I added record functionality*, drag ‘n’ drop movie loading, and made the camera start process a bit simpler. Not too much really, but it’s a better patch. Let me know if you use it — I’d love to see screenshots or movies of your work.

Get brush 0.1.2

* from a patch called Simple Mix by Peter Nyboer in the Jitter examples folder. Thanks for the great patch, Peter!

Since Daniel Smith called it excellent, I thought I’d post this explanation of SHARE that I sent to a Houston Press journalist last night, just in case any y’all are confused. (Notice the “y’all”? I never used to say that when I lived in Texas — I made a point of it. I’m a bit less uptight than I was in high school. A bit.)

SHARE hosts open jams for audio and visual artists. Anyone can come and participate. We provide the infrastructure: multichannel audio mixing and amplification, video projectors and screens, and the expertise to help first-timers learn the basics of audio and visual performance. Share is completely content-agnostic: you can play anything you want on any instrument you can carry in. No structure is imposed on the jam by the Share team. Rather, we encourage structure to emerge from the participants in the jam. Although our audio infrastructure is designed to allow electronic musicians play together, people bring many different kinds of instruments, from traditional/acoustic to electronic to homemade to far-out. No one conducts or actively mixes the sound so the performers communicate the old-fashioned way: by listening to each other and following the flow of the improvisation. Some people prepare extensively, laying down tracks at home to try them out in the mix at Share. Others do almost no pre-recording or pre-structuring apart from practice — like jazz musicians.

I’ve seen Share participants make sound with violins, cellos, laptops, guitars, double basses, lutes, Gameboys, hand drums, kit drums, contact microphones affixed to plastic waterfalls, homemade noiseboxes, analog synthesizers, microphones, circuit-bent toys, keyboards, beatbox, voice, and something in a bright green custom fiberglass body called the Green Bean*. Likewise, the video participants use laptops, cameras, movie clips, film, slide projectors, flashlights, lightboxes, custom screens, DVD players, paper dioramas and more. Then there’s the really far out stuff: motion and light sensors worn by dancers, communicating their movements to audio and visual performers who use the sensor data to affect the sound and light. The distinction between media gets blurred. The separation between performer and audience breaks down and changes.

That’s not the half of it, of course.

* Made by Randy Jones. Really nice guy. Very helpful on the Max/MSP/Jitter mailing lists.

The Dirty South Improv Festival was great. I had a wonderful time hanging out with my NC friends and some people I only see at festivals, did a couple fun performances (it’s novel being the teacher in a Teacher/Student improv show) and my workshops went great. I had a bunch of college students, some of them very new to improv, many of them telecom. majors or ‘the technical person’ in their group, we had time to shoot a lot of scenes, and all of them left seeming very excited about video improv. I’m really excited about teaching. Up until a year ago, I never thought of myself as someone who could teach; I always thought, that’s for other people, not me, not the teaching type. Then going to grad school opened that door just a crack and Ross inviting me to teach the workshops pulled it open. I’m lucky to have such supportive friends.

The video improv workshop Saturday went really well. Me am teachzor! We had about 14 people altogether from widely differing backgrounds: dance, video art, videography, music, network collaboration, graphic design, and only five people from improv comedy. We worked on camera- and scene-work, shooting scenes out on the streets and in Chelsea Market (conveniently right across the street from Atlantic Acting School’s new (and pristine) rehearsal space). I spent much of the lecture and discussion time introducing the class to the different roles of the actors, shooter and runner/timekeeper in crafting scenes on video. What I learned from the workshop:

• I can teach
• The teacher must be the time nazi so things don’t get rushed
• and a possible solution to the 3rd Act Problem of Video Improv, which is when (two-thirds through the show) the different shooting groups meet to mash up their scenes and the shooting slows to an infinite pause on the event horizon of a Black Hole of Brainstorming and Plotting Out the Scenes.

Video improv’s mutability is a great strength and a great weakness. On the one hand you have the power and potential of cinema with all its tricks and delights. On the other, when it comes time to mash up the scenes at the end of the show, there can be a huge trainwreck as everyone verbalizes their ideas, then debates their pros and cons — an instant power struggle in which dominant personalities win– and the the resulting scenes are deflated, scripty and late. This was sometimes a big problem in the Neutrino shows.

Conclusion: plot is just as much of a killer on video improv as stage improv. Early in the workshop, I stressed the importance of Yes Anding behind the camera just as much — more! — as in front of it. Never debate an idea. Always go with the first one offered. This goes without saying on the stage but is easy to let slip in the young art of video improv. More on this after this Saturday’s workshops.

I’m flying down to North Carolina in a couple weeks to teach a video improv workshop at the 6th annual Dirty South Improv Festival. It’s my first time teaching such a workshop so I’m previewing/practicing it this Saturday in New York. It’s free and open to all interested improvising actors, shooters and visualists. Please let me know if you’re interested and pass this on to anyone you think would be. If you’re a yes or strong maybe, let me know so I can pre-register you with the security at Atlantic Theater Co Acting School (they’re in a new building with Google and there’s higher security). It’s this Saturday the 18th from 2 to 5 pm. Here’s the workshop description again:

> Improv on video: How is it different from improv on a bare stage? What can you do in a video improv show that is unique to this new hybrid form? Homebrew, grassroots video improv is slowly spreading through American improv communities. Let’s spread it faster by sharing ideas and techniques with each other. In this workshop, we will explore video improv techniques employed in the Neutrino Video Projects and other experimental video longforms. Camerawork, in-camera editing, scenework and structure will be explored. If time permits we will touch on networked, streaming video performance and visual manipulation (VJ-ing). Please beg, borrow or steal* a video camera to bring to the workshop: the more cameras we have the more we’ll able to play. Improvisers and cinematographers of all experience levels are welcome.

> * Well, maybe not steal. Please do your best to have a camera and know its basic functions before the workshop.

> Class is limited to 15 students.

details on the festival workshop for those of you who’ll be in NC: http://festival.dirtysouthimprov.com/2006/workshops/weekend.php?ClassID=14

My show with Chris Jordan at Monkeytown last night went really well. We had a good turnout despite the blizzard. The band we played with, This Invitation, was really good: languid, somewhat brooding, slowcore guitar music, kind of like Low. I was doing brushwork that Chris mixed into his visuals, overlaying or underlaying my brush strokes on cityscapes, panoramas, and what looked like microorganisms. There were some really good moments; I really like collaborating with a passthrough like that. Unfortunately, our shipment of battery-powered slide projectors did not arrive in time so we will be doing the audience participation show next time.

Two events coming up I’d like you to know about:

• I’m performing visuals with fellow VJ Chris Jordan at Monkeytown this Saturday, accompanying the music of ambient duo This Invitation. This will be an audience participation show: we’ll be handing out little, battery-powered slide projectors. Should be fun. Reservations recommended — as is the food! Come early and have a meal; Monkeytown’s got really good grub.

• Saturday, February 18th I’m teaching a workshop in video improv: it’s practice for me and free for you, a preview of the workshop I’m teaching at this year’s Dirty South Improv Festival in Chapel Hill, NC. It’ll be at the Atlantic Theater Co Acting School. Email me to let me know if you’re coming. Details: > Improv on video: How is it different from improv on a bare stage? What can you do in a video improv show that is unique to this new hybrid form? Homebrew, grassroots video improv is slowly spreading through American improve communities. Let’s spread it faster by sharing ideas and techniques with each other. In this workshop, we will explore video improv techniques employed in the Neutrino Video Projects and other experimental video longforms. Camerawork, in-camera editing, scenework and structure will be explored. If time permits we will touch on networked, streaming video performance and visual manipulation (VJ-ing). Please beg, borrow or steal* a video camera to bring to the workshop: the more cameras we have the more we’ll able to play. Improvisers and cinematographers of all experience levels are welcome.

  > * Well, maybe not steal. Please do your best to have a camera and know its basic functions before the workshop.

  > Class is limited to 15 students.

What could stop a visualist from improvising on any suggestion?

• lack of flexibility in the software/hardware tools
  • specifically in the ability to search and organize source media on the fly
  • programs that do one thing really well but don’t play well with others
• lack of imagination
• an inability to draw very well
• …

What would aid a visualist to improvise on any suggestion, using a variety of source and live media?

• a file browser that grabs images and videos by tags/categories/keywords from a library/the Internet when supplied with keyword(s)
• a partner seeking/creating/organizing/preparing media for her/him
• a way of intuitively, rapidly filing new media away so that they may be retrieved graphically or textually, quickly
• rudimentary-to-excellent drawing skills (with perspective)
• a profundity of imagination
• …

Let’s say our standard for success at “improvising on any suggestion” is that the audience walks away thinking, “she sure did engage and explore visually my suggestion of “‘lesbian casting couch.’”

Yesterday I wondered whether I had strayed from my original thesis idea pre-enrollment. I pondered what I had presented to my fellow students and Carl on Thursday in Structures. It feels like a good show, interesting and exciting to work on, but not quite the meeting of improvising visualists and actors on a level playing field I had in mind. The current conception of my thesis show has the following elements. Let’s score each element on a continuum from fully structured (0) to fully improvised (10):

• a narrative backbone — pre-written — for the speakers/actors - 2
• prepared and practiced visual source media for the visualists - 5
• prepared and practiced sources for the musicians - 8*
• potential audience participation - 2

* Musicians have more improvisational freedom than visualists for a number of reasons.

Which averages to 4.25, just west of halfway between structure and improv. For comparison, I’d say most longform improv comedy shows are an 8 — just enough structure to encourage coherence. But the value of this one-dimensional metric is shaky because we’re comparing apples and oranges: the improvisational elements and expectations in music, theater and visuals are quite different. Yet the way I see The Improv Gap in visuals is framed by my work in improv comedy and articulated in the language of musical improv. Hmm. Thoughts welcome. Time for bed.