What is the best thing you've ever seen?

[phluxm]

Simple. What is the best thing you've ever seen at a gig?

Personally it has to be the Warp Visuals team at Medicine bar, Birmingham UK.

They had a giant projection of this crazy 3D engine that rattled and span and warped and expanded and exploding- to an incredible soundtrack of extreme Aphex Twin-esqe sound battery.

It was just breath taking to watch. In total syncrony with the music. Unbelieveable. Followed by 4 robotic cameras mixing & filming Plaid playing live. Yay!

Also love the crazies at Sundissential- bearded ladies, people carrying toilets, Humpty dumpty raving, aliens (see the landing party at http://www.tribal-online.co.uk). Also saw the visuals of a group of performance artists blowing up ducks, driving down Broad Street in a cardboard car and skateboarding from a wardrobe, onto the stairs and straght into the front door. Love it.

[konsumgrafik]

Yeha Plaid rulez...

[Anyone]

the four looping heads of model 5
by austrian video artists Granular Synthesis have yet
to be topped in my charts...

[wellREDman]

One Giant leap at glastonbury this year inspired me like no visuals have done b4

[broadcaststorm]

The most amazing piece of work i have seen was about 7/9 months ago on Awakinings in Amsterdam ( The Westergas Fabrieken )

On some nice screens they showed a (dunno if you can call it simple) verry cool animation of a Kart weel (old an rusty) going over into a tractor wheel going into a Bycicle wheel going into a truck wheel going into a motor wheel and on and on and on !!

And the camera wasnt just steady no it was roling with the wheel while the scenery behind the wheel morphed with the wheel.

Ahhh......i just can't explain it in words but it looked totally amazing !!


(Btw. OFFCOURSE PLAID ROCKS !!)

[konsumgrafik]

I hope I will see then during the next Tour in NL with Onanon.
But it just a bit time to wait for it......
Btw. on MELT! 6 in Ferropolis there was also a nice show on the
saturdaynight from a berlin crew. I don?t know the name anymore.

[Common]

Definitely One Giant Leap - excellent stuff, that must be checked by all.

[monsho]

Warp Magic Bus Tour - Traveller, Newcastle june 02........fantastic!

.....you should have seen inside the tour bus aswell :)

[lala]

hey guys, I found this new vj site LALAFRIEND.com i think this direction is exciting as it includes real paintings and not all digital media.

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by lala
hey guys, I found this new vj site LALAFRIEND.com i think this direction is exciting as it includes real paintings and not all digital media.
Hmmmmm "found" huh???? strange that you emailed me yesterday saying "check out new VJ lala at lalafriend.com" if you want to plug your site cool, but don't pretend it belongs to someone else.....

Hmmmm ok whats so different about real paintings??? I have seen some VERY nifty stuff done in realtime @ parties with black paper, a white ink pen and a live cam :)

[complexvisuals]

Bit silly aswell cos your username is Lala.

[LEVLHED]

must think this is like mp3.com where the kids do anything to get someone to DL their stuff..

an "A" for effort, "D" for execution...

[phluxm]

Lala being a Tellytubby too! ;)

[syzygy]

You can see the amazing Warp visual 'machine' thing if you buy the Autechre gantz_graf DVD:

http://www.warprecords.com/mart/?param=/frameset.php?section=mart/frameset.php?param=order_frame.php?function=music/release.php?cat=WAP256

The music on the DVD is just as messed up as the visuals - it really is amazing. The machine is fully synched to the sounds and just blew me away when I first saw it.

There are a couple of other visuals tracks on the DVD which are also cool. I'd definitely recommend spending ?9 on it.

As you mention The medecine bar in Birmingham, I do visuals at three nights there:

Heducation
Prosession
Shaanti

(One additional night coming soon)

If any other VJs are in Birminham UK and want to come down to any of these nights then let me know and I'll sort out Guestlist places.

Dan.

(SyZyGy visuals)

[syzygy]

For me, nothing quite beats the visuals that Ninja Tune artists have, especially Coldcut.

The stuff I particularly like is the Hexstatic stuff (see the video for Coldcut's Timber for a sample)

They do wicked stuff with the simplest of clips and their work has real messages behind it. They are also the best visuals I have seen for bluring the lines between the music and the visuals - everything just seems to fit just right.

Dan.

(SyZyGy visuals)

[phluxm]

Yeah coldcut are amazin. Kinda prefer the Warp slant on it all though... : ) Just a bit more Frfref%%rfefrfefrf___-......kkkk"_kkk###!#KeSh* you've gotta love complete audio visual disintergration...

[mogwai]

it would probably be

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR!

in the Ambassador Theatre, Dublin, Ireland, earlier this year. Phenomenal.

Saw some shit-hot visuals at a Dublin electronica showcase last night in the Temple Bar Music Centre as well. Done by the D9 I think. Some b/w Godzilla film featured heavily, set to absolutely mind-blowing AFX/Raczynski/Paradinas-style electronica. Hell yeah.

jim

[eXhale]

ahh been listening to "godspeed you black emperor" for 3 days straight, will definitely go see them whenever they come back in europe :) what kind of visuals did they play?

[Amukidi]

I saw them in an old church in Colchester - awesome - they re-define the term "dynamics"!!! They were projecting scratchy B& W 16mm films onto a sheet at the back, can't clearly recall the content (!) but it was perfect for the gig.

[moon]

viva (http://www.viva.tv/vs.php) [german music channel] broadcasts a
show on sat.+sunday night 01:00 to 02:00 featuring a
dj[-team] and a vj[-team].

i reccon bahouse (http://www.bauhouse.de/press/video.html) are doin alright. could be the guys klangfarben
was mentioning previously ...

[moon]

gettin a bit too confused these days.
it's gotta be bauhouse obviously ...

[eirenah]

well i'd definitly say my favourite is VIDOK that does the visuals for Sofa Surfers. I saw them in Belgrade (in april this year) during their tour. Don't know how to describe it, but they (HE?) sure fits perfect on SofaSurfers music, and has this special touch for making the perfect atmosphere........

Irena

[cat]

Saw Godspeed at the Que Club in birmingham and the films were amazing, minimal but (for me) transfixing, everything from scratched film to a time lapsed skyscraper with clouds swirling around the top lit up by lights on thr roof, best time lapsed cloud footage I've seen!
And Cornelius a japanese guitar band(plus lots of cut up samples loops etc) The footage done with paint (theres some samples on his website http://www.cornelius-sound.com/ ) is amazing (drops of paint splatering in time to the music) and a long piece starting with water pouring form a tap on a black background and evolving into rotating microscopes, bunsen burns, thermometers all edited in time (thermometers were vu meters!) It was all running off dvd with the band playing to a click, and projected on to one big screen at the back

[krezrock]

gantz-graf hands down.

[karmavideo]

one of the best things I've ever seen...

OVT doing visuals for Rabbit n the Moon in Madison, WI. OVT's visuals are always outstanding, but the thing that was so fantastic was the fact that the 2 hour live set was timed to the visuals & timed to indoor pyrotechnics.

Very cool

[Amukidi]

's gotta be a hilarious "Sound of Music" clip that Hexstatic use on one of their new pieces. I saw this for the first time in Naxos and it both cracked me up AND blew me away! Hard to describe really, but its the opening of the movie - camera drifting over Bavaria, you remember, Then Jule comes in and sings: "The hills are alive etc, when she gets to the bit where she sings "With songs etc" the film goes into a loop of "With songs" Then in comes an ass buting beat in sync with the movie loop and off it goes! Fuckin awsome - I guess you had to be there, I'll get me coat

[scarab]

The best visuals i've ever seen was on a TOOL-Concert 2 years ago.
theire show is amazing and the light-visual cooperation was best class.
if you ever have the possibility to see TOOL live: GO FOR IT!!!! looks and feels like trippin' on acid eventhough you only had some spliffs!

[MoRpH]

I saw the TOOL show in australia this year and was pretty underwhelmed after how ppl had hyped it... I mean there was some nice stuff and the detail was nice but, I thought to much of it was just video clip samples and the relevance and sync to the music was a bit average, like simple retriggering of clips to the beat rather than sync of other sorts.

[scarab]

Originally posted by MoRpH
I saw the TOOL show in australia this year and was pretty underwhelmed after how ppl had hyped it... I mean there was some nice stuff and the detail was nice but, I thought to much of it was just video clip samples and the relevance and sync to the music was a bit average, like simple retriggering of clips to the beat rather than sync of other sorts.

the technics she (female VJ) used was not so interesting your right, but the clips and how they were used to music and expecially light was very impressing.
i have to say that one year later i saw them again, and the hole show was not half as good as the first one....
perhaps i made a good pick on the first one....

[MoRpH]

Yeah I heard absolutely amazing things about the video the tour b4, but my firends in attendance WERE completely mashed :p

[monsho]

saw DJ Shadow at Leeds uni last night, the visuals there were truly excellent......obviously were prepared for the set but still top class. Shadow was also playing an experimental drum beat thing but triggering the visual for each loop at the same time - basically it was a selection of clips from a drum tutorial vid all cut up and making the music from that........the future?!?

[levon]

i saw tool on the lateralus tour in 2002 and i was very impressed with the visuals, oh and btw the VJ is Camelia Grace of www.spiraleyes.com (also happens to be adam jones wife) the actualy materal was made by www.chetzar.com and her own company as well as parts from there film clips which are mainly directed by adam jones. recognise my avatar? :P (cam de leon)

imho the shows visuals wernt about clever fading/combining of clips, it was about the content which i think is more powerful as a message then the way they are put together in this case.

apart from that show the only visuals ive seen were at Radiohead earlier this year which i didnt think was as entertaining.

[MoRpH]

Interesting you should say that as I saw them on the sydney leg of the lateralus tour adn was pretty uninspired by them myself. I sort of had a pretty high expectation though after my br saw them on teh AEnema tour adn said the visuals were awesome. Can't really point out anything that I specifically disliked, jsut the general feel didn't seem to connected with the music and I found the content rather dull.

[machv]

Hexstatic are too good and I've been spolit watching various shows of theirs over the last six years.

Amukidi's first (iirc) demo reel made me cry with it's beauty - and I was at work when it happpened! :eek:

So far, this year the best visual to audio work I've seen is Ombudsman doing visuals for Ulrich Scnauss at the Big Chill 10th anniversary bash. Beautifully shot atmospheric visuals superbly mixed and coordinated to Ulrichs tribute to Shoegazing music (;) )

Though, I've yet to see a full Exceeda show yet and from what I hear I'll enjoy it.

[seex]

I cant seem to forget the visuals on the Pink Floyd Division Bell tour, saw them in wienna.

Anyone saw the Krafwerk tour de france? Ii only saw a recording of that, it must be amazing live!

[MoRpH]

Yeah the visuals last time Kraftwerk toured out here were excellently presented and midi triggered PERFECTLY, but they lacked any real sort of "live mix" mainly jsut being edited versions of the video clips themselves. Still looked gorgeous on a super wide screen.... actually I jsut botherd to dig up my online gallery of it.. have a look http://www.inthemix.com.au/photos3/030125-bdo3 ;)

[littlecatalyst]

best thing i've seen lately must have been the flaming lips, i don't know how they were controlling the visuals but they were perfectly synced, and mixed beautifully with all the playful mayhem onstage... a nice use of video mixing outside of the bommboomboomrooms

i wanna see that amukidi that made you cry!!!!

as for GSYBE: the most mazing thing i ever saw with them was just before i was there (they only had video end96-99). they had another film loop guy (now its 100% effrim/dave...) who had a rotating screen with 4 main panels and 2 projectors at 90 degrees; and in the corners he'd set up slides that were hitting cds that were twirling around.. so there were these flying images all over the space

[seex]

Thanks Morph, i missed their concert and they came to my town.... agrhhhh !!!

Im realy inspired by such shows, like Depeche Mode, also saw it on dvd, but that must be crazy to see live (did see it on a big screen tough). It was so simple but straight to the point.

[MoRpH]

Yeah I have all the depeche mode concert DVDs, I love corbjin's work... have to admit I like the simple stuff the best... I LOVE the video stuff on the screen for Black Celebration on the One night in Paris DVD, simple but PERFECTLY synced and POWERFUL

[akira_k]

When was this Kraftwerk show? it's ace! When they came here they had visuals but not in such an astonishing setup. It was completely and perfectly synced though, and that blew me away back then (1998). Never seen an A/V effort before that.

The Gantz Graf shit is awesome, I dind't know it was an engine that works live. Worth a check! I'll buy that DVD I presume.

So far I haven't seen anything that blew me away :( We never had any of these artists in this side of the world.

[seex]

Kraftwerk are on tour now

:: 17/07/2004, Arvika Festival, Arvika, Sweden
:: 06/08/2004, Festival of Benic?ssim, Castell?n, Spain
:: 08/08/2004, Festival Optimus Sudoeste, Zambujeira do Mar, Portugal

Take a look at the two videos on their site

turn up the voulme (http://www.astralwerks.com/kraftwerk/default.html)

[Anyone]

Yeah Morph,
loved depeche mode... how else'd you think I got a strapline like this? ;)

BTW this link is dead: http://morph.secondaryfusion.net

Ne1

[akira_k]

w00t seex, that is great! I hope they would come over here again but I doubt it :(

[apu]

Originally posted by seex
I cant seem to forget the visuals on the Pink Floyd Division Bell tour, saw them in wienna.

Anyone saw the Krafwerk tour de france? Ii only saw a recording of that, it must be amazing live!

i was lucky enough to see both Kraftwerk and Underworld at the same gig one after the other.

wickedness

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by apu
i was lucky enough to see both Kraftwerk and Underworld at the same gig one after the other.

wickedness I'm guessing that was on the same Big Day out tour I caught them both on over here..... if you go one level up from that gallery you can see my other galleries of Luke Slater and Underworld @ that same event :)

Oh and yeah that site is dead currently working on switching over to a new domain/hosting.

[FractalStar]

26 jumpers fly from Ostankino tower in a row, this time there be 50 )))))) (Info www.jumptower.com)

[apu]

Originally posted by MoRpH
I'm guessing that was on the same Big Day out tour I caught them both on over here..... if you go one level up from that gallery you can see my other galleries of Luke Slater and Underworld @ that same event :)

Oh and yeah that site is dead currently working on switching over to a new domain/hosting.

right Morph. It was BDO a few years back. massive massive day. very very inspiring to see those two acts. since then i have not seen anything like it.

Basement Jaxx came kind of close last year. kind of.......

[rhino]

I really liked Massive Attack last time they came out to Australia, slick. Radiohead still would of been amazing even if they only had a lava lamp on stage.

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by moon
viva (http://www.viva.tv/vs.php) [german music channel] broadcasts a
show on sat.+sunday night 01:00 to 02:00 featuring a
dj[-team] and a vj[-team].


Ah cool, was wondering if that was still running on Viva.
I suppose there is no VJ programing on Viva 2?

[vjpixylight]

It's pretty funny, i've seen a number of VJ's/visual act's, and being a VJ myself, I'm not alway's so impressed with most live visualz I've seen, but let me tell you what, I nearly shit mi pant's after being inudated with Madam Chao @ AVit Chicago:P

[LEVLHED]

Indeed, Madame Chao at AVIT Chicago!
...saw LOTS of VJs with jaws dropped...

I think avitUK should look into bringing him over!

[MoRpH]

Hmmmmm had a look around his site and must say I wasn;t majory impressed.... that said vj's sites most of the time are HARDLY representative of their live work.

[LEVLHED]

yeah,his site (http://www.madamechao.com/) does a good job at hinting at his vibe, but you simply must see his A/V thing to know what we're babbling on about.
of course realize that pix and I are on a tragic noise trip these days :)

[bassballs]

kraftwerk in copenhagen 2004, that is the best visuals I have seen to date, class and style in total harmony with the music.

BB

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by LEVLHED
yeah,his site (http://www.madamechao.com/) does a good job at hinting at his vibe, but you simply must see his A/V thing to know what we're babbling on about.
of course realize that pix and I are on a tragic noise trip these days :)
STILL :P :D

[eXhale]

Originally posted by vjpixylight
Ah cool, was wondering if that was still running on Viva.
I suppose there is no VJ programing on Viva 2? Viva-Zwei ist tot...

[vjfader]

I havn't had the opportunity to see a lot of live VJ shows, so I can't comment on best live VJ acts. But I just checked out these guys on the internet the other day, they were doing tip-top stuff over at Germany. They are a DJ/VJ collective called Bauhouse. Some of you might know their work. check out the videos.

http://www.bauhouse-archiv.de/video.html

The live stuff are just awsome. For example, the video titled "chanson ultimativ" it starts out with sampled American Idle type of footage, gradually builds up to rythmic dance beats. But you finally realize (here is the best part) what they are putting on the screen, was live performence earlier on the same TV show. They had sampled the broadcast footage, then use the clips for their performence. That's a bit mind blowing to me. All live sampling just few hours, even minutes before the performence.

the other one titled "rhythm.symphonic" has similar concept. This time with a live symphony orchestra, sampled their earlier performence and mixed into an A/V performence. Awesome

[vjpixylight]

Madam's video is mostly lowrez style fast cutup, but it was just that tho I have heard my share of hardcore and gabber, to actually witness both hard core/noisz/ and mad cutup visualz in one show was like Lev said,
jaw dropping..

Other hard core and techy good stuff I have seen comes from the Solid Rocket Booster's..
I saw them when they did a Pimp Arena in A'dam back in 2001..
http://www.veejay-nights.com/amsterdam/index.html

Something about crazy mad Audio Video noisz flying around the brain bucket
to give you a sorta virtual rollercoaster ride:)

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by eXhale
Viva-Zwei ist tot...

(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

[akira_k]

It is confirmed now that Kraftwerk _is coming_ to Buenos Aires, so I'll be having a field day this November when the Tour de France 2004 hits my city.

Second time I will see them, this time I won't make the mistake to get one of the relaxed tribune places, I'm going to the main field and will be all over their show :D

Looking forward to the visual show this time. I guess it won't impress me like it did in 1998, but from the pictures I saw posted here looks great and silky enough for me to like it.

[videobox]

I recently got the Blue Man Group DVD of "The Complex Rock Tour - Live". Very entertaining.

I watched the Kraftwerk videos on-line. I hope they change it up for different songs. The look was great, but the same thing for more than a few minutes will become very boring.

We don't get any visuals here in Houston, Texas. The couple of times that I went to a show advertised as having visuals, their were either none, or just some people with slide projectors who didn't have a clue. The only other persons I know of in Houston that does visuals is my friend Chris Keller:

http://www.somotion.com/artist.html

I guess I'll have to take a trip to Dallas or Austin...........

[Exavior]

The blueman show in vegas is a lot of fun. They have a lot of fun visual elements to their performance. Including two large glass tubes (a couple feet wide) with swirling tornados of smoke in them. Around the base is a series of statues in various poses like they are dancing around a fire. At one point in the show some strobe lights come on, and the statues begin to spin around in time to the flashes.

They also do some fun video presentations and visuals. Worth watching if you get the chance.

[sspeed]

sspeed best night with eyestormvisuals

one our latest techniques @ l5 night club was pretty amazing for this new b guy. ..
see link for live visual camera mix: CANON XL-1s

http://homepage.mac.com/soundspeed.us/iMovieTheater99.html

enjoy

soundspeed - sd.ca.92109

[robotfunk]

Really do you feel it's appropriate to hijack this thread with a blatant self promo?

Do you really think your work is the best you've ever seen?

[jaqx]

I have only downloaded some of their demo movies from their website, unable to see them live for the time being...

I loved what they do. Lately, I have observed that a lot of vj's are migrating from live video effects to live video composition. Monitor Automatique's Mixmasters video on their website is no exception to this. Most of the A/V synchro is done by camera movements. There is not much mixing, and layering is used cleverly, for instance to get the Berlin Commnications tower multiplied by four! There are many details on the video that make it delicate. An example, zooming on a building to discover someone closing a curtain on an apartment. The final shots of the video (theme park) are so vivid and colorful... Monitor Automatique definitely know how to find right movements on video, creating that audiovisual rythim characteristic from visuals that excel. Music is from Superpitcher, super good.

I also recommed their demo "Liebe ist cool".

This guys inspired me and I personally think they set a trend on live A/V.

[3YE]

... On the saturday night, in the main room, and the DJ dropped Gabba for two hours. It should have been a recipe for disaster but because everybody had a common idea of what works with gabba (ie war footage) it was like watching a five way visual conversation. It's hard to explain, but it was like watching a common dialogue evolving purely in the visual medium. instead of VJ's just battling (ie ego posturing) they we're actually exchanging concepts, showing each other similar clips and then extending on those themes before returning again to collectivised ideas to allow new forms to evlove.

Not my best night, or best gig, or best cinematic experience, but without doubt something i will have to wait a while to see again, if ever...

[brek3]

these germans are cool: www.zoozoozoo.net


www.batraquio.com.sapo.pt

[phluxm]

I have to say that Ecclectic Method were absolutely stunning when I saw em at Zoetrope - good on ya!! Really inspiring stuff - AV all the way

... and gawd daymn they funky !:nod:

[disassembler]

Recently saw PFADFINDEREI's viddy on a complilation DVD, it was about making spaghetti. I tips my hat. It's a must see.