Participants had 8 hours to produce a 15 second video. The topic was “Invention”, and part of the brief was an emphasis on narration. The entries had all a strong aesthetics, some of them stronger on the narrative side, others on the aesthetics. The winner was Henrik Axlund.
Currently, more than 300 audiovisual links can be found in my Delicious.
By combining related tags, specific types of audiovisual projects can be found, such as net art:
Brian Eno’s concept of Generative (Visual) Music has “bloomed” into an app that fully materializes his vision. For example, his album “Neroli” re-emerges as a generative audiovisual piece.
I have been collecting videos on the topic of visual music and audiovisual art in YouTube and Vimeo. These can be checked in the following links and embedded players:
The prize was awarded 1/July, and the winners were:
1st place:
“Leanback TV Navigation Using Hand Gestures”
2nd place:
“Video-Based Recombination For New Media Stories”
and 3rd place:
“Astro First”
Between 11/3 and 19/3/2011, I attended the SXSW Interactive (11-15/3) and SXSW Music (16-20/3) festivals in Austin, USA.
SXSW Interactive
The scale of SXSW is impressive, in terms of number of talks/panels, trade show, parties, attendants. The atmosphere is truly exciting and inspiring, as SXSW becomes during that period “the world capital of the Web” (Bruce Sterling). The energy and effort put into promoting new (or existing) digital services is enormous. Not surprisingly, mobile apps seemed to be the most active area. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a review of DVDs related to visual music acquired and viewed between 2000 and 2010.
1. DVD viewings 2000-2005
Everything Everything (2000), directed by Tomato, music by Underworld [DVD] UK: Junior Boys Own
British multimedia pioneers Tomato direct this DVD (also DVD-ROM). It is mainly composed of Underworld live performances, with live visuals by Tomato. It also contains numerous extras, such as the complete Tomato visuals for the shows. I had previously seen Underworld live (without visuals) at Rocks Club, Gaia, Portugal in 1996.
Man with a Movie Camera, 2003 edition (1929), directed by Dziga Vertov, music by Cinematic Orchestra [DVD] UK: Ninja Tune
Cinematic Orchestra were commissioned by Porto – European Capital of Culture 2001 to recreate the score to Dziga’s Vertov 1929 classic, Man with a Movie Camera. The movie uses a number of innovative and experimental techniques, and aimed to create a new language of cinema “on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature”. In many ways, it is a predecessor of today’s fast-paced language of commercials, music videos and VJing. Although I didn’t see the live Man With a Movie Camera performance in Porto, I saw the band play most of the material shortly after in Lisbon (Lux club).
The Dead Texan (2004), directed by The Dead Texan [DVD] USA: Kranky
The Dead Texan’s eponymous debut from 2004 is a CD/DVD with music and visuals by Adam Wiltzie and Christina Vantzis. The visuals are based on illustration and collage, apparently treated in Flash, creating a very unique atmosphere in articulation with the ambient music. I first saw The Dead Texan’s live audio-visual show at ZDB gallery, Lisbon, in 2005.
Motion Blur (2005), edited by onedotzero [DVD] UK: Laurence King
A compilation of music videos and experimental sound-related motion graphics by UK collective onedotzero. The DVD is packaged together with a 240 page book, both focusing in over 20 artists. In 2005, I had the chance to see a onedotzero showcase at Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki.
I’ve been trying out Mendeley and Zotero for managing references for my thesis.
After initially using Mendeley (nice stand-alone app with good UI; good meta-data retrieval from PDFs), I found that it had 3 major shortcomings compared to Zotero:
- worse integration with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, which I use;
- inability to add page numbers to citations there;
- Mendeley doesn’t add a “accessed on” field to bibliographical items retrieved from the web (Zotero adds it automatically on retrieval, and includes them in bibliography).
Please note that these shortcomings might result from my lack of knowledge of the tool. But ease of use, and of discovering functionalities, counts…
Anyway, Mendeley has a very nice “sync with Zotero” functionality, so I’ll keep using both. Both are also syncing with my online profiles in the respective websites.
I’m also using LibraryThing for my “physical” books (which are anyway catalogued in my Mendeley and Zotero databases).
The Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition takes place at Victoria & Albert Museum, London, until 11/4/2010.
It “showcases the latest developments in digital and interactive design, from small, screen-based, graphics to large-scale interactive installations”, and includes works by “established international artists and designers such as Daniel Brown, Golan Levin, Daniel Rozin, Troika and Karsten Schmidt”.
