.mov movie file ::: .flv video file ::: video page on blip.tv

Ian's video was called time travel. this initially brought to mind the Orbital song with the Star Trek TNG "Time Squared" episode sample for the Mobius & time becoming a loop. the past few weeks have felt like this for me - I've gone back to 2000, 2001, and hopefully 2003 this week if all goes well.

then I also thought about "Moving Time" as I might be moving house soon

but the theme I went with for the final video (though I sneaked the Mobius quote in the title text..) was the H.P. Lovecraft book "Shadow out of time". we read this for an online class I'm taking, and I really enjoyed it

I thought about Plato's ideas of "remembering knowledge" across the aeons (time travel of the mind?)

one of the other class memebers mentioned the mental projections and mind swaps & the data-body and likened the spaces between dream/reality in the book, to the virtual spaces common these days & how we often have a data-body these days as well as a flesh-body

so I then thought about outsourcing memory using photos, videos, blogs etc and how by uploading these we become a virtual self on the internet. and how sometimes these things can become cluttered and cross-over each other and even annoying after a while (as I think watching this loop for 1:30 is.. but this is on purpose :), and they're not an exact copy of ourselves. and how sometimes these things can overshadow our real selves, or at least other's impressions of our selves. and how, when watching something on loop you sometimes focus on the foreground moving text, and other times 'me' - this seems to match my real world experiences too - shifting between online me & real-world me focuses

I represented the data-body using text words as this is the medium of the book. using Isadora I made a controller that would move the words around the screen - often blotting out the video of me playing in the background. but it's not really me - it's another virtual image -> mirror image of me, rather than the me I imagine in my mind, distorted by the join in the two glass mirrors and my face is covered most of the time by the camera - the recording of the data-body.

the video is playing on loop with my washing machine as the soundtrack.

using footage of 'me' in the video was inspired by Cheryl's videos, as this is unusal for my videos, so I looked forwards & backwards for inspiration - as in the book, Peaslee & the Yithians look forward & backwards in time for knowledge

vlomo09 day15

vlomo09 30/30 project

15/11/2009

over to you Cheryl! good luck

this video is day 15's video for Rupert Howe's 30 days - 30 people - 30 videos vlomo09 project - watch other people's videos at http://videobloggers.mirocommunity.org/category/30-days-30-people-30-videos
& #vlomo09 / #navlopomo09 videos at http://videobloggers.mirocommunity.org/category/vlopomo09

:::

a few david sylvian songs were the soundtrack for day11's #vlomo09 video. they make the train ride home from work a bit more interesting... these are video paintings - I made the isadora patch file - see attached. it's based on one I made for vlomo08 day 1's video : train ride home. most of my videos seem to end up with a similar theme - drive/ride to work, travel, hotels, some isadora files, some music/arts gigs or festival videos. such is my life I suppose. david sylvian's "secrets of the beehive" album is one of my favourites - it's perfect for when I'm feeling down (as is depeche mode) as I always feel better afterwards. I think it's the male vocal. and piano in sylvian's case.

promise (part 1)
David Sylvian's Promise (the cult of Eurydise) with isadorian footage of the western line express - part 1

11/11/2009

north sydney - parramatta

vlomo09 - day11

view other people's videos @ http://videobloggers.mirocommunity.org

.mov movie file ::: .flv video file ::: movie page on blip.tv

:::

september (part 2)

David Sylvian's September with isadorian footage of the western line express - part 2

11/11/2009

north sydney - parramatta

vlomo09 - day11

view other people's videos @ http://videobloggers.mirocommunity.org

.mov video file ::: .flv video file ::: video page on blip.tv

:::

let the happiness in (part 3)

David Sylvian's Let the Happiness In with isadorian footage of the western line express - part 3

11/11/2009

north sydney - parramatta

vlomo09 - day11

view other people's videos @ http://videobloggers.mirocommunity.org

.mov video file ::: .flv video file ::: video page on blip.tv

:::

isadora file attached

running late tonight so I modified a processing patch used for a different project - playing with tints and darker images. maybe it's the influence of the HP Lovecraft class I'm doing a the moment.. ;)

05/11/2009

blog post @ http://www.aliak.com/content/barely-there

this is day 5 of VloMo09 - 2009 Videoblogging Month - watch other people's videos at http://videobloggers.mirocommunity.org

.mov video file ::: .flv video file ::: video page at blip.tv

the path
vlomo09 day4
04/11/2009

this is day 4 of VloMo09 - 2009 Videoblogging Month - watch other people's videos at http://videobloggers.mirocommunity.org

.mov file ::: .flv file ::: video page at blip.tv

Rupert Howe, the amazing & enthusiastic videoblogger is running a video project. he's invited artists & people to create a video based on two videos made by other participants. for my video I wanted to practice using Processing so I wrote a (very basic) program which allowed me to "paint" with one video on top of the other, whilst drawing thin lines on the screen & between the videos as a way to link them together. my inspiration videos were made by Ryanne Hodson and Kevin Buckstiegel.

attached is the final version of the processing patch file I made, and also the initial version (& also here)

the inspiration / thoughts I had whilst watching the source videos :

atoms of life remuxed together
codes building blocks
diving into the infinite universe of code & atoms
video painting
interactive - controlled by mouse movements & 2 videos affecting each other (when creating the video, not playing)
lines draw points between the two - connecting them too

initially I used the audio from Kevin's source video but I wasn't sure if he'd made it so wasn't sure how to reference it properly (it was part music & part muffled conversations from what I could tell), then I read some emails about Stan Brakhage on frameworks and remembered the readings / viewings I'd done of his work when I was looking into Len Lye's work, so remembered he used to create videos with no sound as "visual thinking". so I've left the final version having no sound track (not quite a lumiere though) as a homage to his amazing work.

:::

I had some problems uploading the videos to youtube - the drawn lines turned from thin straight lines into aliased dotted lines. the video looked OK if played from my own webserver, but really bad from youtube.

Rupert sent me some conversion tips :
1. save as .divx & upload
2. use the settings below for mp4

Don't upload at 640x480 - upload at 480 x 360
Use the following settings:
H264 encoding
.mp4 not .mov
480x360
Bitrate: 12000 (really!)
Framerate: 29.97
Audio Codec mpeg4aac auto bitrate
Stereo 48000 sample rate

this is the .mp4 sample video using Rupert's mp4 settings : this video looked OK

:::

I also tried re-making the video using linewidth=2 (instead of default which is 1) & exporting as divx in QT pro. this looked OK. I ended up using this video for my project submission (well, this video with 10 seconds of black added to the end & no sound, so technically the final one is based on this version..) the final versio came out at 42 seconds duration - which is not 23 but 42 is a good number for life ;)

drawing divx test
line width=2 divx version

I took a video from the train on the Wednesday Sydney awoke to the red dust storm and then another on the next day. the videos were taken with my nokia n95 camera, so it lost most of the redness, but you can see that the sky was dustier than the clear Thursday. they're not completely in sync, because I wanted dune day to be slightly ahead of clear day, so you can watch it from left to right and see the scene & colours change as your eye reaches the second panel. I'm not sure if this effect worked as well as I planned though - perhaps I should have lined them up so they were in sync after all.

made with Isadora - the 20090929_dune-day_clear-day.izz patch is attached

I always have problems saving the Isadora video files as they always lose video quality and end up with lots of compression artifacts. I tried exporting at 5% rate, but it somehow increased the framerate and sped up the video! so this was saved at 95%.

other videos taken on the day - with my sony camera so the colours show up properly :

bookmarking Expanded Cinema - by Gene Youngblood - I have a printed copy of this book, but this online version will be useful for quick & remote access. there's an introduction by R. Buckminster Fuller too!

ExpandedCinema-GeneYoungblood

Call for Expressions of Interest _
http://www.intercreate.org/view/eco-sapiens

/
\\\\\\\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ SCANZ 2011: Eco sapiens

Extinction or adaptation? Evolution or Revolution? What are we facing?

The complexity and urgency of the crises of today calls for us to
engage together in new ways. Deep shifts in our consciousness may be
required for long-term cultural changes to occur. This is a call for
expressions of interest from people who are concerned with these issues.

A symposium followed by a residency is to be held late January to
early February 2011 in New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand. Initial
expressions of interest are due 21 November, 2009.

\
//////////////// / Symposium

The SCANZ 2011: Eco sapiens symposium will be an event involving
individuals from a number of different worlds (e.g scientists,
artists, social activists and community change agents, cultural
commentators, educators, tangata whenua). Our primary aim is to
facilitate connections and foster innovative, and practical solutions
to the issues we are facing. Accordingly, a mixture of presentations,
discussions, informal exchanges and workshops are planned. Roger
Malina will be presenting from France on 'Open observatories', and Te
Huirangi Waikerepuru will speak on Maori conceptions of environment.
The symposium will inspire and inform the residency that follows, and
also provide opportunities for people to collaborate on projects
beyond SCANZ.

\
//////////////// / Residency

The SCANZ 2011: Eco sapiens two week residency is designed for those
individuals or groups who would like to work on creative, poetically
pragmatic or provocative projects which raise awareness of the issues
that confront us, generate connections between people, and with their
natural environment, and which grapple with the challenges of
individual and collective evolution.

Interdisciplinary approaches and the involvement of diverse groups is
welcomed. Residency projects can take place in a wirelessly networked
botanic garden, along the coastline and with communities. Networked,
DIY, or otherwise actively and openly distributed concepts are also
encouraged. Project participants are not necessarily required to be in
New Plymouth. Residency projects that are shortlisted will be included
in funding applications.

read more for details or visit http://www.intercreate.org/view/eco-sapiens

This Is Not Art festival 2009
This is Not Art is the parent arts, music festival of experimental and underground arts & music held annually in Newcastle, North of Sydney, Australia. The 2009 festival was held between October 1-5. The festival comprises of various festivals, listed below.

Electrofringe
Sound Summit
Critical Animals
National Young Writers' Festival
Crack Theatre Festival

video playlist : (all videos taken at the festivals - individual videos also in separate articles below)

video snippets from the Opening Party at This is Not Art 2009
http://www.thisisnotart.org

http://live-i-workshop.blogspot.com

http://www.troikatronix.com/izzy-tutorials.html

http://forum.troikatronix.com

this week was a blur - mostly due to a busy week at work

made in isadora
14/08/2009

Click To Play

http://blip.tv/file/2474942

I thought it'd be cool to get a personal projector and project videos onto the ceiling of the train for people to watch during the ride to & from work. have a website where people could suggest videos, or perhaps they tweet them or sms. they could rate them too on the site. I was thinking art or landscapes - trainscapes. but I suppose eventually it'd be overtaken by advertisers or spammers. would be nice for a while though! just look at all this ceiling space doing nothing - apart from the bright lighting in the train, this would be ok for an adhoc screen. 29/04/2009

http://blip.tv/file/2050621

yesterday, @DustForEyes posted an "AR scratching" video by vanderlin to stealth board & twitter. it's tagged with tags such as AR, augmented reality, opencv, and openframeworks, so I googled some of these. the AR markers seem like the fiducial markers found in reactable - note there's going to be a performance / demo of one of these called dubtable at ripped next week which would be cool to check out.

Wide Open Space is a new all ages festival for Central Australia, showcasing inspiring local and national music and arts.

Held against the stunning backdrop of the East Macdonnell Ranges at the Ross River Resort 85 km from Mparntwe Alice Springs, Wide Open Space blends music, dance, art, environment, and desert culture with a unique outback camping experience.

The festival runs from May 1-3 2009 and features:

* Indigenous Opening ceremony and Welcome to Country
* Two Stages with a full line-up of live music, DJs, and performances with hip-hop headliners Urth Boy; dancehall maestro Mista Savona; Desert reggae blockbusters Tjupi Band, and festival beat master Spoonbill
* Colourful market place selling tasty treats, hand crafts and clothing from local and interstate designers

hotel textures from kath on Vimeo

heritage hotel auckland - textures - these are short clips of different textures in the hotel - rooms & floors, furniture & wall dividers

07/04/2009 tuesday
auckland

#videobloggingweek
#videobloggingweek2009

http://vimeo.com/4060723
http://blip.tv/file/1971044

blog entry @ http://www.aliak.com/content/videobloggingweek2009-day2-hotel-textures

Electrofringe is now calling for proposals for the 2009 festival. We are looking for creative expressions from artists, sound artists, performers, media makers, digital filmmakers, researchers, cross-artform practitioners, curators, producers, writers, experimenters, enthusiasts and anyone who doesn't fit these boxes.

Electrofringe is a five-day festival of electronic arts and culture held from the 1st - 5th October 2009 in Newcastle, Australia. Electrofringe is part of a group of festivals collected together under the This Is Not Art umbrella. Electrofringe is committed to fostering creative and innovative use and re-use of technology and electronic artforms, while focusing on artistic development and skills exchange.

could a maths story work?

at scanz there was a paper called "Complexity and Cybernetics Redux" by Nina Czegledy and it mentioned Magic Squares. these cover topics such as mysticism, philosophy, mathematics. could the game/puzzle be to solve the magic square. the game leaders send out clues which reflect the numbers& people go out and find the item that has been uploaded to represent each square. eg, so people could film clues like numbers from different places, a quantity of subjects (eg if the number was 10, then film collections of 10 things in a single clip), or even make a video about a saying/piece of writing that might represent the numbers. whatever people can think of

I'm heading to New Plymouth this evening for SCANZ 2009 - Symposium being held over the weekend. so I've been reading about some of the participating artists and their projects. the intro for Brett Stalbaum gave me a few ideas for a * very simple * gps video project. below is the paragraph that triggered my thoughts - especially the phrase "letting voluminous GIS data and some algorithms we wrote tell us where to go"

steps
- in your local area, or a place where you can go to easily more than once (eg probably best to do in your own country not whilst overseas unless it's somewhere you can visit again)
- walk around the space once and collect the gps data
- then use (write first) a program - perhaps web based so you could use your mobile phone??? - that randomizes the data co-ordinates and selects a position for you to go to

playing with isadora

http://www.vimeo.com/3076782

zoom'n'fx from kath on Vimeo

Narghile is an AV performance project of Brisbane's video & sound artist Lloyd Barrett. Lloyd has also worked using the name Secret Killer of Names / SKON. I googled N4rgh1l3 and found some video works. absolutely amazing! he mentioned he uses Isadora. it's amazing what he gets the program to do - if only I could get it to do half as much I'd be happy!!

this is a video piece submitted for the surface mapping projection at the Queensland Library at the Opening of the "Game On" exhibition (early arcade games & consoles). I went to this exhibition during Christmas holidays - it was great. unfortunately I didn't attend the Opening night as I was interstate. plenty of fathers showing their sons the games they played when younger. visitors were allowed to play the games, and they could read a bit about the history & background of the games. the Japanese 'dating' games was a new one to me!

http://www.vimeo.com/2393663

N4rgh1l3: Game On surface mapping projection from Andrew Thomson on Vimeo

Narghile v0.01 part 1 : Part one of two. First performance of Narghile's new audio visual processing processy thing. Videos made from still images and DV footage taken by the artists and processed live by Isadora and extra audio processing by Audio mulch and a Chaos Pad.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4cy9Byqofhs

(read more to see videos)

3 minutes of 4 years

stylized view of some of the sights from the past 4 years

http://www.vimeo.com/3064740

3 minutes of 4 years from kath on Vimeo

driving home from Brisbane to Sydney after Christmas break. the sunset was amazing. it dwarfed & blurred the road and trees on the side of the road.

dec 2008

http://www.vimeo.com/3037834

driving sky from kath on Vimeo

isadora particles test - green

testing 3D particles in isadora

it's one of the particles examples from the troika tronix forums

my mouse movement is controlling the position of the live particle. I've changed the colour, size, rotation and lifespan

30/01/2009

http://www.vimeo.com/3027467

isadora particles test - green from kath on Vimeo

I've been reading about Rothko's paintings this weekend and wanted to make a video painting similar to his works. it didn't quite work out as I expected (or like a Rothko painting). but I took videos around Auckland yesterday of different colours with the plan of using them as overlayed panels of colours. instead I ended up using a slit screen and shifting the entry points + having horizontal & vertical panels + changing between the different clips.

I don't think it turned out like the later Rothko paintings though. his paintings has large blocks of colour yet they weren't really about the colour. they were about the emotions - and the paintings showed emotions through the colours & induced emotions in the viewer. there were also glimpses of spirituality in the paintings - some had an inner light which shone through the works. also the size & scale of the paintings - often wall sized - caused the viewer to be enveloped in the emotions. the video I've made doesn't have the same emotions. it's more about the colours - the colours of Auckland city. the edges in the video work are too crisp and sharp. and there's no inner light. the motion relates more to Len Lye's use of motion in images & experimental films and sculptures. I've been reading about his work and his papers prior to making the video - in the book "Figures of Motion - Len Lye - Selected Writings". so I will have to try again - & maybe filter out or soften all the edges, or only keep the lines , like brush strokes, then build them up to panels of colour. many options to think about!

made in isadora - patch attached

26/01/2009

http://www.vimeo.com/2965451

slit screen video painting from kath on Vimeo