Virtual Graffiti

[InsideUsAll]

hello All,

yep after the houses of parliment thing on the 'Anyone up for war' thread, inside-us-all HQ is buzzing with ideas of virtual/video graffiti. I started this thread to discuss the whole concept.

Are we actually breaking any laws by pointing our projectors with apt statements at various blank walls?

Have any of you got examples of bits of video graffiti, it must have been going on for years!

whats the best portable tools for the job

etc. etc.

[InsideUsAll]

I'll start the ball rolling by telling you about something we got up too last night.

Two fine upstanding pillars of the community [in the form of two members of Thames Valley Police] standing against a wall discussing how long it is until their next doughnut break. we're in town anyway mucking about with our projector, then the idea springs to mind :jump: we could project over their heads onto the wall behind them. We happen to have an animated text clip which says the word 'smile' so we put that over their heads.

They are oblivious -priceless.

Calve has run off with the DV tape so I can't sample it and give you a link just now, but I'll upload it and put a link in as soon as I get my hands on it.

[2Bit]

We've done various urban city projectioning here in Norwich.
Mostly slides but we've used video too.

We use a portable Yamaha 1K Genni & a Nissan Praire (Big car with lots of big windows) & pull up outside of the building et voila.

We've never been in trouble but the council are aware of what we do & we have heard that they don't like it much. As its public access, you would need (we beleive) a cinema license.

We also project out of our building onto the endofterrace house oposite us (large white wall with no windows). Its on a busy-ish crossroads & we've had such a good response - we've had people bringin us cake, booze, people beep their horns when they go past, people sit & watch for ages, even the police & emergency services like it - we always get a flash from 'em when they go past. Its kind of a local featurette now & everyone likes it.

I suppose it just depends where, when & what.

Will try & find some pics/dv ftge



projectors we've used

nec vt 400 - 1100 lumens
Elmo 253 omnigraphic slide projs

[murph]

2Bit - sounds awesome, what kind of stuff are you projecting from your building? just your regular sets, or political material, or what? I'm planning on moving downtown in a couple months, might be similar opportunities there, or from my car with an inverter, could be fun. =]

I remember preparing for a gig at the art institute, projecting on this huge white wall just one of my VCDs for a test, and when a show at the institute got out (children's production) the folks walking by loved it, were really curious as to what the hell it was and why it was there.

[AetherPan]

hello,

for the law reason. I don't think that you break any laws, if your videomaterial isn't against a law in your country. And in my country very important, if I would do so, I think I have to declaim this as a demonstration, and if my video demonstration would be "politically correct" then they would allow me to project, BUT i have to define where i project.

[2Bit]

it varies -

We've had slides with various thoughts/funnies that make people smile - 'When push comes to shoving I'd rather make some loving', 'my clothes say nothing about me' next to a picture of uncle jesse (Dukes of Hazzard) in full red neck getup, as well as various logos, dates for our own nights etc - At the mo' we've got a Foundation Sound (our roots n dub sound)logo slide & a crazy image of Lee Perry chanting down babylon in a crazy voodoo getup as we've got a night on Saturday

Video varies from films (koyanaqatsi, moon landing, 2001) to webcasts (Pirate TV etc) to short films/anims to live cams of us working to political stuff from GNN & undercurrents etc.


Mixed bag really - whatever we feel like.

[michaelheap]

i had the pleasure of living across from a white building for 3 years and having a kodak carosell with a timer, and a printer with acetate so i used to print slogans etc. and mount them,

people used to stand in the street to watch

m

[stimuleye]

Originally posted by InsideUsAll

Have any of you got examples of bits of video graffiti, it must have been going on for years!

Check out Jenny Holzer
http://adaweb.walkerart.org/context/artists/holzer/holzer1.html

she's been doing it for years. Early inspiration for me.
Tom

[KillingFrenzy]

I just bought a new toy that might come in handy here as well.
It essentially is a nicely sealed car battery with a meter on it, and a plug that you can fit an inverter into. They're sold as a "quick start" kit so that you just throw it inside your car and use it instead of jumper cables. They also are capable of being a power source via inverter.

My plan is to take this thing (bigger than a lunchbox and much heavier) and use it to power my projector. I'll probably just play footage off my dv Camera, which has long lasting batteries, so I don't have to use any more power off the big one. Should be enough for some guerrilla video attacks.

[elbows]

KillingFrenzy please let me know how your experiences with the battery and invertor go, as I am dreaming of a mobile VJ rig to trundle round Glastonbury 2003 and obviously power is going to be the big issue to solve.

[eps]

there was videograffiti part during recent dutch/russian art project 'debates & credits' [http://www.debates.nl/index.shtml?118+575+1661, http://www.balie.nl/d&c/en.html]

but i liked more setup of club events during that project, namely beaming live videomix of the party vjs onto the blank wall near the club. it really worked; though sometimes i've been worrying a bit about some content [of kinda hardcore-schizophrenic style ::]