Screensaver: Enemies

Over the past couple of years I have developed a Flash-based engine that I can run at clubs to control and generate randomized visuals. I can basically just let it run all night without needing to control it, as it picks and chooses different generative animations (for example one of them is an alternate version of the header at the top of this page), always randomizing parameters such as time, scale, velocity, colour, etc. It’s built to run on its own, but I have also built in extra functions so that if needed I can interact using the keyboard.

So in this engine there are a series of different self-contained animation files, and my latest addition to this series was one called Enemies, which I made specifically for Resolute’s party with Lee Burridge in New York. I posted the actual animation a few days ago on my main site under the Flash Toys section.

Anyway, I really like the energy of this, so I made a screensaver out of it.

Preview it here
Download it here (Mac only)

27 July 2010 23:26
Flash Screensavers

RobKinetic // uncut

Over the weekend I shot the video for Zev‘s new release “Don’t break it”, which I’ll be editing over the next couple of weeks. For it I asked Rob Davidson to take the main (and only) role in the video: Rob runs a contemporary dance company here in New York called Kinetic Architecture and the stuff they do is very experimental. I’m far too ignorant about dance to be able to describe what they do, so instead please check out these videos on Youtube (contains nudity): Metochos, Over You, Pretty Air.

The video is split across two different scenes, one where Rob is shown as a regular looking guy in the city, the other is in a parallel dimension where Rob is almost naked, his body writhing in sweat, contorting himself in a closed space filled with smoke. So from this second scene I shot around 50 clips, here is one of them that I just wanted to put up. To film this I was hanging halfway over a banister which had a bike chained to it that I had to lean on, so please excuse the shaky camera!

I just stuck my own music in there to keep things simple and to give it a mood.

I must say Rob has turned out to be the rawest embodiment of what my vision has been for many projects. I love seeing the human body as an animal, as a machine and as a mass of meat, muscles and sweat, and so far I’ve always dreamed of making something about this. So having Rob turn up for Zev’s music video has been a true blessing for me.

Probably for this video you won’t be seeing much footage like the one above as it doesn’t really belong to Zev’s music, however I would love to work again with Rob and his partners to create something a bit on the dark side for future projects.

20 July 2010 14:27
Experimental Video

Matthew Dear – Black City trailer

One of the most exciting things about moving to New York was reconnecting with Matthew Dear for his upcoming album Black City. Getting to work with his art director Will Calcutt has been an inspiration and has really opened up my eyes to a fresh new ideas and visions.

To promote the album and the following tour, Will had the idea of developing an ongoing series of beautiful and abstract imagery, all viewable on a single portal, that could represent the various aspects of the album.

So over the past few months Will has developed a single look for all the videos, following a very specific technique that processes regular-looking footage into breathtaking art, giving everything a vintage feel that is reminiscent of film experiments from the 1920s. But he takes this all a step further by morphing and time-stretching the footage using some pretty modern-day technology, generating some of the starkest imagery that most people will find difficult to categorize.

So for the launch of the campaign Will got me involved in making the trailer, a teaser of what is to come over the next few weeks. We spent the whole weekend in his office in Dumbo filming a whole bunch of different things, which I then edited and passed onto him for him to pass it through his mysterious box of magic tricks. Oh, before the edit I actually started off by mixing Matthew’s tracks into a single score.

In the last few scenes you can see my eye, which we filmed while projecting my enemies animation using a macro lens on a Canon 5D mkII.

Keep an eye out on Matthew Dear’s website over the next few weeks for more beautiful work by Will: www.matthewdear.com

Links:
-Matthew Dear
-Will Calcutt portfolio
-Will Calcutt on Ghostly Int

14 July 2010 15:03
Promo Video

Wolf+Lamb Youtube loops

What are they called? You see them all over Youtube, those entries that are made purely for playing songs, which in most cases just have an image of a sexy bottom or a slideshow of images that have nothing to do with the song to accompany the music. Whatever they’re called, Wolf+Lamb wanted to make two that they could use and re-use for their releases on both their labels, the second one being their W+L Black Label.

I thought it would be nice to include the various characters who live at The Marcy Hotel in the video, without making them too prominent, so you can see Gadi (Lamb), Greg and Nick (both from No Regular Play) re-arrange the lettering on the back wall, as well as some other little editing tricks that are just meant to come up and tickle the Youtube viewer who is just there listening to the music.
The second one contains a bit more trippy elements that you may or may not notice.

Below is the first version, you can watch the second here


Other news
Lydia K in Vice film-art competition
“Lydia K” has been entered into a film-art competition run by Vice and VBS.tv, and is now part of the top 10 finalists. There’s a screening this Wednesday 7th of July at the Old Blue Last in London, and in September the winner will be announced. Apparently the public vote will help the judges narrow down the selection for the winner, so you can head over to the event on Facebook and click on “Like” where “Lydia K” is linked. You need to rsvp to be able to activate the Like button – you can just RSVP “not attending”. I hate these public voting things, but I’d appreciate your contribution!

M-NUS EMBED
My project for M-NUS is finished and has been sent off to the label, so should be up any day now!

4 July 2010 14:44
Experimental Promo Video