April 1, 2025
I played two shows in NYC in March!
The first one was on March 23 at The Living Gallery in Brooklyn, where I performed visuals in an A/V collaboration with Lee Tusman. The show was organized by Proto, a.k.a. Imaginary Prisons from Worcester, MA (and a friend from the fediverse!) All the sets besides ours were by Massachusetts-based experimental/noise folks, and they were a lot of fun. (My favorite moment was when Proto played the spoons.)
The second show I played was on March 31 at Union Docs in Ridgewood, where I performed a solo AV set. The event was part of a series called Women Innovating Sound Experiences, which highlights women/non-binary artists working in experimental sound & media arts, and is curated by fellow artist Jenn Grossman.
This installment of the series was themed around Audiovisual Alchemy, with performances by Maria Takeuchi and Melissa F. Clarke, and a screening by Rachel Efruss. After the main event, we all sat down together for a Q&A with the audience about our processes, and I talked a little about my system for live generative visuals.
I really enjoyed playing alongside these wonderful artists, and the crowd was great, with lots of familiar faces. Big thanks to Jenn Grossman, Mike Clemow, and Jacob McCoy for shooting lots of photos and videos.
"How did you make those visuals?"
Since a few people were curious about my current live video performance setup, I made a flowchart of the process I used for both of these shows. I've been noodling around with it for a while (since I started using Resolume last year), and I keep finding new tricks and smoothing out quirks. I feel like I am able to make the most of both my analog and digital tools while also avoiding the pitfalls of either. Also, it's compact enough for me to carry everything at once — at least for short distances.
Footage I have pre-recorded includes:
- Footage I shot while walking around
- Water, ferrofluid and other liquids
- Slit-scan processed imagery
- Video feedback created with cameras and analog video mixers
Digital effects I use on all layers:
- Brightness
- Contrast
- Blur (amount & distance)
- Saturation
I use these effects specifically for the framebuffer feedback:
- Time delay
- X and Y displacement
- Invert
- Sharpen (used in conjuntion with blur to create Turing/reaction diffusion patterns)
- Hue rotation