Audio/Visual Culture

DVJ X1 For Sale $1600.00 with case (Local only)

2008-07-01T18:35:00.001-07:00

www.vjculture.com

So before I put this up on ebay I wanted to offer it to the community first.

The DVJ X1 is the first release model of the Pioneer DVJ models. It is the more expensive model due to the Component out on the back.
Specs can be found here.

It is in very good condition and has only been used at gigs maybe 10 times.
It has all the updates.

I prefer to sell it locally, cash only. You can come by and try it out before purchasing.
It comes with this nice hard case that cost me around $250.00

Eventually, I'll be posting in on Ebay. Maybe in a week if it doesn't sell locally.
You can email me at vjculture at gmail dot com

Skills edt. POP 08 May 24th

2008-05-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com
It's been a month of production. Now, this weekend May 24th we will create environments for 4 rooms at Skill's POP 08. Tiesto again is headlining.
You can find out who all the DJ's are here.
It's the VJ's that are going to rock this party
Simplistiks WI in the DnB room
Brotherhood of Light SF in the Breaks Room
Opticus LA in the House room
VJ Culture in the main room
Plus, we will all be mixing it up in each of the various rooms.
Here are pics from last year.
This year's show is at the Cow Palace in S. San Francisco
18,000 capacity.
Our largest screen yet. 30x40ft + a LED wall for the main stage.

Video installations outside the Getty

2008-05-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com

May 9th-10th at the Getty Los Angeles Freewaves curated 18 video art pieces in conjunction with The Getty's California Video exhibit. The videos were projected around the gardens of the Getty center.
The execution of the installations was done very well. Massive 10k projectors on truss sticks strapped down in creative ways, a program guide with maps of the Getty complex with locations of each installation, a theme of dualities, culture and nature.
I found myself walking the Getty gardens thinking to myself, "This is so square" (or at least 4:3 maybe 16:9) I was hoping to see a more conscious placement of the videos on the projected surface. Maybe taking the video outside of its rectangle box and projecting the pieces as temporary art pieces specifically designed for that surface.
Instead it was just the novelty of viewing video outside in the gardens. Mind you this is still more interesting than 80% of the video art pieces exhibited inside the Getty for the main exhibit.

Video art, as exhibited by some of the leading world museums today raises the question. "Is everyone who posts a video on user generated content sites a video artist? The quality of production, performance and narrative exhibited at these museums is not that different from what you see everyday on these sites. Granted, most of these pieces are a historical reference to the work produced two and three decades ago. But if the museums continue to focus on the historical video artist, viewers may well believe that there isn't much difference from what they see on youtube and what exists in the museum. The difference of video art vs painting is the level of technology involved. It's arguable to say that a strong video art piece is not about the technology, it can stand the tests of time. This is true, as a video artists myself I battle with the ideas that I could never produce the same level of production the movie studios are knocking out everyday. Yet this is what the viewers have come to expect.
Fortunately the current trend in design is not slick, well produced videos. It leans more on clever ideas and storytelling than technical production. Much like the strong video art pieces. This is great for video artists right now, but it is a trend and to the general viewer indistinguishable between what is online and what deserves to be placed in a museum.
For video art to continue evolving I believe the video pieces need to have a stronger focus on site specific installation. At "California Video" I was really moved by two pieces, Jennifer Steinkamp and Bill Viola's The Sleepers. Jennifer worked her installation into the architecture the museum and created an environment. (Or maybe it was the other way around). Either way her piece encompassed sculpture, architecture, painting and movement.
Video art today needs to stand out from all the viral videos, user generated content and random video captured in black and white with the shaky hand labeled, "Art". It needs intention with where it will be viewed and thinking outside of the 4:3 or 16:9 box.

Beatport Stage at Remix Hotel during WMC ०८

2008-05-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com
During Winter Music 08 Remix Hotel and Beatport hosted a stage at the National Hotel.
Edirol and I curated 12 VJs to perform over the 4 days.

Big Screen Images of San Francisco provided us with a 13x9ft LED screen for day and nighttime visuals. Everyday from 2:00PM to 9:00PM VJs and DJs rotated through the stage.
Heavy hitters like Ritchie Hawtin, M.A.N.D.Y., Bad Boy Bill, performed on the stage.
Edirol provided us with the unreleased P-10 Presenter and V8 video mixer, in addition to the CG-8 and PR-80. They were also kind enough to pay the VJs for their performance.
The video is a highlight of the 4 days. Most of it was shot on my little digital still camera. Thanks to VJ demencia for the extra footage.
The VJs that performed were:
Benton-C NYC
DVJ Optikal South Beach
Justin Kent Miami
United Vision NYC
VJ Culture SF/LA
VJ Demencia NYC
VJ Dubassy London/Marseille
VJ Omni Orlando
VJ Psyberpixie Miami
VJ Shakinda Ireland
VJ Tek LA
VJ V2 LA

Here is a link to the interviews from Remix Hotel. In this video I'm talking about the curating process.
Out of the 4 days, this was my favorite track.

Red Bull Art of Can 360 green screen shoot

2008-05-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com
Currently working on Red Bull's Art of Can for Houston TX. The gallery opens July 12th and Larry and I are working on the 360 rotations of the artist's work. We shot the 360's in Houston at VT2 studios. Some pieces were too big to do 360 rotations.
checkout the final pieces at
In this picture we had to use all the green screen material we could just to create enough coverage for this piece.

This shot provided by Larry shows our setup. Some of these pieces required elaborate lighting and masking because of the highly reflective material of the can. Green screen spill and reflection can create huge headaches in post. Some of the shots required shooting through glass and still getting a clean key. The final product was rendered to flv as a alpha channel.

VJ Workshop April 29th Los Angeles CA

2008-04-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com

The VJ coarse has an official date.
Date: Tuesday, April 29 from 7-10pm
Location: TELIC Arts Exchange
975 Chung King Road
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-344-6137
Teacher: Grant Davis. (VJ Culture)
Limit: 18 people
Fee: $35.

The Public School www.publicschool.org is offering a new format for learning. Anyone can teach and anyone can sign up for a classs. Once enough people sign up, the class is offered.
As a visual artist with a decade of experience I'll be offering classes taught on two of the popular VJ software on the market t today, Arkaos and Modul8.
This is a beginner course that will teach users compression formats, midi control for video, composition, cabling for installation.
The course will cover the fundamentals of Arkaos VJ and Modul8.
Students will get hands on experience with some of today VJ hardware (DVJ's, V4, CG-8, Kaptivator, Entrancer, motion.dive.tokyo, NuVJ and numerous midi controllers.
sign up at www.thepublicschool.org (Search, "VJ")
Bring your laptop and plug in.

Lunatic Fringe!!

2008-04-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com
This is a video I created with Igor Len from Roland. We were commissioned to do an A/V set at NAMM in 06 to promote motion.dive.tokyo. This is one of the tracks.
The audio is Igor Len.
Most of the graphics are from the motion.dive.tokyo sample library. The live action is from various Red Bull Ascension parties.
Good ole Ronald!

Facebook Party during SXSW

2008-03-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com

Facebook hired Lumens to create a branded environment for a series of parties during SXSW in Austin TX.
Our challenge was to use the existing space and brand it tastefully. The challenging part was the space itself.

I used Modul8 software to create the masks and replicate the logos on the sails. Then I rendered it to disk and made DVD's for the 4 projectors. The sails flanked the sides of the room and we used blue LED color washes to tint the room blue.

Amsterdam and the rise of the VJ

2008-03-21T10:17:00.001-07:00

www.vjculture.com
In my free time during my travels I like to photograph street art and examine club flyers. One, for their design but two, to see if they list the VJs on the flyer. From my experience, Tokyo and Amsterdam seem to have the highest number of VJ listings on the flyers.

David Starfire and I took some time to explore Amsterdam after Musikmesse.
We met some incredible people and enjoyed exploring the city.

Cat in a store front window.
Cats are all over Amsterdam due to a rodent problem. (better than pesticides

StarCulture rocks Musikmesse 08

2008-03-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com

Pictures from StarCulture set at Musikmesse Frankfurt Germany

David Starfire and I performed 3 times a day at the Edirol booth.
Using the Edirol V8 and P-10 (Just released this week), along with the CG-8 and motion.dive.tokyo.
David was using Ableton Live, Roland Hansonic, PCR-300 and a bass guitar.
MIDI was sent back and forth controlling and syncing the visuals and audio.
Ableton acted as the main backbone for MIDI.
In the near future I'll release a youtube video of mapping Ableton midi patterns to the CG-8. It's opened a whole new world for me.
David and I met some wonderful people at Musikmesse, now we are off to Amsterdam.

new Edirol products

2008-03-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

www.vjculture.com
I'm working the show right now. I'll give a review later.
P-10 SD card visual presenter

The V8, the big brother to the V4

The back of the V8
The VGA acts as a scan converter.

Back of the P-10

Spring Schedule and it's looking Great!!

2008-03-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com
March 9th-11th
SXSW, 2 events for Facebook at Pangea in Austin TX.
Lumens will provide visual support for 2 days of Facebook events.
Then, on the 12th we move it all to the Red Bull Moontower until the 15th.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SXSW-Festival/7826953993
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=8686384634&ref=pb
At the same time
I head to Frankfurt Germany
March 11th-15th
Musikmesse Frankfurt
It's like NAMM but bigger, smokeier, louder.
David Starfire and I will be unveiling new Roland/Edriol products for the VJ community.
(I'll have photos and reviews on the day of the release).
David and I will be presenting, "StarCulture" our A/V collaboration
March 26th-30th
WMC Miami Beach
Remix Hotel is hosting another 4 days of conferences, demos, classes and best of all....Beatport's poolside parties. (more to come on the artist performing)
I'll be working with Edirol to curate and manage 12 VJ's over the coarse of 4 days.
April 2-9th
Maui HI
Video shoots for Xarene's thesis and documentation of interactive pods.
April 22-25th
Houston TX
Video shoots for Red Bull Art of Can. (More green screen 360 artwork shoots)
May 24th
San Francisco CA
Skills presents Electro Techno POP.
Now at the Cow Palace with 15,000 raving kids.
3 rooms of immersive environments
http://skillsdjworkshop.com/pop08/
May 28th -31st
Italy
404 Festival
StarCulture Live A/V with David Starfire and VJ Culture
http://www.404festival.com/eng/home.htm
June 13-16th
Istanbul Turkey
VJ Fest.

Skills Electro Techno Disco love 2/16/08

2008-02-19T12:53:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com
Feb. 16th 2008
Electro Techno Disco Love SF @ Regency Ballroom.
Animation of the flyer. Individual DJ name titles were also animated based off the design elements of the flyer. (I love it when they give me layered photoshop files of the artwork). that didn't happen this time.

For the main stage we had 2 8ft spheres in the upper corner of the stage provided by Inflate-a-bil.
3 screen surrounding the DJ booth on stage. The content could be separated for the spheres and screens. Mixing and matching at times.
As you can see in one of these videos. The LD was using the strobe effect WAY TOO much. All night long! I had to wear sunglasses because the strobes were positioned right next to the screens. LDs, take note.... Strobes are for accenting the environment. Maybe used 2 or 3 times during the coarse of the night. Not, for constant strobing to the beat.
It was a long night of mixing, (7 hours straight).
Sean Cooper held down the house room (As this party had 3 rooms and 3000 kids).
Since I was tied to the VJ suite I never took any photos of house room.
The theme was Valentine. Pinks, flowers, hearts, etc.
The audio is poorly recorded because it was captured on my digital still camera.

StarCulture Live A/V @ Culture Catch MacWorld Afterparty

2008-02-12T21:20:00.001-08:00

www.vjculture.com

This is a quick little video of David Starfire and VJ Culture's live A/V performance called StarCulture. Filmed at the MacWorld 08 afterparty, "Culture Catch.

Earlier in the day David and I provided demos and shared our creative workflow for our live audio/video (a/v) sets.

Photos and video from NYE Vegas and San Francisco

2008-01-29T17:09:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com
On NYE I over booked myself with two events I just couldn't pass up.
Literally, I agreed to do them within 14 hours of each other back in Nov. I thought if I use all of Dec. to produce both events and use my best personal resources I can pull it off.
We did, but it wasn't an easy ride.
San Francisco
Sea of Dreams NYE. I've done this event a few times in the past. Going back to 2001 it seems almost every other year. It's one of San Francisco's largest NYE events and for the past few years it's been held at the Concourse. A venue that can easily hold 8000 people.
I had an ambitious stage design concept of a mirror ball, circular truss and an "X" shaped screen design. (Never one to settle for just rectangular screens).
This is what our original design called for.
graphic design by inflatabill.
This was the main stage and in the second hall we had 3 large circular screens.
We used DVD's that I created with a circular mask and a Edirol v4 to create the circular mask shape. I wasn't sure about the throw distance with the projector so I made numerous size circles and then created chapters in the DVD to jump between sizes until I found the one I thought fit the screen best.
The "X" shape was created as a png file and hacked into the edirol PR-80 media server. It allowed me to mix two layers of content underneath the "X" mask. Specially designed content was created by Xarene, Kev lar and myself.
This was created by Xarene.

We designed video with the intention of bouncing it off the mirror ball to create a syncronized lighting effect with the video screens. Fragments of light would bounce off the ball and shoot across the "X" screen and 8ft spheres at the front of the stage.
Never mind the girl, you can see how the video was designed to work with the mirror ball. Photo credit tracy b.

Between the Red Bull Vegas gig and the San Francisco Sea of Dreams party I choose to be in San Francisco on NYE.
The Vegas show was in the parking lot of the Palms Hotel. Robbie Maddison broke the world record for longest motorcycle jump. It was televised on ESPN as the midnight east coast as the midnight celebration.
Here is a youtube video of the jump. The edit is a little dramatic.

However, I was flying back and forth between SF and Vegas everyday from the 27th to the 2nd. Then driving a van back from Vegas to Los Angeles on the evening of the 2nd.
I was fried..
Each morning I was getting up at 5:00AM to catch a flight between the two cities. In Vegas on the evening of the 30th I was working with John Taylor until 5:00AM in 33 degree temperatures in Las Vegas trying to fly Hexagon screens outdoors, with no stage backdrop. (I was promised a backdrop so I could hang these screens and register the projector). I never got the backdrop, something about the stage wasn't secure enough for a backdrop if the wind kicked up.

This was one of my toughest nights in my career. It was freezing, we had to jump into the van every 20 minutes just to bring our core body temperature up. Then, jump out and continue working. The budget had been slashed, I didn't have enough crew and most important I didn't have the backdrop I need to install these hexagon screens. It was only John and I late into the evening. In the end we never used the hexagon design for the backdrop. The television crew wanted to see the iconic Palms Hotel as it's stage backdrop. All the man hours creating content for the hexagons, the hours building the hexagon screens and of course that whole night trying to install them.
Back in LA Vello from V Squared Labs was creating content for the hexagon's and he was coming out the next day to VJ the event while I was in San Francisco.
Vello did a great job on content creation and the client loved what he did with the media provided. He ended up VJing on the large LED screens placed around the parking lot of the Hotel.
Here is a link to a flickr page from someone in production
And here is the link to the official Red Bull page.

Here is an interview with VJ Fader on VJ.tv. I'm talking about the challenges of producing two events on New Year's Eve in two different cities.

StarCulture Live A/V at Macworld and Macworld Afterparty Jan. 17th. Thursday SF CA

2008-01-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com

VJ Culture and David Starfire present StarCulture a live Audio/Visual experience.

Jan. 17th Thursday.
At Macworld SF (Best Buy Booth-South Hall) 12:00, 2:00 and 4:00PM

MacWorld afterparty
E.A.T. NOW!
Entertainment - Art - Technology
A Party Celebrating Macworld 2008!
Sponsored by
Shure & Metreon
Thursday, January 17th
7pm - midnight
Metreon
(4th Floor, City View)
101 Fourth Street, San Francisco CA
(Adjacent to Moscone Center)
Celebrate and dance to today’s cutting edge djs and video artists
and their Mac-created, Mac-produced art and entertainment!!!
Live Music
StarCulture www.myspace.com/star_culture 8:15PM
Nyles Lannon www.nlannon.com
:: Z :: www.zyzzyzonemusic.com
Von Iva www.voniva.com
Performance Art
Torsten Kretchzmar www.kretchzmar.com
VJs
VJ Culture www.vjculture.com
Chuck Henderson www.fishrock.com
Spook www.geomagnetic.tv
Videolicious www.lucination.com
Live Digital Painting
Andrew Jones www.androidjones.com
Installations
Rabbit Holes www.rabbitholes.com

Tickets: $10
(payable at the door)
Cash Bar

Information & Performance Schedule:
www.CultureCatch.com/events

Video Riot and Video Salon on Tech TV 2004

2007-12-09T10:31:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com

In 2004 Tech TV came to one of our video Salons and interviewed us about a segment on video art. They also covered our annual Video Riot.
Video Riot takes Video Salon outside (across the street literally) onto the side of a building in downtown San Francisco. Lasers, projection, slide projection, lighting and liquid lights all are projecting on the building. Across the street at the Dimension 7 studio DJ's spin music and pump it out to all the car stereos via a 1 watt transmitter.
This might best be watched without the audio.
I left it on there for nostalgia.
There is also a clip of Red Bull's Ascension in this video. Ascension was a celebration of underground dance culture art.

New Years Eve -Sea of Dreams SF CA

2007-12-06T14:43:00.001-08:00

www.vjculture.com
I'll be managing and creating content.
We are creating a really unique screen design for this event. Plus, a second room of visuals as well.
go to Sea of Dreams to get more info and tickets

Bassnectar & Kraddy Snakecharmer mashup

2007-12-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com

This is a video mashup I did for Lorin a few years ago. It took awhile redo it after Lorin changed the intro. (I like his and Kraddy's latest version)

Mary J. Blige Performance at Nokia Theater Nov. 20th

2007-11-26T11:36:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com

Returning to the Nokia Theater I was treated to a backstage that was actually empty. After Sunday's American Music Awards show and seeing how crowded it was, it was a pleasure to be back there and working with the local 33. This time they actually had time to work with us. The environment was so much more chill.

Tonight we only used the Versa Tubes for Mary's, "Just Fine" Track. After that we rolled it off stage and broke it down.

backstage with my powerbook, uc-33 controller and table.

Backstage at the American Music Awards

2007-11-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com
Nov. 18th Nokia Theater Los Angeles CA.
I was hired by Vello from V Squared Labs who was double booked. I provide visuals on Element Lab's Versa Tubes for Mary J. Blige at the America Music Awards which were broadcast live on ABC. Vello developed the content and I mixed it live using Modul8 software.
I had lots of celebrities hanging over my shoulder, (Kid Rock, Slash, Chris Brown) watching the show and watching what I'm doing. No pressure, there were only 7.5 million viewers watching the awards and I never got a solid rehearsal without some technical difficulties. Not to mention the camera feed they gave me was suppose to be a wide shot of the stage so I could see what I was doing, but in the end the camera kept getting tight shoots.
The versa tube design was based off of Mary J. Blige's music video, Just fine".
They wanted to repeat the same look. With over 40 acts we didn't get a lot of time to rehearse on stage, so it was really a, "flying blind" kinda performance.
However, it worked and I nailed every cue.
It worked out so well that they wanted us to come back and do the same thing the following Tuesday night for her solo performance at the Nokia theater.

VJ Culture in DJ Times Sept. 07 Issue

2007-11-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com
Thanks to Jay Spero for writing the article.

Oracle World SF w/ The Magnetic Poets

2007-11-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com
Nov. 10th-15th The Magnetic Poets performed opening and closing sets for Oracle World's main conference hall in San Francisco CA.

(a low down shot of the CG-8)
Magnetic Poets- The same band that I performed with in Torino for the 2006 Winter Olympics. Could Beijing be around the corner?
Each set was audio/visual and was compiled during our break between sets.
Scott Dewar, Christopher Hedge, Julian Smedley, Ed McCLary and myself.
Scott and I on the visual assault. Scott served up textural images and I added motion graphical elements.

(a shot of the back of Julian's head)
Ed on drum kats triggered visuals off my PC which was one channel of 5 coming into the Edirol HD440.

(The screens spanned the whole D hall at the Moscone).
However, most of the time we were only playing on plasma displays.
The band was on it, despite our 6:30AM call time.
Keep in mind this footage is of a rehearsal!

Video footage is from my crappy little canon power shot camera so please forgive the audio. (higher res video should be coming soon).

Chicago Red Bull Art of Can exhibit

2007-11-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

Nov. 7th opening night in Chicago for Red Bull Art of Can. (Also a very big birthday for myself. I won't say how old but it's a big one).
Using the 360 rotations of the artwork we created earlier this summer we created atmospheric visuals for the opening night of Red Bull Art of Can Chicago.
Out front as guest arrived we had a title graphic.

Upon entrance there was a large 4x10 plexiglas screen. The producers of the event wanted to keep all visual treatments on some kind of glass screen. We used 3M vikuiti Film on the back of the glass wall behind the DJ. vikuiti film is a new screen product that traps light from rear projection and amplifies it out the front. It is ideal for retail store fronts where you want to be able to see the image during the day. (Note if will only work on north facing facades). The dark gray film creates a holographic like image if the background is right. However, the film material is very expensive, at least $550.00 for a 39"x22" cut. It is somewhat reusable if it is removed within a couple of days.
With the help of Casey Bishop from Simplistiks we also setup projections on the waterfall

www.vjculture.com
and across the room on plexiglass.

All the content was designed to be secondary to the artwork. Minimal.

River East Art Center gallery is a beautiful gallery with lots of glass walls and features. We wanted to integrate with the design by keeping the projections on glass.

Monterrey Forum Monterrey Mexico

2007-11-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

www.vjculture.com

I'm working on a new A/V project with David Starfire. we are mashing up some of David's original music with classic rock, indie and breaks. David plays bass and drums while DJing and I VJ. We lock most of the base layer video down on DVD and use DVJ's for base layer playback. Then I had extra fluff with other playback devices.
Forum invited me to play back in spring of 07. I invited David as I really like his musical style and we both wanted to work on a project together.
David and I.
We decided that the visual elements would have visual statistics. Meaning statistical information about issues like global warming, human trafficing, eco-friendly info but, presenting it in a way that was interesting and won't stop the dance floor from dancing.
The venue were we played.
Forum is produced every 4 years and is coined to be the Olympics of performing arts.
Forum was held at the Parque Fundidora in Monterrey Mexico.
Performing artists from all over the world performed nightly. From french circus parades to Puppet operas and even our own DJ/VJ collaboration.
6 nights a week for 3 months there are different performances going on. The scale of this event is huge. The park is the size of a fair grounds here in the US and the
scale of production is amazing. Parque Fundidora use to be a mill decades ago and it still has the remains of numerous buildings as a backdrop for the festival.