French artist Auderoseselavy has put together Cubes D’Ombres, a fascinating performance as part of a residency with the fantastic Pixels Transversaux (previously on Vixid.noisepages and CDMo).

Installation performance vidéo live, cubes d’ombres, par Auderoseselavy from auderoseselavy on Vimeo.

This beguiling mix of dance, live camera, vjing and audio has been explained for our delectation.

Performance / Installation “Cubes d’ombres” (shadow’s cubes) by Auderoseselavy, during an artist-in-residency program at the Pixels transversaux.

The “Cubes d’ombres” installations are based on 3 installation-performances that take place in a cube covered with fabric. The scenography is inside the cube, while the spectator is outside: he observes moving shadows in different scenarios with different sound universes.
This installation follows a first installation realized in Bologna (Italia) during a scenography class.

About the performance and the use of the VIXID VJX16-4:

Using the Vixid mixer allowed me to overlay a live feed from a video camera filming a dancer on video clips mixed with Modul8, using the Vixid blend modes.
I benefit from the precise color balance and contrast and brightness correction, and finally got the kind of images I wanted, which was very difficult to obtain via software.

I had a performance recently with Australian artist Lawrence English, playing as Object. This is a video from the final moments of that performance.

Object 2 from Jaymis on Vimeo.

This set of layered sonic textures and beats allowed me to be much more experimental than most more traditional bands I work with. Creating a quick feedback loop, I tried different blend modes and carefully tweaked the gain, contrast and opacity of the camera and feedback layers. Starting from 2 minutes you can see these effects entering the mix, the rhythmic movements of the performer creating some beautiful morphing feedback shapes.

The growth of the feedback areas is controlled by extremely subtle movements of opacity faders and gain knobs, with the the screen behind the performer adding ambient light, which in turn increased the levels entering in to the cameras and feeding back.

I can’t really document this setup exactly, as feedback is an imprecise art at the best of times. My previous tutorials on the subject are a great place to start with a known setup:

Now that I have lots of cameras and I’m regularly using more than 5 or 6 inputs at once, and a combination of cameras, laptop inputs, effects and feedback, it’s getting hard to keep a mental map of “what goes where”.

It seems like a simple solution, but it took me a couple of gigs to figure out that the simplest can be the most effective.

Now when I’m patching my VJX in, I quickly note down on a grid which piece of kit is plugged in to which input. Now I can choose and switch sources quickly, without having to remember what went where, look at the back, or have to translate from list to matrix form.

Other VJX owners: Do you have a clever way to keep track of your tracks? What do you do when you have lots of camera inputs?

I have been making progress in my voyage of Midi, Cameras and Vixid. I haven’t shared this on Vixid.noisepages.com yet, as I wanted to create a more robust solution in the freely available PD rather than Max/MSP, but in the meantime Vince from Vixid has come to the rescue, with a Vixid Input Switching patch for PD.

Download vixid-pd-4layerswitch.zip (4KB).

This patch doesn’t do input switching – just track/layer sequencing – but because it is working with tracks that are frame locked by the VJX, the switching can be frame-by-frame, which gives some extremely interesting effects when used with multiple camera inputs.

The next step, of course, is to bring input switching into the mix. We’re planning a series of frameworks which you can use to create your own Vixid control setups, but while you wait, here’s a reminder of what can happen if you stay up too late learning to code with lots of video cameras and a VJX nearby.

Vixid Multi Input Test 2 – Cunningham Style from Jaymis on Vimeo.

Be careful out there.