Tag Archives: visuals

Improviz gifs

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Earlier this year fellow visualist and live coder Rumblesan commissioned me to make some gifs for his new live coding software, Improviz. In July he unleashed it into the world!

Looking at the above videos you could easily be forgiven for thinking that it looks a bit like LiveCodeLab. He is, after all, one of the developers of LiveCodeLab. However, Improviz differs in a few ways. As Rumblesan himself explains in the Toplap chat:

the language in Improviz has a lot in common with live code lab, and the basic functionality for shapes, styles, transformations and loops is all pretty much the same. but in terms of implementation and usage they’re very different

lcl is using three.js as an intermediary, whilst improviz is entirely haskell and uses opengl directly (which I think long term is going to cause me grief but we’ll see haha)

the major difference is that improviz lets you use images and gifs as textures, which is something I’d like to back port to lcl, but wouldn’t be a small task unfortunately

That’s right, you can load textures! As mentioned before Rumblesan commissioned me to make a set of gifs to go along with the initial public release. They’re all released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence so you’re free to use them as you wish as long as you attribute me.

As an added bonus I’m also releasing the .blend file that was used to make each one.

Click here to download the Blender files.

These were made using a beta version of Blender 2.80. I’ve tested them in the stable release and they appear to work fine but they definitely will not work in 2.79 or earlier versions. I’m providing these for you to explore and won’t be doing a writeup/tutorial on how they work. If you remix them please share what you make 🙂

Definitely give Improviz a try! Thanks to Rumblesan for commissioning me to make the gifs 🙂

Livecode Festival #2 – Visualists Meetup – 1st September 2018

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On Saturday 1st September I’m organising a meetup for visualists as part of Livecode Festival #2 at Access Space in Sheffield:

A session for live coding visualists (at any level) lead by Antonio Roberts (aka hellocatfood), to talk about their tools and how they perform, with focus on Algorave visuals.

A core part of the session will be discussion around key questions for live code visualists; how do you pace yourself in a performance? Should we aim to build up slowly or go straight in with loud visuals? How much can you truly respond to the music? Is it important to show the code, and how does it fit with the musician’s projection?

The session will run from 11:00 – 16:00 and will include workshops in Pure Data/GEM (led by me), Hydra (led by Will Humphries) and Livecodelab (led by Guy John).

Get your tickets here! And whilst you’re in the area get a ticket for the Algorave on the same night at 20:00 😉

The New Projectionists: VJing, AV Performance and Post-cinematic Projection

A day of panel talks and performances about VJing, live cinema and audio-visual performance. This symposium will bring together academics, artists and VJs to discuss the role of projection in their work, and the current state of AV performance in the UK. A number of thematically focussed panel talks will take place in Centrala, Birmingham on Saturday 24th February, followed by an evening of AV performances from 7pm – 10pm, and ending with a VJ Jam until late. Running in parallel at Vivid Projects there will be a number of projection-based installations. This event is a collaboration between The Projection Project, an AHRC funded research project based at the University of Warwick, and Lighttouch Festival.

Confirmed speakers/artists include: Toby Harris (*spark), Rebecca Smith (Urbanprojections), Miri Kat, Antonio Roberts, Raquel Meyers, Rod Maclachlan, Guy Edmonds, Blanca Regina, Flatpack Film Festival, Sean Clarke (Test Card Manchester), Richard Wallace.

Come along to Vivid Projects on the evening of Fri Feb 23 for a warm-up party with loud music and VJs.

Algomech Algorave

At AlgoMech 2017 we aim to take Algorave to the next level, bringing together some of the best algorithmic (and mechanical) dance music producers and VJs, playing over Sheffield’s fiendish DangerNoise soundsystem, with immersive projections covering the walls of Millennium Gallery. As with the rest of the festival we’ll be mixing mechanisms with the algorithms, showcasing repetitive dance music made from handmade robots as well as live code.

Algorave – Bluedot Festival

Bluedot with OVO Energy is an award-winning festival of discovery at the grounds of a deep space observatory. Set against a backdrop of the iconic Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, bluedot combines a truly stellar line-up of music with a ground-breaking programme of live science experiments, expert talks and immersive artworks.

An Algorave is a party where electronic music is generated live from algorithms. The word was coined around 2012, initially as a kind of joke, but has since taken hold with Algoraves taking place in over 40 cities around the world.

At an Algorave, the creation of algorithms are brought into the experience of the music itself. This process is opened up by projecting the code on screens in the venue, so audience members can see how the music they hear is being made. This is often complimented by algorithmically generated visuals projected alongside the code.

Algorave Montreal

Algorave est de retour à Montréal.
Soyez les bienvenus pour danser tout en écoutant des sons et des visages qui palpitent.

Vieux Néant
RGGTRN
Shelly Knotts
Marc Matatya
Yaxu
BunBun
Hellocatfood
yecto
co￥ﾡpt

Steve Davis (DJ Set)

Supersonic Festival in association with the Hare & Hounds 10th Anniversary Series Present
Steve Davis (DJ Set)

with support from
Graham Dunning – Mechanical Techno Set

Plus
Visuals from Hellocatfood

Tickets from https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Birmingham/Hare-And-Hounds/Super-Sonic-Festival-Presents-Steve-Davis-(DJ-Set)/12910549/

Steve Davis – the legendary sporting phenomenon from the 80s who took snooker to new heights and as presenter of The Interesting Alternative Show on Pheonix FM brought prog and jazz oddities to his cult audience, now turns his hands to the decks. As a hobby which he claims has spun out of control, his notorious 2016 Glastonbury set at the 500 capacity Stonebridge bar was mobbed by a curious turned shocked and enthralled crowd. With a packed out DJ diary since, Steve has continued to woo party goers from Bluedot to Bloc Festival. Drawing from an eclectic array of influences: Magma, Caravan, Oscar Perry, Soft Machine and Gong to name but a few – Steve spins together a unique set in his quest to deliver the music he loves to lovers of the party.

Thinking Out Loud

‘Thinking Out Loud’ is the fifth Data as Culture art exhibition at the Open Data Institute. The exhibition is built around the practice of the 2016 ODI Sound Artist in Residence, Alex McLean, with a group of artists, designers, makers and musicians that he has collaborated with. Openness and processes of making – where any end results are left partly undone – are at the heart of many of the projects on display. The exhibition draws connections between the ways in which humans have captured, encoded and distributed data, and made it meaningful through pattern throughout history. From pre-Columbian Quipu and the ancient art of weaving to computer software environments, it introduces us to creative notions of code, and the ways in which it can carry both language and thought.

The exhibition features artists and makers who are driven by radical intentions to expose the inner workings of the systemic structures we live with. We are encouraged to engage with these ourselves through art, software, folk songs, glitch aesthetics, chance encounters and knitted jumpers.

Artists: Felicity Ford, David Griffiths and Julian Rohrhuber, Ellen Harlizius-Klück, Dan Hett, David Littler, Alex McLean, Antonio Roberts, Sam Meech, Amy Twigger-Holroyd

Curated by Alex McLean and Hannah Redler

Black Hole Club Social/Digbeth First Friday

https://www.facebook.com/events/289513661213995/

Time to try something new…

Join Vivid Projects on Friday 02 May, 6 – 9pm for a special Black Hole Club Social as part of Digbeth First Friday.

The Black Hole Club is a lively, daring space for all kinds of creative people to share ideas. Join us for a social evening of visuals and sonics from club members. Expect beer, music and conversation, which journeys from David Lynch to Oculus Rift!

Digbeth comes alive on the first Friday of each month with exhibitions, late-night openings, special events, culture in unexpected places, live music, street food and more.

With different things to see and do each month, anything could happen on a first Friday night out. Grab a Disloyalty Card from participating venues and collect stamps to trade for treats as you sample the great independent culture Digbeth has to offer.

Digbeth First Friday launches Friday 02 May, 6pm – late, Digbeth First Friday and continues 06 June, 04 July, 01 August, 05 September and 03 October 2014.

www.digbethfirstfriday.com

Thoughts on live coding visuals in Pure Data

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I took part in Algorave in Gateshead on 26th April. Apart from being incredibly awesome it was my first time live coding – or rather live patching – visuals in Pure Data from scratch. I emphasise from scratch because nearly all of my performances involve me modifying patches, but never starting with a completely blank canvas. I also occasionally used the HSS3jb as a texture for objects, but never on its own. It’s also great for when crashes occur, which is/was often ;-). Here’s a few sampels of my visuals. Videos by Mariam Rezaei:

I learnt a few things about Pure Data that night, and my general opinion is that it isn’t that great as a live coding visuals tool.

One of first issues is encapsulation of objects. This can be done quite easily but it’s a manual process which would involve cutting all cords and reconstructuring a patch. That is, you would have to cut the selection of objects, paste them into a sub patch and then reattatch it. By way of comparison, Max/MSP has this as a feature already, whereas this isn’t mentioned at all on the bug tracker Feature request is now on the bug tracker. Not being able to auto encapsulate objects makes reuse a bit more difficult and cumbersome, which resulted in some really messy patches from me on the night.

Algorave patches

This also relates to another issue of object insertion. When I was building my patches I would often have to preempt what I would need. I nearly always started with [gemhead]-[translateXYZ]-[rotateXYZ]-[repeat 10]-[rotateXYZ]-[translateXYZ]-[color]-[cube]. Inserting any additional objects required me to cut the cord and therefore the screen output. This would be solved if there were, for example, a method whereby if two objects were selected, the next object was inserted in between them. This is obviously an over-simplified specific use case which would need more thought behind it. Again, no mention of it on the bug tracker. Feature request is now on the bug tracker.

There were other thoughts I had on the night, such as the incosistencies and clumsiness of using the [repeat] object, the lack of a snap-to-grid option for aligning objects, the tiny size of inlets and outlets – even when the ojbects themselves may be huge, which is only exaggerated when using a 13″ 1080p screen, and the lack of a toolbar (yes, I am aware of GUI plugins), but these are the two which I felt would’ve helped me most.

Has much else been written about the use of Pure Data for live coding visuals?