to us, keeping aside such program environments as vvvv, Max/MSP+Jitter, Quartz Composer, to which we have already introduced you in our educational video.
The list below is by no means final, and merely includes everything we are aware of.
So please do shoot your comments below both on the things we missed, should be aware of, or simply let us know which ones of mentioned here you have used and liked/disliked, and why, so it will help the others.
We hope it will be useful for you – so, enjoy, bookmark, discover!

Resolume 4 Arena/Avenue
Resolume products have been around for many years and lived up to the reputation of soft of choice for many audiovisual performers. Moreover, probably this is the most popular software in the world, designed for this specific purpose.
Currently it comes in 2 flavors – Resolume Avenue and Resolume Arena.
Avenue 4 is an instrument for VJs, AV performers and video artists. It puts all your media and effects right at your fingertips so you can quickly improvise your live visuals.
Price – € 299
Arena 4 is the media server edition of Resolume. It takes all of Avenue 4, and adds video mapping, soft edging, DMX control and SMPTE playback so you can take on the big stage.
Price – € 699

www.resolume.com

Modul8
Modul8 is a software designed from A to Z for performance and real time video. It has been adopted by thousands of users looking for a tool that is extremely responsive, flexible and easy-to-use. Used in domains as diverse as VJ-ing, contemporary art, live performances, theater and video production this software has proven its worthiness in hundreds of projects around the globe by an incredibly active user community.
Price – € 299
www.modul8.ch

MadMapper
The MadMapper provides a simple and easy tool for mapping projections. It removes a lot of the confusion related to this medium, effectively demystifying the process, allowing you, the artist or designer to focus on creating your content, and making the experience of mapping textures to physical objects in real time, fun.
This software is indispensable in situations when you do not have any video content or prepared graphics to projects, as it includes some interesting MadTools applications that enable you to create some geometrical shapes and animate them in real time.
Price – € 299
www.madmapper.com

Arkaos GRAND VJ
ArKaos is a grand-daddy of soft for VJs. They produce it for nearly 2 decades now, so if you are older than 30 and started to perform in the last century, good chances that you did it on one of their products.
The relatively recent addition to the ArKaos line – GrandVJ has a completely new architecture and was redesigned from scratch. Now your computer has a beast under its “bonnet” as it uses the power of your graphic card too. It allows you to work efficiently with HD files. To put it short – GrandVJ is a versatile real-time video mixer software allowing to compose up to 8 layers of video on the fly. Take any video from your hard drive, add effects to it and start making your own video show. It’s the perfect VJ solution!
Price – € 279 (€ 179 as aspecial offer for Academy students – only)
www.arkaos.net/vj-dj/grandvj/

ArKaos MediaMaster series
For those of you who needs a bigger bang and work with the light consoles, ArKaos offers MediaMaster Express and MediaMaster Pro software media server solutions.
These products will turn any powerful computer into a full fledged media server capable of running live or programmed HD video shows in sync with music and light.
Price – € 799 for Express (€ 349 as a special offer for Academy students – only) and € 1900 for Pro
www.arkaos.net/mediamaster

VDMX
VDMX is a software based, media processing environment that lets you achieve stunning effects in real time. It has an original module architecture that allows you to squeeze out most of your processing power. By linking together and controlling VDMX modules, you build your own virtual video studio, which is equally adept at event production, post production and motion design.
A favorite tool of those a/v geeks who prefer to keep it all under their control.
Price – $ 349
www.vidvox.net

Xnth
Built on gaming engine technology, Xnth™ software generates real time video graphics. Typically used by visual artists & VJ’s to create screen content for concerts and clubs, festivals and live event productions Xnth™ also enriches studio-based designers and hobby enthusiasts alike.
Price – € 199
www.xnth.eu

TouchViZ
TouchViZ is a professional, portable VJ system for iPad 2. The application lets you mix two channels of video while applying one effect filter each and an additional effect filter to the master output.
Price – $ 9.99
hexler.net/software/touchviz

Millumin
A very interesting development worth to keep an eye on. In particular, it features mapping and warping layers, multiscreen and soft-edge blending, OSC, ArcNet and MIDI support and cue points for the timeline.
AV-in was following it development nearly from the beginning. Check out our interview with its creator Philippe Charand, for more information.
Price – € 599
www.millumin.com

Fi-VJ
Fi-VJ is a very curious, not to say exotic, Japanese development. In it’s core, it’s a HTML-5 browser app with quite a few advanced features you would expect from a VJ-ing app.
If you live “in the clouds” or simply keep an eye on a/v performance technology development, don’t miss it out.
Price – free
www.akirafukuoka.com/fivj/demo

FLxER
FLxER is not only an audio video mixing free software based on Adobe Flash technology.
AV mixing, free software but the biggest community platform for video artists, VJs and visual performers which allows you to create your profile, show your performances and manage your footage
Price – free
www.flxer.net/software/flxer

TextMachine 3D
TextMachine 3D is a live and pre-production software for visual artists and VJs. You can playback and control video loops, flash movies and images, capture and manipulate video in real time from various devices, load 3D models and video-texture in real-time, input and render words and sentences in real time or load text from file using any font, build timers, countdowns, random alpha-numeric strings. Control and beat sync parameters with the 10 band audio spectrum analyzer or via MIDI/DMX. Native and FreeFrame Effects – with it you can control up to 8 FreeFrame effect parameters. It also has 3D projection mapping function, multi HD output, network rendering and remote control for a multi- computer setup.
Price – € 99
www.textmachine3d.com

3L
Live 3D VJ tool is the solution for visualists, who:
- Are bored with the loop-based performance paradigm,
- Are tired of pre-producing in one program and performing with another program,
- Require granular reactive control over every parameter of their performance via sound analysis, video analysis, time based sequencing and lfo’s, or via midicontrol,
- Are searching for software which generates true 3D models, graphics, objects and motion in realtime, without resorting to nodes, patchcords, or object based programming,
- Who want powerful configurability, customization and individualization offered by patch or sketch based visualization tools such as Processing, Jitter, pd, vvvv, or Quartz Composer, but packaged in a live-performance based GUI,
- Desire blazing fast multi-layer compositing tools combined with a powerful suite of core-image based image units FX and shaders,
- Are eager to harness every last cycle of pure open GL 3D power on their graphic card made possible by the combination of the intel platform with Apple’s OSX.
Pricing – € 200 for Pro version, € 150 for a student one
thrill.artificialeyes.tv

CoGe
CoGe is a semi-modular VJ application for Mac OS X, designed for real-time media mixing and compositing, built over the most powerful graphics technologies like Quartz Composer, OpenGL, Syphon and Core Image.
Recently it rapidly grows in popularity, so check it out.
Price – $ 99
www.cogevj.hu

In the middle of October Audiovisual Academy was invited to visit Run Run Shaw School of Creative Media (SCM), a centre for media studies of the City University of Hong Kong.

Audiovisual Academy team with Dr. Olli Tapio Leino (first on the right) at the City University of Hong Kong

The school is housed in a purpose-built building by a famous architect Daniel Libeskind, best known for his Jewish Museum in Berlin as well as master-planning the World Trade Center site, currently under construction in New York.

As the result, SCM has well-equipped laboratories, theaters, and classrooms for the school’s departments of computer engineering and media technology. Apart of computer labs and classrooms for production and research, lecture rooms, work and exhibition spaces, it also features state-of-the-art equipped 2 THX screening rooms, sound recording studio, virtual reality immersive research lab and even a multipurpose theater.

The School itself already has gained a reputation of the best in Asia to offer the highest level of education and training in the creative media fields, and as we could see, it lives up to the expectations. It aims to create “context for a trans-disciplinary confluence of learning and research and the envisioning of an art to come”.
It also does attract may prospective students – as a matter of fact, the school receives 3000 to 8 000 applications every year for around 120 places available, which enables it to scout for the best talents.

The program of studies that SCM offers is unique not only for the region, but also globally, as it provides comprehensive and up-to-date courses on Media / Film History and Aesthetic Theory, Screen / Script Writing, Photography & Visual Arts, Directing, Producing & Editing Animation & Visual Effects, Real Time Interactive Computer Graphics, Sound Design & Production in Multimedia, Virtual Reality and Immersive Visualization, Embodied and Performative Media, Networked and Distributed Experiences, Electronic Arts & Installations, On-line Game Design & Development, Film, Documentary & Digital Broadcasting and offers undergraduate, master and research degrees in such fields, as Bachelor of Arts in Creative Media (BACM), Bachelor of Science in Creative Media (BScCM), Bachelor of Arts and Science in New Media (BAS), Master of Arts in Media Cultures (MAMC), Master of Fine Arts in Creative Media (MFACM) and Master of Philosophy / Doctor of Philosophy.

Apart of that, SCM is also active in research and operates Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment (ALiVE) and Centre for Applied Computing and Interactive Media (ACIM).

The worlds’ first 360-degree stereoscopic visualization environment (Advanced Visualization and Interaction Environment – AVIE) at ALiVE

An excerpt from a TV report dedicated to ALiVE launch

The school’s success was envisioned by it’s dean, Jeffrey Shaw, a well-known artist, researcher and one of the media art pioneers, who also has contributed to the AV-in course, as he was invited by us and participated at Platforma festival in May this year.
It was a very interesting and fruitful meeting, on which the possibilities of closer collaboration between SCM and Audiovisual Academy were discussed.

As the outcome, we are planning exchange programs with SCM and a few weeks summer intensive course in Moscow with the lectors invited by Audiovisual Academy and tutors of the School of Creative Media.Please keep an eye on announcement if you would like to participate, as not only Russian students, but foreigners too will be welcome to apply.

Hong Kong: award-winning video by one of the SCM students, Lam Ho-tak

Finally, we would like to thank personally Prof. Jeffrey Shaw, Prof. Sarah Kenderdine, Prof. Christian Wagner, Dr. Olli Tapio Leino, Dr. Damien Charrieras, Dr. David Jhave Johnston and Dr. Daniel Howe for their time, hospitality and a fantastic tour around amazing Hong Kong.