AVIT SF - A Success

[vjnixmix]

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to thank everyone who came out to support AVIT. We didn't break even this year but it was a success regardless. We have advanced and accelerated the culture more than we have anticipated we could have. The tradeshow was beautiful and the showcase was energetic and inspirational. As many of us know this mission is not about the monetary gain - but about creating a future for ourselves.

As much as I constantly vow to give myself a break from the madness of AVIT planning - I have been re-energized and inspired to begin anew and continue to set the ground for future AVIT events. We need to get these events documented and catalogued - I need pictures, media, PR, web presence and anything else gathered together to present AVIT as what it has been up to now. Needless to say, with all the organizers being so busy this past weekend I didn't get as much on video as I would have hoped -- and I left my spare media card for the digital camera at the hotel on Saturday :( - so please please please post your Pics on www.avit.info in the gallery and send me copies of any video you have!!! I would really love you if you did :) Email me if you need shipping $ or tape reimbursement. [email]AGAIN - THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!!! AVIT isn't possible without the support of the sponsors and our community.

More soon -- recovery in progress , webupdates and press kits being produced :)

[topherz]

Congrats!
I wish i could have been there, for real. Left coast!

Looking forwards to seeing pictures and video.
-topherZ

[xiayu]

Originally posted by topherz
Congrats!
I wish i could have been there, for real. Left coast!

Looking forwards to seeing pictures and video.
-topherZ

oh it was lotz of fun, but you can always go to avit uk!

[spark]

yes, as always so much more that could be done and ideas aplenty - but it was a great success imho, lots of people expressing how glad they were they came and had got a lot from it. which, as an organiser, is all you can ask for. not that i organised this, tho - many props to grant in san francisco, niky+bishop and everyone who pitched in for a festival that never let the side down and really put this all on the map, a proper blip on the radar over here it seems.

anyway, enough from me: i've spent my time scrabbling between internet cafes to get the photo gallery going - there's 300 photos so far and an album for every part of the event.

if anybody has any more photos, just upload them to the website directly - its easy, go into the 'public upload' album and you'll see two red links for uploading single and multiple photos. if you have a whole folder of images (yay!) then get in touch and i'll send you the bulk upload instructions.

also - if you were there, please drop comments on the photos, names to faces, what was up etc...

http://www.avit.info/media/gallery/AVIT-NA04

toby

[vjpixylight]

..there just wasn't enuf peeps!!
and dancing enjoyment(in fact the only one I saw getting down was Murph and his girly)...
I know that SF is a hard place to get anything that is A/V going in a big way, but the turnout for such a media savy city was bleek!(possibly also because the date was conflicting with so many other thin'g going on..Which next time, I think we should get a much broader concensus of when to throw these event's..

I still feel a well organized Psy-trance AVit would bring together many more and new ppl, and produce an enviroment that would be amazing..
Don't get me wrong, the AVit SF had talent, beauty and brain's, just no vibe..

After 3 Avit's now, I still haven't been truely amazed at what has been their results..
Maybe I just need more..


Nix and Bish want to start making AVit's more regionalized, which I think is a damn good Idea, as it will produce more form's of A/V show's than just "break Beat Sync visuals"..
I'm going to start poking around the Colorado Ski/Snowboarding communities this next winter, and see how viable a AVit Aspen, Vail, Steamboat Spring's, or Breckenridge would be..

Anyhow, since there is need for some constructive critisim, (notice I am being constructive, by offering option's to the same old AVit way of bringing stale music and awesome visuals together..), I thought I might just start by asking...
"What was missing at AVit NA?"??

[holly]

Everyone take a breath. Pixy sounds a little negative, but I know he only wants the best AVit possible. Constructive, ok? No AVit bashing, or Pixy bashing.

Hey Pix, why not put up a gig review, eh?

[Rovastar]

Yeah I have been waiting for a gig review.

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by holly
Everyone take a breath. Pixy sounds a little negative, but I know he only wants the best AVit possible. Constructive, ok? No AVit bashing, or Pixy bashing.

Hey Pix, why not put up a gig review, eh?

Thursday Evening....
After driving about 22 hours to get to AVit SF, the space bunker cru arrived at D7's warehouse to a fantastic reception from Ben Sheppe(thanks mate!), and had just enuf time to get over to the lovely venue, which was for the time, 'Avit Theatre..'

It was a bit strange watching VJ's sitting down, and in a more threatrical enviroment, but the vast majority that came to the theatre, seemed to enjoy the program..
The first performer's were Scott Pagano and Christopher Willits.
Their presentation was interesting, and had some nice section's and nice abstract A/V, but IMHO, was much to much repetative in nature, and didn't really bust loose..
That said, it was certainly the right venue for the art, and, was in some ways, very inspiring toA/V artists like myself, exploring abstration and noisz.

After the opening act, came the Light Surgeon's, and they certainly brought to AVit SF, a kind of artistry that I am sure is going to be used by many more A/V group's in the future..
They performed a narrative piece, that was for the most part actually easy to follow, and actually told a story!!
Hat's off to these A/V masters!

The Friday nite LRV warehouse event was also quite nice as it was held at 'Cellspace' in SF, which is prolly one of the best venues around SF for this kind of an event..
The music was good (at least more to my liking than the dreary BB stuff that seems to be the AVit status quo), and the VJ's were spread out quite nicely thruout the space..http://www.avit.info/media/gallery/na04-lightrhythm/LRV_MainFloorBeamer
It was this part of AVit that I had the best time being part of, and was also had the best overall enviroment(art wise).

Saturday brought on the educational workshop's and product sponser's wares, and was steady in the amount of peep's thru the door's..
There was also some good VJ discussions, and some new toy's to play with..
After wrapping up the daytime activities of AVit SF, (and after almost literally loosing my head to a low parking garrage entrance, and eating the best family made Pakastani meal I have ever had), came the main event: "Avit Showcase..."
(unfortunatly I missed the open acts and sherriff tv, but got back in time to witness Tino Corp. and DJ Shadow..http://www.vjmud.com/pixy/Showreels/Other-VJ'sMixes/VJShowreels6-19-04/Shadow-TinoCorp.mov, (IMHO) had an average show, nothing that really visually stood out as a cut above the other A/V act's I've seen(maybe I was looking for more from Meat Beat Manifest, but it was indeed, cool to see Shadow scratching DVD's on the DVJ deck.) I can see how this it would appeal to the scratch/hiphop crowd, but as with most of the video scratching, it is usually on media that someone else made, and so it was with Shadow's media. (scratching old rock star movie clip's)
The one problem with scratching recognizable media, is that it seems to be the only A/V sync media ppl scratch. I would guess that is because it is so recognizable to peep's who normally wouldn't notice what a VJ does in performance..
(BTW, Shadow wasn't even officially on the schedual, so this was a special added treat.):yep:

The Showcase overall, (though very well organized by Grant{D7} and the Simplistic's, just never seemed to get the vibe really going, and by 3:00 AM, had all but shutdown..It was really a bit like the AVit Brighton showcase as well in that respect..
It makes me ask myself, "Does our artform lead to over peeper fatique?? I have to wonder???
It was a shame that more peeps didn't showup, and again that might have been because of the weekend that AVit was being presented, was also the "Gay Pride March weekend in SF" and so I feel that it would have been far better to do AVit SF the week before Burningman (www.burningman.com) ..(maybe next time the power's that be will listen more to the VJC membership, although I am not sure how much that this AVitSF was etched in stone very early off)
Some other honrable mention's for the AVit Showcase are VJ MMM's mix along with the Italian VJ(sorry I never got his name, someone help me out here..)mix, which together was one of the more compelling visual showcases..
I especially like the style of the Italian VJ, as he
seemed a bit more original with his style of mixing computer screen/graphic's and flash together..

Another honrable mention to Dr. Spook, (who in my book, is one of the TOP 3D visualist's in the world today!!(check out www.geomagnetic.tv)
and http://www.vjmud.com/pixy/Showreels/Other-VJ'sMixes/VJShowreels6-19-04/VJDrSpook.mov (48.9 megs QT5)

So...
another AVit has came and went, and tho the VJ world is now starting to open up more and more, I can't help but feel, that AVit's are going to become a creature of the past, unless we can find a way to bring the appeal of live A/V and VJ art to the common peeps..

BTW, a 'Superstar VJ' won't be the engine that accomplishes this, so my biggest recomendation to AVit, is to start including more art into the event..
VJ's are great, but can't carry something like AVit alone...
We need more Deco, More Dancing, and More real solid AV, before we start becoming noticed outside of out little circle here in VJ Land...

Anyhow, that's JustAPixy's 2 cents...

[holly]

Um.:confused:

It doesn't sound so bad to me.... Was it just not crowded enough to be a really over-the-top blow out? It might take a few years to generate that kind of momentum.

What about the conferences/products/classes? My friend Joshua Goldberg went to teach Dervish. I found his photo in the gallery (make mental note to go annotate).

[InsideUsAll]

hats off to all involved :D

shame i missed this one.

I'm in agreement with Jym tho, AVit has never really lit my fire music wise. Apart from maybe the stanton warriors & freq Nasty at the first AVit in leeds, but that said - their sets weren't amazing, we just had enough of a crowd to get the vibe going.

Its difficult to find the compromise between VJ community event, and public showcase event, maybe we shouldn't be trying to achieve both things at the same time?

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by holly
Um.:confused:

It doesn't sound so bad to me.... Was it just not crowded enough to be a really over-the-top blow out? It might take a few years to generate that kind of momentum.

What about the conferences/products/classes? My friend Joshua Goldberg went to teach Dervish. I found his photo in the gallery (make mental note to go annotate).

Avit's are going to have to become more regional affair's(at least in the states) as the $$ is just not available to do big SHOWCASE kind of event's....yet!;)

The educational part, I never got a chance to check out, as I was helping out at the Arkaos/M-Audio booth all day, and sorting out the webcast connects and such:(

Maybe Miss Nix(who I hope isn't:mad: at me for trying to stay somewhat objective and realist here on this review..) could do a report on the educational aspect's of AVit SF?

BTW, I would also say that all the organization, and presentation, and hard work that ALL the ppl involved with AVit SF put into it, REALLY showed how PROFESSIONAL the ppl are who do AVIt's and are regular's in these forum's are!!!
Big UPS to TOBY(Spark) as well for heading up the whole AVit experience worldwide, and cheers mate, for immeasurable optimisim!!!
And of course huge praise to the Lightrhythm Visuals cru and VideoJon, for a Warehouse party that did bring deco/art/and visuals together in a space that just couldn't have gotten much better!!!:jump2:

oh and yea josh was with (in the VW bus) the group that almost saw me loose my head, and is the subject(along with Scott DravesAKA Spotworks)
of an AVit Interview we taped (and was the reason I was late in getting to the Showcase..)

One more note about AVit Showcase SF, and that was it was not without it's demon's and controversies..(I lost my main VJ computer(I don't even get a startup screen anymore)and has hence been a week of way too many equipment failures) and.....more importantly...

It seem's Pure Dekam was never allowed to go on, and noticeable annoyed Johnny Dekam, and couls have caused a schism..
Let's hope it can be paved over, as it happened last year at AVit Chicago as well to I/O, and cost AVit some excelent A/V performer's(I/O)..

[vjnixmix]

and prevent all the bad things from happening we would. In my opinion there is more negativity being ommitted here than necessary - I thought there was an awesome vibe at the showcase and was told by many performers and people there that they thought this is what set AVIT aside from everything else.

I must say I am a bit sad to see this kind of initial response and I feel stupid for having to defend AVIT on VJC of all places. okay Pixy - I know you realize what goes into something like this... sometimes it isn't perfect - but yes in the same thought I appreciate critism - sometimes the critism comes stronger than the praise. I guess I take critism too serious since I feel personally accountable to it.

For an event to sustain itself there needs to be a lot of things. And I know anyone who has thrown any kind of event has experienced the frustrating side of pulling in enough people and all these factors that make or break a budget. In my personal experience I have had a lot of people say they will come out to support the cause and then when it comes down to it - they don't show up.

As far as the performances Pixy mentioned (while I am not one to air these things publically - how pixy put it made it sound bad)- Johnny DeKam opted out of his performance, partly due to the showcase loosing attendance earlier than we expected and partly due to other things going on to influence this decision that were entirely out of AVITs control. Bad programming on AVITs behalf - maybe, but how could we know this - we thought that time-slot would be one of the best. As far as last year is concerned -- that could have been avoided had we not had major technical issues from ground looping through the projectors, That gallery had never seen so much gear and we weren't prepared to stop an s-vid ground loop. The schedule got pushed and there was a misunderstanding - my fault - regarding whether or not a group (equlei) was a/v. I still strongly believe I could have mediated the situation at that time - had I been notified. Well whatever the reasons ... I am sorry for these things that happen and there is always going to be these annoyances as long as AVIT is a community event run by people who give there own personal time and energy to make it happen. All I can say is that we are only human. We try very hard to make everyone happy - which I am certain you will agree is impossible.

Again here comes the point of AVIT Sustaining itself. Maybe could we have paid the performers a proper wage - which is what we are collectively working toward with AVIT -- we might not have had some of these issues arise - who knows. Of course we all want to get paid and support our habits... maybe even with AVIT in full swing - this won't come in time to save our artform?

How about "What are things you liked about AVIT, Some things you would like brought back again, and some things you don't?"
(on a more positive note please)

Suggestions on the future of AVIT are always welcome and of course so is your involvement. If you don't like it - step up and do something. (right pixy ;) ) I still sustain that it is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them.

[vjnixmix]

I started a new thread under Future AVIT Events - Called AVIT North America - What next located here:

http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=7375

Please contribute.

[vjTranceKoder]

because of beautiful people like those at the Spacedub Family, I/O was able to flex at the Crown Chakra open air event in Colorado after missing our slot at AVIT NA#1. IMO a better experience than AVIT could've ever delivered (unless it was called "AVIT CO" instead of "Crown Chakra") mainly because everyone came out for free, it was a 3 day psy-trance "family" event, and it was in the middle of nowhere rocky mountains! Anyway, much love out to you pixy for your praise...and for the record I/O was NOT bitter about what happened at AVIT Chicago because we understand that plans are not reality, and sometimes sound systems and projectors decide when the show actually starts (as Danno will surely remember).

About the regional AVIT's of the future, I think that is the way to go for sure, in the US at least. There is so much talent and the States cover alot of area. I couldn't make it to AVIT SF because of the distance and expense, but if it were in CO or Dallas, TX that would've been no problem. From what I remember AVIT was originally about community. I think we need to get back to that. AVIT is about people and relationships. To me that is all it should be about. I don't want to see some "superstar VJ" at AVIT, that is unless he/she does not claim to be one;) Point being it is relationships that we remember most, more than some abstract visuals, BB's, and cool deco.

Nonetheless I will ALWAYS respect those that put forth the effort to organize these events. Wish I could've been there.:love:

[holly]

Hey Dallas! Excellent video by the way! I loved it! 444=2 DVDs! Wow! I write you a real email soon, ok?
:yep:

[vjTranceKoder]

Thank you, Holly:o

I must say that peice you did puts me in a trance everytime:crazyeyes I enjoyed the others as well, especially MOSTRA and Amoeba Technology.

Just for the record Holly and I traded DVDs so that we could appreciate each others efforts:nod:

I'm trying to get all my NY friends to go and see eyewash sometime. One of them has been working on Flaming Lips video/art for years now. I'm going to convince him to go and bring along some content
;)

[vjpixylight]

So what I see AVit as accomplishing is in creating this community vibe..
I like that, and for that AVit by nature is a success!!

In critiqueing AVit, I mearley look at how this Community vibe translates out to the great viewing public..

We have a great community here, and I would say that AVit's are most deinately one of the reason's..

Cheer to AVit!

[vjculture]

Gay Pride is this weekend, not June 11-12th.
There are always tons of events happening in SF. No matter what weekend you choose there will be lots of choices. (More than most other cities).
The main reason we choose not to host AVIT close to burning man is that there are hundreds of Burning Man camp benefits happening during the month of Aug. The clubs are dead during Aug. because everyone is at benefits. Any local from SF can tell you that is the worst time to host an event.
It's those kind of insider issues that the general public doesn't know about and if we were to explain all these details to the list we would be online all day and not getting our organization together.
There a few things that the we would have liked to see happen differently but, a lot of it comes down to compromises. Budget issues, location issues, artist?s issues all played a factor in how everything went down. For the most part I feel AVIT was successful.
My personal goals for AVIT were.
1. Bring together the community.
2. Bring awareness to the manufactures and developers that there is a growing and established community.
3. Inspire and raise the production level of individual artists.
I think we accomplished all of those.
1. We had a large volunteer base from all corners of the light based art community. So not only did people come together to perform, they came to help and to learn.
2. From an industry perspective it is known that there is a growing demand for VJ related products and an established community. Additionally, the developers and manufactures got to here directly from the artists what they want in a product.
3. The Light Surgeon show and a number of the VJ's (like Pascal from Italy) showed that there is more to content than the usual 3D objects floating in a psychedelic background, or found footage cutup in random fashion w/ a few VJ software effects thrown on top of it. (though that is what some of our headliners did)
It is good to hear from Jym who has been to 3 AVITs, so thanks for your perspective.
What would I have done different? Not put me in-charge of the money and started 3 months earlier.

[unjulation]

"So what I see AVit as accomplishing is in creating this community vibe..
I like that, and for that AVit by nature is a success!!

In critiqueing AVit, I mearley look at how this Community vibe translates out to the great viewing public..

We have a great community here, and I would say that AVit's are most deinately one of the reason's..

Cheer to AVit!"

ah.........so......"damed if we do and damed if we dont" then eh?

folks come on now, we have 3 options -

1) total comunity ad-hoch anachy style

2) total corprate your names not down your not comeing in style

3) some kind of muteated mateing between the two

now as much as i can get of on the first two it doesnt seem to sustain the ommmphhh factor

this realy comes from being pissed with the moans of comunitty, and then the moans of not pro enough..........

if you take the first couple of points ov view then wichever you belive in then you undoubtably be disapointed by it not liveing up to your perceptions/dreams

but if you take the third as a posiable viable option then we are into unkown teriorty 'cos non of us have any clue how realy to create the space in which it could florish

i kindas serpose it goes with lots of things we are trying to do - create spaces that we havent managed to be in yet

i must admit we do keep geting close but no one has done it yet cos outherwise this kind of conversation would be an irelavance ;)

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by vjTranceKoder
because of beautiful people like those at the Spacedub Family, I/O was able to flex at the Crown Chakra open air event in Colorado after missing our slot at AVIT NA#1. IMO a better experience than AVIT could've ever delivered (unless it was called "AVIT CO" instead of "Crown Chakra") mainly because everyone came out for free, it was a 3 day psy-trance "family" event, and it was in the middle of nowhere rocky mountains! Anyway, much love out to you pixy for your praise...and for the record I/O was NOT bitter about what happened at AVIT Chicago because we understand that plans are not reality, and sometimes sound systems and projectors decide when the show actually starts (as Danno will surely remember).

About the regional AVIT's of the future, I think that is the way to go for sure, in the US at least. There is so much talent and the States cover alot of area. I couldn't make it to AVIT SF because of the distance and expense, but if it were in CO or Dallas, TX that would've been no problem. From what I remember AVIT was originally about community. I think we need to get back to that. AVIT is about people and relationships. To me that is all it should be about. I don't want to see some "superstar VJ" at AVIT, that is unless he/she does not claim to be one;) Point being it is relationships that we remember most, more than some abstract visuals, BB's, and cool deco.

Nonetheless I will ALWAYS respect those that put forth the effort to organize these events. Wish I could've been there.:love:

cheers mate!
you are exactly right !
Avit is about establishing community, meeting ppl that you never would meet otherwise..
those who pull events together are going to benefit, and those that attend are going to benefit. It should always try to achieve that, so in those term's this AVit was successful.
I think Unj has it... we'll know when we get it right, and hopefully we can take these experiences to get it there;)