Interview with Strangeloop / David Wexler
Hi everyone!
Over at Resolume HQ we like our music to be weird, experimental and full of big bass. The music that's coming out on the Brainfeeder label fits this bill exactly, and many a time has a head been bopped to Brainfeeder beats. So when we heard it through the grapevine that Strangeloop had signed to that label as a visual artist, our interest was piqued, to say the least.
David Wexler, aka Strangeloop is a visual artist and musician that works with a variety of media, ranging from stop motion to full on CG to generative work. Visit his Vimeo page, and prepare to be blown away, if only by the sheer variety of his skills. Combined with his beautiful electronic melodies, you're all set for your trip to the other side of the looking glass.
So when we then found out he was using Resolume for his shows, the deal was done: we had to know more about this guy! So at the end of last year, we conducted an interview via mail, and the wonderful results you can read below. Step in to the mind of a strange loop!
-So, what's your strangest loop?
I always thought the name Strangeloop was a fitting title for my work, because I have, for as long as I can remember, been completely obsessed with fractals and 'strange loops' in chaotic systems. A "strange loop" is actually a technical term for a tangled hierchary, where you can move from one level of a hierachy to another and find yourself back where you started (kind of like the Escher drawing you see below). Its a really interesting paradox you find in all sorts of natural phenomena, including the most fundamental natural phenomena I can think of, perception.
In other words, its all a "strange loop."
Though on the video front, I made a piece awhile ago called Holographic Landscapes : Synesthetic Studies of Natural Sequence in Relation to God and Reality which is essentially an experiment in strange loops. I took a lot of video of a creek where I used to play when I was a kid, and then seamlessly looped the footage back on itself that gave the appearance of these un-ending zooms and camera moves. Like you were forever zooming into a leaf passing by in the current... kind of like a video version of the droste-effect.
-How did you get started with doing visuals?
I've always been a very visual thinker, and spent a lot of my time when I was younger tuning out of school and drawing elaborate, psychedelic pictures [see below]. Actually, I still draw pretty frequently, and am in the process of putting together a book of my sketches. Drawing was my first love, but I never felt confined to any medium. I love all the possibilities that CG brings into the mix; painting, music, writing, it all interesting to me deeply. Different mediums bring different things out of you, and lend themselves to different kinds of exploration.
I was working on a psychedelic tv-show pilot called 'EuKi,' but found it difficult pitching my ideas to the corporate world that could give me money to make it, and deep down I didn't even want to be involved in any of that... So I may have self-sabotaged a bit. I found myself with a surplus of psychedelic animations and didn't know what to do with all of it. Also, I was frustrated with the mainstream world of media production, and wanted to avoid the whole process of 'pitching' projects to people.
I realized that by being a live-visualist I could perform media, make stuff and show it to huge audiences, and turn media production into a much more performative, spontaneous, interactive thing. Live-visuals are really exciting because there are really no rules to the form, anything is possible. Sometimes its more like directly downloading associations to people than it is giving them a narrative; you can have subliminal narratives, abstract narratives, fractal narratives where you are the main character. Its really exciting territory :D
Flying Lotus gave me the opportunity to perform at the first Brainfeeder event in LA, and I started putting material together. Something clicked that night, and I sensed that it wasn't just for me. A lot of people all of sudden were coming up to me with a kind of fervor about what was going on. I felt like I'd found something very deep and authentic, something I already knew how to do without any specific training; A way of communicating deeper concepts and feelings that felt very natural to me.
-As a visual artist you got signed to Brainfeeder which is a music label. How does that compute?
Brainfeeder is very multidimensional, and I know Steve (Flying Lotus) has always thought about it that way. When we were going to art school together, there was a deep interest amongst us in all sorts of creative forms. Avant-garde cinema, video games, drill n' bassy music, psychedelic visual art like H.R. Giger, Alex Grey, Leigh McCloskey its all good.
Brainfeeder is definitely more than a music label. Its really, for me, about cross-pollination, different media, the synesthetic play between the senses. Hell, its really about feeding brains. Whatever mediums we can do that in are totally acceptable.
-Is making music very different from making visuals?
In ways, yes. Music is almost even more personal to me, it is like therapy. Most of my life I have made music without the thought of releasing it in any significant way. It is like journaling for me. Steve [Flying Lotus] was one of the first people I really respected to suggest that I release some of it, and was really intent on making it happen. I literally have hundreds, if not thousands of unreleased songs, but it has been a struggle balancing all the visual work with the musical work. I find that the scale seems to tip more in one direction at any given time and the other form gets neglected. It would be so much easier if I was just musician or a vj! :D
However, I also recognize that many of my strengths lie in my synesthetic aspects.
My avant-sci-fi project 2010 : (or) How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Singularity was an attempt at integrating some of my strange tunes and visuals into one piece, I was really excited that Mary Anne Hobbs wanted to feature it on the BBC, she has really championed a lot of my work, and I am really thankful for that. She gave me a lot of confidence to get the really authentic stuff out there without worrying about what people would think.
-Your vimeo page shows work in a lot of different styles, ranging from stop motion to cg, and you also mention Quartz Composer. Can you describe a bit about how you approach projects and how you end up working in a particular style or medium?
Its funny, in ways I don't really have a style. Real style is what happens when you're not even thinking about style, its authentic and spontaneous. However, I am totally ADHD in certain respects, and find that I can shift my style very rapidly without feeling weird about it. I think there is something deeper in the work hopefully that people can identify, but in terms of the aesthetic style of my work, I kind of shape-shift … I try on different styles, and even though I have common motifs (fractals, bio-mechanical forms, semi-abstract sci-fi narratives etc.) I'm really always trying to evolve, which means doing things I haven't done.
This can be a funny situation sometimes, because without much hesitation I'll think, I can make a stop-action video! Then I find myself with all this clay and fabric and what-not, and realize how little I know about the whole process. It makes creating things really fun though, continually moving into unfamiliar territory and really being educated along the way. Plus, most of the stuff you really want to learn can't be taught to you, you just have to dive into the process.
-Can you talk a bit about your work process in general?
First, I drink 10 cups of coffee every morning. Then I take a hit of DMT and travel into the far reaches of space. It is there that I meet with various galactic councils, alpha centaurian drum circles, etc. and attempt to convince their thoughts to migrate to Earth (which can be quite difficult!) One has to, first of all, dissuade them from believing the common misconception, that Earth is a barren wasteland, quarantined, and populated by radioactive monkeys. In other words, you give them advertisements (in the form of thoughts and what-not) for dope stuff going on in our neck of the woods, but you have to be subtle, otherwise they detect your eagerness and turn into puddles of oozing phosphenous ectoplasm ... (just joking by the way). I'm crazy, but only that crazy on occasions.
-How does Resolume fit into all this?
Honestly, Resolume has changed everything for me. I was using other software for a long time, but found myself running up against a lot of walls. I wanted sophisticated generative forms, audio-responsive parameters, and to be able to integrate all of this with the videos I'd been designing and appropriating over the last ten years. It always seemed like different pieces of software had different parts of the puzzle, but Resolume was the first I found that tied it all together. I've even performed audio-visual sets using Resolume, which is a trip. Music and visuals in the same program?
There's definitely so much more territory to explore in this realm, but you guys are on the edge of it all … and its commercial software that doesn't require a lot of back-end programming, which is great for me, because even though I can rock 3d graphics pretty proficiently, I have a lot to learn in the programming world.
-What functionality of Resolume do you use the most? How do you use Resolume in general?
I tried to use literally everything, or rather, rig my set-up so it at least all available. Music responsive geometries, sampled video clips, my own 3d graphics, all mapped to midi-controllers so I can play the visuals in the same way many in our community perform their electronic music compositions.
However, I have a lot of dreams where I am using verrrry sophisticated VJ software / hardware that I would love to get my hands on. Though Resolume is fantastic, it is still only a step towards one of my holy grails, which is to create fully immersive holographic visuals directly from my thoughts and movements. There is a lot of work being done on these sorts of mind-machine interfaces now, but we're still a little bit aways from what I've used in my dreams. However, I think there are certain mind-altering technologies available now that can accomplish what I'm talking about ;)
-What gear do you use on a show?
visuals : MacBook Pro laptop 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, Resolume Software, Akai MPD24.
music : MacBook Pro laptop 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, Ableton, Akai APC20, Duet audio interface.
….that's the simple set-up, but its sometimes gets very complex. Live-camera feeds, video mixers, multiple laptops, DVDs etc. I try to keep it simple these days, because all the gear sometimes gives me a headache. Its like one element breaks down and you have to change your whole plan for the show! Craziness.
-Are your live shows very different from the videos you make? What does a typical Srangeloop show look like?
I incorporate more sampled footage live, usually for fun, and because its sometimes hard to fill a night with purely original imagery. I also like turning people on to media I really dig, like the work of Studio 4 Degrees Celcius. They are my absolute heroes, and I love it when people come up and ask "What was that clip with the little boy telepathically destroying those nuclear war-heads and…" I get to tell them about what I'm really excited about.
Tekkon Kinkreet, Mindgame, Noisman Sound Insect, these to me are the first truly 21st century animated films. Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Nausicaa, these were some of our great animated sci-fi psychedelic epics of the late 20th century, and were far beyond their years, but Studio 4 Degrees Celcius takes it to the next level ….
Their work, like many of our lives currently, is vaguely sci-fi, but way beyond that. Its shamanic, its post-genre, totally intuitively psychedelic, in a very natural way, rooted in characters and experience … not just the thrill of strange technologies, or trippy aesthetics. I think in many ways, they are about 10 years beyond anything out there right now.
So yeah, I can't stress this enough, you should just drop this interview right now and watch everything they've ever done. haha
My shows are tripped the f**k out, and I'm always trying to bootstrap them to another level. Whether I'm doing visuals or music I'm always looking to bring something different and awe-inspiring into the mix. First and foremost, I want to be awed, I want to be educated, I want strange and mystical experiences. This is why I do what I do, to invoke that in myself, and then hopefully share it with other people and evolve through that process.
-What's the best and worst gig you ever played?
That's a tough one. I love playing with the Gaslamp Killer, because, quite simply put, he is a beast. After he plays, I'm surprised the walls are still standing. Any show we can do together is a jolt of inspiration to my system. Recently, doing visuals for Amon Tobin on the NinjaTune XX shows was really incredible, because he basically got me interested in electronic music when I was 14, him and Aphex Twin. It felt pretty serendipitous.
On the 'worst' front, one time I was helping kick off a mini-tour starting at Low End Theory when my audio-card conked out. It sounded like everything was going through a ring-modulator / distortion pedal and it was really noxious ...I tried to fix it a couple times, but to no avail! I kind of realized I just had to run with it and act like I intended the audio to be mind-blowingly distorted ... to my surprise, there was a group of people that were getting into to it, and I kind of just performed like I normally would, still trying to bring the energy behind the music. It was really funny because a lot of people came up to me afterwards and enthusiastically said they'd never heard anything like it. So I suppose it turned out all right, but basically, what people had heard was the sound of the computer uncontrollably destroying my music.
-What's the last album you heard / book you read / video you saw/ lyric you heard / game you played that knocked your head back?
Cosmogramma was my favorite album of the year. Seeing Flying Lotus' evolution over the years has been incredible, and in my opinion, he really changed the game with that one; its completely ridiculous that it wasn't nominated for a Grammy. Flat-out absurd. Though I don't think the Grammys represents the most exciting worlds blooming in the global music community, it is just a big hype circus that has lost its soul, like the Oscars.
If you want to find more crazy music stuff, LA is popping. The underground is thriving with communities like Magical Properties, SoSimple Records, Low End Theory//AlphaPup, Dublab … that's the really good stuff, continually evolving, always inspiring and challenging. I am blessed to know a lot of these people, and they keep LA really interesting.
On the movie front, ENTER THE VOID is IT. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It felt to me almost the '2001' of our generation, but instead of going deep into outer space, it went into inner-space, the DMT trance, psychedelic realities ... insane.
-Who are the up and coming visual artists out there that we should be looking out for?
Beeple (who just did one of the latest Flying Lotus videos, 'Kill Your CoWorkers') is the sh*t. His open-source sensibility and DIY approach to sophisticated 3d imagery is great. Sometimes I'll take his files and use them as a jumping off point, they are always impeccably designed, dynamic, inventive.
Theo Elsworth is also incredibly dope, and a champion of a whole new type of fractal narrative. AntiVJ is dope. Daito Manabe is dope. Robert Seidel. Lucio Arese. Scott Pagano (KILLS it), check out his video below… actually, we are going to feature a lot of these cats in an upcoming Brainfeeder DVD that we'll release next year as another manifestation of the Future Cinema Series experimental shorts program I curated for the Brainfeeder Sessions in LA. Its gonna be crazy.
I feel like a lot of this interview is pretty hyper-textual, but seriously, check all these people out. They are phenomenal.
-Do you have any upcoming collaborations with other artists coming up, or projects in general you're excited about?
Almost so many it makes my head spin. Ay mi! Where to start … I'm working on music videos for Take, Jon Wayne, collaborating on music projects with Austin Peralta (an EP of some of our avant-beat creations), Rebekah Raff (various experimental works), Timeboy (an ambient EP we've finished called 'Balance'), Micah Nelson (son of Willie Nelson and one of the founders of psychedelic freak-out band Insects vs. Robots), and Miguel Baptistia Benedict (a sound-collage project just featured on Dublab called 'DINS') … I have few mini-albums almost completed Everything is Alive, 2099, and Easy Listening for our Future Children. I have been kind of hoarding all this music, but I really want to give it all a life beyond my studio in 2011.
Flying Lotus and I have some really exciting stuff in the works, both event-wise and on the cinematic front, but I don't want to reveal too many details. I will also be working with 12th Planet on a custom visual show we will premier at Together as One in LA New Years Eve 2011. ::whew::
That's just the half of it, I'm really thinking of cloning myself to get all of this moving a bit faster.
-Nature or code?
Nature is code :D
-Realtime or premade?
Both.
-Richie or the Fonz?
Fonz. eyyy.
For more info on Strangeloop visit http://www.strangelooptv.com
Over at Resolume HQ we like our music to be weird, experimental and full of big bass. The music that's coming out on the Brainfeeder label fits this bill exactly, and many a time has a head been bopped to Brainfeeder beats. So when we heard it through the grapevine that Strangeloop had signed to that label as a visual artist, our interest was piqued, to say the least.
David Wexler, aka Strangeloop is a visual artist and musician that works with a variety of media, ranging from stop motion to full on CG to generative work. Visit his Vimeo page, and prepare to be blown away, if only by the sheer variety of his skills. Combined with his beautiful electronic melodies, you're all set for your trip to the other side of the looking glass.
So when we then found out he was using Resolume for his shows, the deal was done: we had to know more about this guy! So at the end of last year, we conducted an interview via mail, and the wonderful results you can read below. Step in to the mind of a strange loop!
-So, what's your strangest loop?
I always thought the name Strangeloop was a fitting title for my work, because I have, for as long as I can remember, been completely obsessed with fractals and 'strange loops' in chaotic systems. A "strange loop" is actually a technical term for a tangled hierchary, where you can move from one level of a hierachy to another and find yourself back where you started (kind of like the Escher drawing you see below). Its a really interesting paradox you find in all sorts of natural phenomena, including the most fundamental natural phenomena I can think of, perception.
In other words, its all a "strange loop."
Though on the video front, I made a piece awhile ago called Holographic Landscapes : Synesthetic Studies of Natural Sequence in Relation to God and Reality which is essentially an experiment in strange loops. I took a lot of video of a creek where I used to play when I was a kid, and then seamlessly looped the footage back on itself that gave the appearance of these un-ending zooms and camera moves. Like you were forever zooming into a leaf passing by in the current... kind of like a video version of the droste-effect.
-How did you get started with doing visuals?
I've always been a very visual thinker, and spent a lot of my time when I was younger tuning out of school and drawing elaborate, psychedelic pictures [see below]. Actually, I still draw pretty frequently, and am in the process of putting together a book of my sketches. Drawing was my first love, but I never felt confined to any medium. I love all the possibilities that CG brings into the mix; painting, music, writing, it all interesting to me deeply. Different mediums bring different things out of you, and lend themselves to different kinds of exploration.
I was working on a psychedelic tv-show pilot called 'EuKi,' but found it difficult pitching my ideas to the corporate world that could give me money to make it, and deep down I didn't even want to be involved in any of that... So I may have self-sabotaged a bit. I found myself with a surplus of psychedelic animations and didn't know what to do with all of it. Also, I was frustrated with the mainstream world of media production, and wanted to avoid the whole process of 'pitching' projects to people.
I realized that by being a live-visualist I could perform media, make stuff and show it to huge audiences, and turn media production into a much more performative, spontaneous, interactive thing. Live-visuals are really exciting because there are really no rules to the form, anything is possible. Sometimes its more like directly downloading associations to people than it is giving them a narrative; you can have subliminal narratives, abstract narratives, fractal narratives where you are the main character. Its really exciting territory :D
Flying Lotus gave me the opportunity to perform at the first Brainfeeder event in LA, and I started putting material together. Something clicked that night, and I sensed that it wasn't just for me. A lot of people all of sudden were coming up to me with a kind of fervor about what was going on. I felt like I'd found something very deep and authentic, something I already knew how to do without any specific training; A way of communicating deeper concepts and feelings that felt very natural to me.
-As a visual artist you got signed to Brainfeeder which is a music label. How does that compute?
Brainfeeder is very multidimensional, and I know Steve (Flying Lotus) has always thought about it that way. When we were going to art school together, there was a deep interest amongst us in all sorts of creative forms. Avant-garde cinema, video games, drill n' bassy music, psychedelic visual art like H.R. Giger, Alex Grey, Leigh McCloskey its all good.
Brainfeeder is definitely more than a music label. Its really, for me, about cross-pollination, different media, the synesthetic play between the senses. Hell, its really about feeding brains. Whatever mediums we can do that in are totally acceptable.
-Is making music very different from making visuals?
In ways, yes. Music is almost even more personal to me, it is like therapy. Most of my life I have made music without the thought of releasing it in any significant way. It is like journaling for me. Steve [Flying Lotus] was one of the first people I really respected to suggest that I release some of it, and was really intent on making it happen. I literally have hundreds, if not thousands of unreleased songs, but it has been a struggle balancing all the visual work with the musical work. I find that the scale seems to tip more in one direction at any given time and the other form gets neglected. It would be so much easier if I was just musician or a vj! :D
However, I also recognize that many of my strengths lie in my synesthetic aspects.
My avant-sci-fi project 2010 : (or) How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Singularity was an attempt at integrating some of my strange tunes and visuals into one piece, I was really excited that Mary Anne Hobbs wanted to feature it on the BBC, she has really championed a lot of my work, and I am really thankful for that. She gave me a lot of confidence to get the really authentic stuff out there without worrying about what people would think.
-Your vimeo page shows work in a lot of different styles, ranging from stop motion to cg, and you also mention Quartz Composer. Can you describe a bit about how you approach projects and how you end up working in a particular style or medium?
Its funny, in ways I don't really have a style. Real style is what happens when you're not even thinking about style, its authentic and spontaneous. However, I am totally ADHD in certain respects, and find that I can shift my style very rapidly without feeling weird about it. I think there is something deeper in the work hopefully that people can identify, but in terms of the aesthetic style of my work, I kind of shape-shift … I try on different styles, and even though I have common motifs (fractals, bio-mechanical forms, semi-abstract sci-fi narratives etc.) I'm really always trying to evolve, which means doing things I haven't done.
This can be a funny situation sometimes, because without much hesitation I'll think, I can make a stop-action video! Then I find myself with all this clay and fabric and what-not, and realize how little I know about the whole process. It makes creating things really fun though, continually moving into unfamiliar territory and really being educated along the way. Plus, most of the stuff you really want to learn can't be taught to you, you just have to dive into the process.
-Can you talk a bit about your work process in general?
First, I drink 10 cups of coffee every morning. Then I take a hit of DMT and travel into the far reaches of space. It is there that I meet with various galactic councils, alpha centaurian drum circles, etc. and attempt to convince their thoughts to migrate to Earth (which can be quite difficult!) One has to, first of all, dissuade them from believing the common misconception, that Earth is a barren wasteland, quarantined, and populated by radioactive monkeys. In other words, you give them advertisements (in the form of thoughts and what-not) for dope stuff going on in our neck of the woods, but you have to be subtle, otherwise they detect your eagerness and turn into puddles of oozing phosphenous ectoplasm ... (just joking by the way). I'm crazy, but only that crazy on occasions.
-How does Resolume fit into all this?
Honestly, Resolume has changed everything for me. I was using other software for a long time, but found myself running up against a lot of walls. I wanted sophisticated generative forms, audio-responsive parameters, and to be able to integrate all of this with the videos I'd been designing and appropriating over the last ten years. It always seemed like different pieces of software had different parts of the puzzle, but Resolume was the first I found that tied it all together. I've even performed audio-visual sets using Resolume, which is a trip. Music and visuals in the same program?
There's definitely so much more territory to explore in this realm, but you guys are on the edge of it all … and its commercial software that doesn't require a lot of back-end programming, which is great for me, because even though I can rock 3d graphics pretty proficiently, I have a lot to learn in the programming world.
-What functionality of Resolume do you use the most? How do you use Resolume in general?
I tried to use literally everything, or rather, rig my set-up so it at least all available. Music responsive geometries, sampled video clips, my own 3d graphics, all mapped to midi-controllers so I can play the visuals in the same way many in our community perform their electronic music compositions.
However, I have a lot of dreams where I am using verrrry sophisticated VJ software / hardware that I would love to get my hands on. Though Resolume is fantastic, it is still only a step towards one of my holy grails, which is to create fully immersive holographic visuals directly from my thoughts and movements. There is a lot of work being done on these sorts of mind-machine interfaces now, but we're still a little bit aways from what I've used in my dreams. However, I think there are certain mind-altering technologies available now that can accomplish what I'm talking about ;)
-What gear do you use on a show?
visuals : MacBook Pro laptop 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, Resolume Software, Akai MPD24.
music : MacBook Pro laptop 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, Ableton, Akai APC20, Duet audio interface.
….that's the simple set-up, but its sometimes gets very complex. Live-camera feeds, video mixers, multiple laptops, DVDs etc. I try to keep it simple these days, because all the gear sometimes gives me a headache. Its like one element breaks down and you have to change your whole plan for the show! Craziness.
-Are your live shows very different from the videos you make? What does a typical Srangeloop show look like?
I incorporate more sampled footage live, usually for fun, and because its sometimes hard to fill a night with purely original imagery. I also like turning people on to media I really dig, like the work of Studio 4 Degrees Celcius. They are my absolute heroes, and I love it when people come up and ask "What was that clip with the little boy telepathically destroying those nuclear war-heads and…" I get to tell them about what I'm really excited about.
Tekkon Kinkreet, Mindgame, Noisman Sound Insect, these to me are the first truly 21st century animated films. Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Nausicaa, these were some of our great animated sci-fi psychedelic epics of the late 20th century, and were far beyond their years, but Studio 4 Degrees Celcius takes it to the next level ….
Their work, like many of our lives currently, is vaguely sci-fi, but way beyond that. Its shamanic, its post-genre, totally intuitively psychedelic, in a very natural way, rooted in characters and experience … not just the thrill of strange technologies, or trippy aesthetics. I think in many ways, they are about 10 years beyond anything out there right now.
So yeah, I can't stress this enough, you should just drop this interview right now and watch everything they've ever done. haha
My shows are tripped the f**k out, and I'm always trying to bootstrap them to another level. Whether I'm doing visuals or music I'm always looking to bring something different and awe-inspiring into the mix. First and foremost, I want to be awed, I want to be educated, I want strange and mystical experiences. This is why I do what I do, to invoke that in myself, and then hopefully share it with other people and evolve through that process.
-What's the best and worst gig you ever played?
That's a tough one. I love playing with the Gaslamp Killer, because, quite simply put, he is a beast. After he plays, I'm surprised the walls are still standing. Any show we can do together is a jolt of inspiration to my system. Recently, doing visuals for Amon Tobin on the NinjaTune XX shows was really incredible, because he basically got me interested in electronic music when I was 14, him and Aphex Twin. It felt pretty serendipitous.
On the 'worst' front, one time I was helping kick off a mini-tour starting at Low End Theory when my audio-card conked out. It sounded like everything was going through a ring-modulator / distortion pedal and it was really noxious ...I tried to fix it a couple times, but to no avail! I kind of realized I just had to run with it and act like I intended the audio to be mind-blowingly distorted ... to my surprise, there was a group of people that were getting into to it, and I kind of just performed like I normally would, still trying to bring the energy behind the music. It was really funny because a lot of people came up to me afterwards and enthusiastically said they'd never heard anything like it. So I suppose it turned out all right, but basically, what people had heard was the sound of the computer uncontrollably destroying my music.
-What's the last album you heard / book you read / video you saw/ lyric you heard / game you played that knocked your head back?
Cosmogramma was my favorite album of the year. Seeing Flying Lotus' evolution over the years has been incredible, and in my opinion, he really changed the game with that one; its completely ridiculous that it wasn't nominated for a Grammy. Flat-out absurd. Though I don't think the Grammys represents the most exciting worlds blooming in the global music community, it is just a big hype circus that has lost its soul, like the Oscars.
If you want to find more crazy music stuff, LA is popping. The underground is thriving with communities like Magical Properties, SoSimple Records, Low End Theory//AlphaPup, Dublab … that's the really good stuff, continually evolving, always inspiring and challenging. I am blessed to know a lot of these people, and they keep LA really interesting.
On the movie front, ENTER THE VOID is IT. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It felt to me almost the '2001' of our generation, but instead of going deep into outer space, it went into inner-space, the DMT trance, psychedelic realities ... insane.
-Who are the up and coming visual artists out there that we should be looking out for?
Beeple (who just did one of the latest Flying Lotus videos, 'Kill Your CoWorkers') is the sh*t. His open-source sensibility and DIY approach to sophisticated 3d imagery is great. Sometimes I'll take his files and use them as a jumping off point, they are always impeccably designed, dynamic, inventive.
Theo Elsworth is also incredibly dope, and a champion of a whole new type of fractal narrative. AntiVJ is dope. Daito Manabe is dope. Robert Seidel. Lucio Arese. Scott Pagano (KILLS it), check out his video below… actually, we are going to feature a lot of these cats in an upcoming Brainfeeder DVD that we'll release next year as another manifestation of the Future Cinema Series experimental shorts program I curated for the Brainfeeder Sessions in LA. Its gonna be crazy.
I feel like a lot of this interview is pretty hyper-textual, but seriously, check all these people out. They are phenomenal.
-Do you have any upcoming collaborations with other artists coming up, or projects in general you're excited about?
Almost so many it makes my head spin. Ay mi! Where to start … I'm working on music videos for Take, Jon Wayne, collaborating on music projects with Austin Peralta (an EP of some of our avant-beat creations), Rebekah Raff (various experimental works), Timeboy (an ambient EP we've finished called 'Balance'), Micah Nelson (son of Willie Nelson and one of the founders of psychedelic freak-out band Insects vs. Robots), and Miguel Baptistia Benedict (a sound-collage project just featured on Dublab called 'DINS') … I have few mini-albums almost completed Everything is Alive, 2099, and Easy Listening for our Future Children. I have been kind of hoarding all this music, but I really want to give it all a life beyond my studio in 2011.
Flying Lotus and I have some really exciting stuff in the works, both event-wise and on the cinematic front, but I don't want to reveal too many details. I will also be working with 12th Planet on a custom visual show we will premier at Together as One in LA New Years Eve 2011. ::whew::
That's just the half of it, I'm really thinking of cloning myself to get all of this moving a bit faster.
-Nature or code?
Nature is code :D
-Realtime or premade?
Both.
-Richie or the Fonz?
Fonz. eyyy.
For more info on Strangeloop visit http://www.strangelooptv.com
Resolume Blog
This blog is about Resolume, VJ-ing and the inspiring things the Resolume users make. Do you have something interesting to show the community? Send in your work!
Highlights
Resolume Christmas Present 2010: FFGL Fireworks Plugin
Because we love you all so much we want to give you all a nice Christmas present again. This year it's a FFGL Fireworks plugin made by our programmer Daniel Berio. Not only do you get a nice display of fireworks from this plugin but we decided to program it using our FreeFrame openFrameworks wrapper and release the source code as well. We hope this will inspire some of you to learn FFGL programming during those long dark December nights.
Merry Christmas and a Happy 20!!
The Resolume Team
Edwin & Bart & Dani & Tim & Joris
Download Windows
http://www.resolume.com/download/FFGL_Fireworks_Windows.zip
Download Mac OS X
http://www.resolume.com/download/FFGL_Fireworks_Mac_OS_X.zip
Source code
http://code.google.com/p/ofxffglplugin/source/browse/#svn/trunk/apps/addonsExamples/ffglPartycles/src
Last 2 Footage Releases of 2010: EggFace & RazzleDazzle
RazzleDazzle by Dan Wise
Based on the principles of the WW1 dazzle camouflage, these clips use perspective and misdirection to bring visual trickery into your VJ set. Available in HD and starting at only 29 Euro. Read more ...
EggFace by Lucid House
Seize the eyeballs on that dance floor with a versatile set of pulsing patterns and nectar droplets that phase into broody backdrops. Available in HD and starting at only 29 Euro. Read more ...
Based on the principles of the WW1 dazzle camouflage, these clips use perspective and misdirection to bring visual trickery into your VJ set. Available in HD and starting at only 29 Euro. Read more ...
EggFace by Lucid House
Seize the eyeballs on that dance floor with a versatile set of pulsing patterns and nectar droplets that phase into broody backdrops. Available in HD and starting at only 29 Euro. Read more ...
New FreeFrameGL plugins: Mixers Pack 1
Mixers Pack 1 contains 10 unique transition effects for Resolume 3. Mix beyond the default styles with Shift RGB, LoRez, Multi Task, Displace, Meta Mix, Parts, Static, Tile, Fade to Black & Fade to White.
Available now for only 29 Euro in the shop
http://resolume.com/shop/plugins.php
Resolume with DMX at the Paul Oakenfold tour
Some of you may be wondering why we made such a big fuss over the DMX support we added in version 3.3.1. Well, we could explain it to you by saying things like 'immersive experience', 'synchronized event programming' and other words that have even more syllables. But rather we'd let someone in the field do the talking.
Robb Pope, who is doing the visual design on the Paul Oakenfold tour, writes about his experiences:
'The tour has been going amazing. The DMX implimentation is working great and the whole show, lights and video, are controlled on a GrandMA console. I'm out at Front of House every day. I have a laptop to remote desktop in if need be, but Resolume has been running so well I rarely have to even play with the GUI directly. In fact I've never had to switch over to the backup server! Resolume is amazingly stable and it is very very fast. It is without a doubt supplanting all other VJ software as the dominant platform.'
Reports like that are always good to hear, but Robb was kind enough to supply some visual proof to feast your eyes on as well:
And of course the impact only becomes greater when you see it in motion:
(All visual design by Robb Pope, stage and lighting design by Breckinridge Haggerty.)
Be sure to check out more pictures and video at http://pauloakenfold.com/. And if you have some amazing gig footage or experiences you'd like to share, with or without DMX consoles, let us know via the comments!
Resolume Team
Robb Pope, who is doing the visual design on the Paul Oakenfold tour, writes about his experiences:
'The tour has been going amazing. The DMX implimentation is working great and the whole show, lights and video, are controlled on a GrandMA console. I'm out at Front of House every day. I have a laptop to remote desktop in if need be, but Resolume has been running so well I rarely have to even play with the GUI directly. In fact I've never had to switch over to the backup server! Resolume is amazingly stable and it is very very fast. It is without a doubt supplanting all other VJ software as the dominant platform.'
Reports like that are always good to hear, but Robb was kind enough to supply some visual proof to feast your eyes on as well:
And of course the impact only becomes greater when you see it in motion:
(All visual design by Robb Pope, stage and lighting design by Breckinridge Haggerty.)
Be sure to check out more pictures and video at http://pauloakenfold.com/. And if you have some amazing gig footage or experiences you'd like to share, with or without DMX consoles, let us know via the comments!
Resolume Team
But wait, there's more ... footage
Here are 3 more packs by RebelOverlay James Medcraft and Dubassy!
DigitalWarware by RebelOverlay
Tanks rolling by, jets flying over and choppers hovering in the sky. Retro Vectrix Tron style. Drop beats not bombs!
ParticleParadise by James Medcraft
Bouncing, swirling and colliding geometric objects fill the screen in this simple yet beautifully detailed footage pack. ParticleParadise is a colorful exploration of physics and forces.
GhettoBlasters by Dubassy
Lost for many years in a cupboard in retro heaven, Dubassy has dusted down and brought back to life his old 80s ghettoblaster. Boombox style!
DigitalWarware by RebelOverlay
Tanks rolling by, jets flying over and choppers hovering in the sky. Retro Vectrix Tron style. Drop beats not bombs!
ParticleParadise by James Medcraft
Bouncing, swirling and colliding geometric objects fill the screen in this simple yet beautifully detailed footage pack. ParticleParadise is a colorful exploration of physics and forces.
GhettoBlasters by Dubassy
Lost for many years in a cupboard in retro heaven, Dubassy has dusted down and brought back to life his old 80s ghettoblaster. Boombox style!
Resolume at Armin Only Mirage
Armin van Buuren, for the fourth time in a row, a new record, has been voted the n#1 DJ in the world. He' s performing in the premiere of his new show, Armin Only Mirage, this saturday.
The visuals for this show are done by 250K (aka Eyesupply) which have been good friends and loyal customers of ours for years. They are using a custom version of Resolume Avenue 3 for the show. They will be touring all over the world, and performing on New Years Eve in Melbourne.
So we've got tickets for saturday but I'm afraid there are no tickets left, we'll let you know if Avenue performed well during the 8 hour show!
Check the Armin Only] site to see when and if they come near you.
http://www.arminonly.com/
Check out the showreel of 250k to see what you could expect!
The visuals for this show are done by 250K (aka Eyesupply) which have been good friends and loyal customers of ours for years. They are using a custom version of Resolume Avenue 3 for the show. They will be touring all over the world, and performing on New Years Eve in Melbourne.
So we've got tickets for saturday but I'm afraid there are no tickets left, we'll let you know if Avenue performed well during the 8 hour show!
Check the Armin Only] site to see when and if they come near you.
http://www.arminonly.com/
Check out the showreel of 250k to see what you could expect!
Freemote festival on in Utrecht, 28-31 October
If you have the chance to be in Utrecht, The Netherlands this coming weekend, you are in luck! The wonderful folks from Born Digital are putting on a festival that will tickle your senses with fresh sights and sounds! Bringing together a diverse collection of artists from around the world, there will be something for everyone. Workshops on Thursday and Friday, free exhibitions on Saturday and Sunday and of course parties on Friday and Saturday night!
Of special interest is that the Resolume team will be representing as well. On Saturday night Daniel will be showing his programming and artistic skills. It's hard to put into words what he does, but check out his videos and be amazed.
Then on Friday afternoon Joris/Goto10 will be giving a Resolume/Ableton AV presentation with audio partner in crime Airway-X. Also they'll be performing their AV set 'Burn Hollywood, Burn!' on Friday night. If you're down with your favorite movies being remixed to hard hitting drum n bass, this is the night for you. Check out the video for the Tron remix, and prepare to terminate!
Check out the full program for more info, and hope to see you all there!
The ResTeam
Of special interest is that the Resolume team will be representing as well. On Saturday night Daniel will be showing his programming and artistic skills. It's hard to put into words what he does, but check out his videos and be amazed.
Then on Friday afternoon Joris/Goto10 will be giving a Resolume/Ableton AV presentation with audio partner in crime Airway-X. Also they'll be performing their AV set 'Burn Hollywood, Burn!' on Friday night. If you're down with your favorite movies being remixed to hard hitting drum n bass, this is the night for you. Check out the video for the Tron remix, and prepare to terminate!
Check out the full program for more info, and hope to see you all there!
The ResTeam
New Footage by Dubassy, RebelOverlay & James Medcraft
EQualisers by Dubassy
See the music come alive in vivid colour with lines, shapes, levels & waveforms moving to the music.
MNML by RebelOverlay
Sometimes the simplest things can look so damn good. These simple but effective footage is bread and butter for every VJ.
neoScapes by James Medcraft
Morphing landscapes, evolving patterns, mountainous and smooth terrain, transport your viewers into a sublime futuristic landscape. neoScapes is a journey into technological terrain.
Resolume Avenue 3.3.1 and DXV Codec 2.1.1 Released
There is a Dutch expression that says "Those who do not honor the small, are not worthy the big". So today we are releasing a small update for Avenue and a (not so small) update for the DXV codec.
Avenue 3.3.1 fixes a number of small bugs that have been annoying us for while and we're happy to iron those out. DXV 2.1.1 fixes quite a few compatibility issues when rendering video with various applications. It now works great with Adobe After Effects, Media Encoder, Sony Vegas, Ableton Live (yes, Live edits video too) and our personal favorite: Apple Motion!
Hit the download, and remember to honor the small things in life ;-)
CORRECTION: DXV version 2.1.1 not 2.2.1 ;-)
Enjoy!
The Resolume Team
Release Notes Resolume 3.3.1
[FIXED] Feedback sources don't remember their size settings
[FIXED] Unregister DMX unregisteres Resolume serial
[FIXED] New effects added to effects tab don't show in gui
[FIXED] Mapping for bpm tap buttons are not saved in composition key map
[FIXED] Invert for composition beats doesn't do anything
[FIXED] No alpha in feedback
[FIXED] The first time a clip is triggered after startup the clip
thumbnail isn't shown in the layer
[FIXED] Timeline zoom shows incorrect clip after zoom out
[FIXED] Can't register dmx serial offline
[FIXED] Register offline, some text overlaps after registration
[FIXED] Switched channel 5 and 7 in DMX Automap
Release Notes DXV Codec 2.1.1
[FIXED] Apple Motion crashes when rendering with DXV
[FIXED] Can't access DXV settings in Sony Vegas
[FIXED] Sometimes frames in wrong order in Adobe Media Encoder CS4
[FIXED] Crash QT 7.6.6 on WIN7 64
[FIXED] Sometimes flipped frames
[FIXED] DXV 2.1 crashes some apps on windows when loading older DXV files
[FIXED] DXV 2.1 does not render alpha correctly in Vegas
[FIXED] DXV 2.2 still gives quicktime error on AE CS4 (image sequences)
[FIXED] Windows 7 AE CS5 does not remember the codec settings
Avenue 3.3.1 fixes a number of small bugs that have been annoying us for while and we're happy to iron those out. DXV 2.1.1 fixes quite a few compatibility issues when rendering video with various applications. It now works great with Adobe After Effects, Media Encoder, Sony Vegas, Ableton Live (yes, Live edits video too) and our personal favorite: Apple Motion!
Hit the download, and remember to honor the small things in life ;-)
CORRECTION: DXV version 2.1.1 not 2.2.1 ;-)
Enjoy!
The Resolume Team
Release Notes Resolume 3.3.1
[FIXED] Feedback sources don't remember their size settings
[FIXED] Unregister DMX unregisteres Resolume serial
[FIXED] New effects added to effects tab don't show in gui
[FIXED] Mapping for bpm tap buttons are not saved in composition key map
[FIXED] Invert for composition beats doesn't do anything
[FIXED] No alpha in feedback
[FIXED] The first time a clip is triggered after startup the clip
thumbnail isn't shown in the layer
[FIXED] Timeline zoom shows incorrect clip after zoom out
[FIXED] Can't register dmx serial offline
[FIXED] Register offline, some text overlaps after registration
[FIXED] Switched channel 5 and 7 in DMX Automap
Release Notes DXV Codec 2.1.1
[FIXED] Apple Motion crashes when rendering with DXV
[FIXED] Can't access DXV settings in Sony Vegas
[FIXED] Sometimes frames in wrong order in Adobe Media Encoder CS4
[FIXED] Crash QT 7.6.6 on WIN7 64
[FIXED] Sometimes flipped frames
[FIXED] DXV 2.1 crashes some apps on windows when loading older DXV files
[FIXED] DXV 2.1 does not render alpha correctly in Vegas
[FIXED] DXV 2.2 still gives quicktime error on AE CS4 (image sequences)
[FIXED] Windows 7 AE CS5 does not remember the codec settings