Melanchthon
The State of all Things Visual and Live.
Lately I’ve been doing lots of live visuals, as has been previously stated. To paraphrase Beth, I’m still in the puppy phase of this work: I’m very excited about the possibilities and the people I’m connecting with. I’m very focused on the process of my work, constantly looking for ways to better enjoy whatever I’m doing (i.e., avoid boredom, stay productive) and stimulate lateral thinking, whether it’s Photoshop drudgery, a thorny logical problem in a Keyworx patch, performing, or somewhere in the ideation/imagination at the beginning. And yes, I’m using the Oblique Strategies. 
Keyworx is an excellent place to start out. It’s got a simple look and interface, and complex patching capabilities, yet the limit of eight image layers restrains the impulse to pile things. The multi-user possibilities are cool; I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface there. It is, however, quite buggy and touchy. For instance, one has to quit out of the program to load a saved patch: if you try to, it crashes. It’s beta software: them’s the breaks. I hope it makes it to v1.0. Regardless, it’s a great program that doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel, i.e., code from scratch, every time you make a patch.
Sunday at Share, Dan Vatsky was doing a set in the back room using live video from an iSight camera, shooting toys (robots and dinosaurs) lit with flashlights. His friend Terra was manipulating the camera, toys and lights when I came in, and I quickly joined in the fun. Interacting with Dan, Terra and the projected image confirmed further that improvisation in this work is just like improvising on stage. The same basic traffic patterns and precepts apply: pay attention, take a back seat and support for some of the time, and alternate gradualism with sudden shifts. It was very fun. 
By the way,
check out Adrian’s fucking cool new vogroll(info). Which brings me to half the point of this post: I’ll resume vid blogging soon. The spinning wheel was up there for a reason: I wanted to give my attention to the live work and reconsider what I put into the box and what I would not.
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August 31st, 2004 at 6:42 pm
Haha Dan, glad I saw your comments on the show. Terra ( http://terranaomi.com – sorry about missing the introduction ) and I have known each other since we were about 10, and had always had this idea of making stop-motion films with toy dinosaurs (though she claims we actually did it, I don’t recall that). Anyway, that night was an attempt to finally make the film, after over 20 years in “development”! I’d say we still needed more light – the red slats in the tables didn’t throw enough and the isight is not quite sensitve enough to work with just LED lights. But you couldn’t ask for a more enjoyable learning experience! Thanks for playing along!
Now regarding Keyworx. I worked with it for over a year before retiring it as my main performance application. It is all the things you claim, but after a while I found it simply too frustrating to stick with for anything more than multiuser jams. My last experience with it was during the AnyWare event at the Kitchen where we experienced the entire system collasping over and over again. After that, my faith was severely shaken. I would say stick with it while it makes sense, but don’t hesitate to move on to other software if it starts limiting your progress.
Just trying to pass on a little wisdom there. Great to have you at Share. See ya some Sunday…
Vatsky
September 1st, 2004 at 3:24 pm
I look forward to playing with the toys again. I’d be glad to bring along some flashlights (I’ve got a nifty headstrap).
I completely agree with you on Keyworx. The moment it starts to seriously hamper me, I’ll move on. I noticed you used Modul8 for the toys set — is that your main rig now? I’ve played with the demo a bit: I like some of the features but I’m kinda leery of the rack emulator interface. How do you like it?
September 1st, 2004 at 6:32 pm
I’ll probably haul out the toys from time to time. I love doing livecam shoots. Having direct physical control can be so refreshing after twiddling knobs for a few months.
my review for Modul8 as posted on VJ Central. I think M8 is great, fast, and fun but I don’t know if you are gonna feel it offers enough flexibility compared to Keyworx. It’s the equivalent of a very fast and extremely stable 10 layer patch in KW – but within that it is a cool instrument. After doing the modlar programming route for a couple years I wanted something I could just sit down and PLAY. Still – my plunge into Max/MSP/Jitter is probably inevitable. I have already bought a license, just need to overcome a few mental hurdles with programming and all…
The ‘rack emulator’ problem I’m not sure if I understand – you think it suffers from trying to look like a music rack? Kinda like Reason on the music side? Truly – I don’t think that’s at play here. It’s one of the simpler interfaces i’ve used – and with that lovely Korg microkontrol you could cause some serious damage
If you ever feel like trying it – just ask! Happy to give a full demo if you didn’t get a good enough feel from the crippleware.
September 2nd, 2004 at 3:25 pm
Thanks for the review link. I would love to try out M8 with the microKontrol.
The next time we’re both at Share and I’ve got it with me, that’d be great.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I see Keyworx as a stepping stone to a more involved modular environment like MAX/MSP/Jitter or Pure Data: a good place to learn logic/math use and programmatic chunking/flow.
I’ve been told that GRID was built in MAX/MSP and then compiled. It would be an interesting (and huge) project to build an interface like Modul8 in M/M.
p.s. I probably acquired the anti-emulator bias from my friend Colin, who used to be a tracker and even did some assembly visuals (read: a heavy coder geek). He’s moved on to cd turntables, thankfully.
September 3rd, 2004 at 3:04 pm
Yeah – KeyWorx has a level of complexity somewhere in between the standalone mixing apps and the ‘enviroments’ like Max or PD. Though I had a bit easier time understanding the function of KW modules over Max because so much of the work is done for you. 1 module in KW can be the equivalent of 50-60 max/Jitter modules. But at least it is not a problem to track back your programming flow using patchcords, which is a tremndous limitation and headache in KeyWorx. That’s why I really don’t build patches in it anymore, because it is such a pain to debug or alter your iniitial design! The only other programs that seem to have the same balance (simplified modular) are Isadora and the now defuct Pixelshox. Isadora is a pretty impressive tool – I have worked with it on a few projects and I am seeing some really good work from people who are using it. Worth demoing.
GRID 1 was a Max patch and I think GRID 2 is as well – Modul8 executed as a max patch would be a massive project and wouldn’t be nearly as fast as it is now. I hear a lot of complaints about Jitter’s inefficiency as compared to apps using ‘low-level’ coding. This is just knowledge gleaned from various discussions, as I am NOT a programmer myself, but it makes sense.