Thanks to everyone who came out to check out our performance at Franklin Street Works last Thursday. We had so much fun performing and sharing our music and visuals with you. Special thanks to Franklin Street Works for hosting us and our friends! Please friend us on The Moon’s facebook page to learn about upcoming events.

For those of you who couldn’t make it out, check out this video taken by Franklin Street Works. This was one of our instrumentals called “Olive”.  The photo above was taken by Jackie Alcayaga.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is a little backstory on how it all came together.  Jeff and I worked every night in the studio, last week, to get our set just right.

He was still finishing lyrics to his new songs, and I was choreographing visual clips that would enhance the mood and fit the pace. We settled on 8 songs including 1 cover song that we did as a duet together to end the performance. The duet we covered was, True Love Will Find You in the End by Daniel Johnston. I’ve always loved his original version and Beck’s cover. (Check out those links to hear the different versions.)

Daniel Johnston is particularly special to us because when Jeff and I went on our first date, we went to the Highline Ballroom to see Daniel perform. We had both seen The Devil & Daniel Johnston documentary and were completely hooked on his music. It seemed like the perfect song for our duet considering that this was the first time I have ever sung in front of a live audience! (Which I loved, and will do again.)

My visual footage for the performance came from a variety of different sources from my VJ library that I’ve been collecting over the last 3 years. Additionally, a good deal of footage came from two special trips I took this year. The first being from California when we spontaneously went hot-air-ballooning at sunrise over wine country and the other at the Shedd aquarium in Chicago. I hope to incorporate more and more travel footage into my shows as we continue to build our performance.

At the studio, I also shot some footage of Jeff playing guitar on green screen with the hopes of masking some animated visuals into his silhouette. While the end result was very cool, it never made it into the final performance. Maybe next time!

I kept coming up with tons of last minute details that I wanted to add to our show, and one of them was for both of us to wear all white clothing. When we were in front of the visuals they would just melt through us and blend into the walls. I think the effect worked well to really enhance the projections in the space. The hardest part was actually finding white clothing this time of year. Thankfully Goodwill and my thrift-shop-hunting skills was a success. Perhaps in the future we can find a way to make all of our equipment white. I think it would create a really exciting environment for visuals in all the subtle details.

The space we were setting up at Franklin Street Works was an intimate room on their lower level. It was a little challenging from a setup perspective because of it’s size, mirrors, door and wall indentations. We had no way of hanging projectors to the ceiling like we usually do. However we were able to jimmy-rig a setup using speaker stands and clamp mounts and were able to hook up 2 projectors skewed towards the two main walls, and one angled towards the ceiling. A white sheet and a couple pillowcases did the trick to hide the window & mirrors. Unfortunately the VJ software that I’m using currently doesn’t allow me to skew the video angles to be perfect when the projectors are set up on an angle, so I ended up changing my  set towards using more abstract imagery in the end result. This ended up working out really well in my opinion and gave the illusion of changing the shape of the walls around us.

Everyone packed into the space at 6pm and we had a great time talking to everyone, and connecting with new and old friends. Thanks again to everyone who made the night special for us and for collecting videos & photos. We hope to make another performance happen again soon!

Please check out our new site: themoonmusic.com for more in the near future.

New to the Danger Studio as of this weekend, is a really cool collection of handmade Danger pendents!

This is my first attempt at making jewelry out of my designs and I’m really stoked with it’s transformation. I took my Wanderlost collection of graphics and cropped them into 1 inch circles, then obsessively cut out 50 small prints. Each of them is affixed to silver plated pendents, and finished with a glass dome enclosure. The work becomes a magnified orb of bright color, and each is completely unique from the next.

Later this week I’m going to attempt another round using resin as the finishing glaze. I’ve been using resin over the last year on all my wall art, which gives it a glossy glass finish so I’m excited to see if I can bring the same great results to jewelry.

Next up are a batch of rings!  All will be available on etsy once I’m happy with the collection. Stay tuned!

In two weeks I am heading off to do something I have never done before – I’m hopping a plane to San Francisco to participate in the city’s annual foot race, Bay to Breakers for their 100th year!

The race starts at the north east end of the downtown area adjacent to San Francisco Bay, and runs west through the city to finish at the breakers of the Pacific coast on Ocean Beach. The complete course is 7.46 miles (12 kilometers long) and is not a traditional race by any means.

Participants are known to dress up in all sorts of crazy costumes and some have even run it naked! This year for their hundredth they are enforcing some rules that they haven’t in the past. No alcohol, no floats and no nudity. We’ll see just how much the public abides. There will be 50,000 runners this year!

Since I’ve never done anything like this, I’ll be thrilled just to complete the course. I made it my personal goal to focus on various upgrades in all different aspects of my life to start 2011. There have been many times in my past that I’ve sat at my computer editing 60 hours a week and ditching the fitness in favor of deadlines. As a result of changing that dynamic this year I’ve felt so much happier and more productive on a daily basis.

My training started in January when I began the 4 Hour Body diet, started taking latin based dance classes, and mixed it with training runs. While I haven’t been 100% consistent with my training, I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. I’m lucky enough to have a great partner to run with and support me along the way, and I’m super excited to meet this epic achievement in my life. 8 miles may not seem like a lot to most people, but I have hated running all my life and I’m not a runner by any means. The closest I have come to this has been inline skating 10K races in the past. It’s very different when you have wheels on your feet!

This makes me all the more energized to meet this challenge that I set out to accomplish at the beginning of this year.

If anyone wants to meet up, say hi, or cheer us on while we’re out there, drop a line here or keep a look out for my Danger shirt among the sea of runners. I’ll be deconstructing one of my shirts and representing Danger all the way!!

Here is what the course looks like!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The shirts are now available on the Etsy Danger store.  The mixed media wall prints will be available on Etsy next week!!

In other news, if you are interested in coming out to see one of the next upcoming performances scheduled, there is a nice variety for you to choose from!

NEXT UP//

NOV 14. – VJing for KODOMO @ 3RD WARD, Brooklyn, 8PM

NOV 18. – VJing for BIG MOSEY @ ARLENES GROCERY, Manhattan, 9PM

NOV 20. – VJing for MANTYHOSE @ SEASIDE TAVERN, Stamford, 10PM

DEC 2. – VJing for EXIT MUSIC @ UNION POOL, Brooklyn, 10PM

DEC 9. – VJing for DJ KILLA MONJARO + MORE @ SEASIDE TAVERN, Stamford, 10PM

This year in Black Rock City, my partner in crime, Jeff Schram, decided to document our adventure with his flipcam. The resulting video is very low-fi, spontaneous and fun, just as you’d expect from a drive to Burning Man. I started working on editing part two but it hasn’t made it out of my studio yet. It seems that we spent more time filming the trip on the way in than getting footage while we were out there enjoying it all. Nevertheless I still plan on exporting Part two sometime in the coming months. I swear!

Hi guys!

I am gearing up for my annual romp in the dust. That’s right, it’s my yearly visit to the Black Rock desert.  By all means if you are attending, please let me know so there is a chance of meeting up outside of the digital realms. I’ll be staying with my friends, Camp Monkey Business at 4:30 & G this year – and once again I’m bringing my VJ gear and would love to meet up with other VJs out there. Right now I’m deciding which equipment can stand to be in those desert conditions.  I’m also lining up my VJ performance schedule right now and hope to nail it all down before arriving. Once I arrive, anything goes!

So here is my current schedule & VJ lineup for the upcoming week:

Saturday – (Aug 28) I arrive in Reno to collect my supplies/bike/tent etc. out of storage & take care of biz..
Sunday – Buy whatever supplies I need, food, water, etc.
Monday – I arrive on the playa – early morning!  Set up - Possibly VJing at Nexus in the evening hours.
Tuesday –  VJing the False Profit party (4:30 & Esplanade) – Timing TBD
Wednesday – VJing the Apres Ski Party – (3:30 & B) – Sundown til late night.
Thursday –  VJing at Nexus (10 & Esplanade) – Sundown til 11pm
Thursday Late - Possibly VJing at the Phage party after Nexus party (4:30 & Esplanade)
Friday/Sat/Sun/Mon –  Anything goes ~ Possibly VJing on the Robot Heart Bus on those nights.
Tues/Wed – (Sept 7/8) Wash off the dust & travel home

That is the good word on all my latest news. This week is for collecting gear & packing..

See you the other side my friends!…..

After every trip, I am immediately fueled into an active wanderlust, longing to go somewhere else…

I always come up with the most visual ideas when I’m outside my routines and experiencing different cultures, conversations and vibrations of people in other places. Traveling is something I became obsessed with years ago when I first started designing. Having only been back in town for a week, I can happily say that Austin sparked a new light for me. It’s the beginning of spring and the beginning months of my studio. There are good energies all around, exciting shows on the way and hopefully more travel in the near future. New visuals on the way!

In just a few days I’ll be boarding a plane to Austin, TX to join the SXSW festivities. You will most likely find me sipping a Lonestar and attending something nerdy between the days of March 13th through the 18th. I’ll also be VJing at an event on Congress called House by Southwest on the 17th, (St. Patricks day!)

Keep checking back here to the Dangerblog, because I have decided to create a daily write-up for each day that I’m out there.  I will be experimenting with a pocket Mino HD flipcam lent by my good friend Jack from Steelblender. Thanks Jack!!  It shoots 60 minutes of HD footage, is as tiny as an ipod, and has a built in USB for quick import. I’m sure by the end of this trip I will want one for myself.

I’m looking forward to all of SXSW, documenting the trip and meeting a lot of new folks. Drop me a line if you’re going, or stop by the show on Wednesday night at Silhouette!

Photo by Mary Woods

Photo by me

Thanks to all who came out to the “Chocolate & I” gallery show last Monday in NY!!  I had so much fun meeting everyone, tasting truffles, and sipping their chocolate margaritas. Mmm. Music, visuals & chocolate are some of my favorite indulgences.

This was the first show of mine where I was able to incorporate both of my projectors at once, split the VGA signals and mirror the images across the beautiful gallery wall. I usually don’t have the luxury of having so much space and freedom, but this felt absolutely wonderful to break free of the singular image and experiment with some new ideas.

To think, just over a year ago I didn’t even own any of the equipment to be able to perform like I can now. I had always wanted to, but it seemed overwhelming. It’s quite an investment:  laptops, mixers, projectors, cables, stands & adapters. Now after a year of experimentation, and slowly accumulating a studios worth of equipment, I can’t imagine my life without performing. I’m inspired in new directions from each and every show.

If anyone reading this photographed the night I would love to see your collection!!  Feel free to send me an email, or post them here.

Video soon to come!

To celebrate some good news that I will be posting about in upcoming days, I’ll be giving out my new DANGER PINS at the next few performances. Just come over and say hi!

If any of you are in the CT area on this snowy friday evening, I will be projecting some videos over at the City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport from 6-11pm tonight. Thanks to Liz of Paradox Ink for inviting me!

I picked out 10 of my favorite experimental pieces that I worked on in 2009 and this will be the first time they are landing on gallery walls. I’m sure at some point in the evening I’ll end up free-form VJing a bit too.

City Lights gallery is debuting their first Nu Media show, involving a mixed collection of video art, short films, and  animation. Hope to see you!

City Lights Gallery is located at 37 Markle Court Bridgeport, CT 06604  : $5 Entry fee

This is the latest bit of my experimental vj works. The concept based on my mantra, energy for energy. The impact of two elements coming together and creating passion. Creation, exchange & fire. Highly compressed but wanted to share anyway! The song is called “Surfin” by William Orbit. Footage both found & mixed with my own, plus some final cut manipulation.

RESERVE A SEAT ON THE MONKEYTOWN SITE

I’m keeping my fingers crossed… I’ll be calling a couple of potential design studio spaces this week to see about taking my biz out of my crooked little apartment and into town. Wish me luck!!

A drawing sample from students in class

Friday night I trekked out to Washington, DC to join the Motion Graphics Festival. The workshops all sounded wonderful, but it especially piqued my interest when I read that VJ Shantell Martin was teaching a workshop in live-painting. On the practical side of what I do, my instinct was to take the After Effects class, but the VJ side of me couldn’t let go of the opportunity to hang with other visualists from around the world, so I signed up.

The class introduced the idea of using a wacom tablet mixed with painting software to drawing live and intuitively to music, while recording your session and being able to cut it up and re-use it as animation in performance or later for editing. I found this particularly useful because I never record what I’m doing directly from the screen. There is a program called I Show You which does this perfectly, creating a high res quicktime file.

While much of my personal VJ style has been to mix motion graphics & after effects work, with video files, I’m interested in seeing what direction the concepts I learned in class could take on for me. Definitely a lot of fun, and definitely a new tool to play with and explore.

Thanks to all of you who I met this weekend. I hope our paths cross again soon!

Click here for our info on Monkeytown’s website. The calendar for August was just launched.

We’re getting excited for our upcoming show!! Mark your calendars and send an RSVP here. August 6th, Thursday at 8:30 PM. We are currently looking for a second act to play with us, open to suggestions!

Soon I will be posting the massive amount of photos & video that were taken this weekend in the Chrysalis Dome from the festival we performed at in upstate NY this past weekend. The rain gods did not hold off on any rain that they had planned for us despite my plea, but as a result the adventure became that much more spontaneous and unpredictable.

Unfortunately we were only able to get Chrysalis up for two nights before the rain turned everything into swamp lands. We then took our cables, projectors, tarps and equipment over to a smaller inflatable dome to keep the party going to finish out the weekend. Either way, the project continues to become more interesting with each launch.

Thanks to everyone who made it all the way up there and stuck it out through the rainy conditions. I had so much fun working with everyone and experimenting with this amazing project.

Monkeytown with the Cutlery

Thanks to all who managed their way to the couches of Monkeytown last night!  The haunting jingle jangles, clarinet, record player, typewriter and banjo strings of the Cutlery ominously echoed the walls and brought a sultry, nostalgic mood to the shadows.

The room had a nice mellow feeling of serenity throughout our set, and was a lot of fun to edit live in my spontaneous ways of vision. I planned to have the visuals take you on a journey through time. We spent most of the evening floating between the 1920s and 1930s. Flappers, poetic meanderings, dramatic romances, cryptic cartoons and a side of Charlie Chaplan. In addition, lately I’ve been missing one of my very best friends, Zora, who passed away a few years ago. Her and I had just begun to collaborate on beautiful things together in the year before she passed.  I know she would have loved the type of work that I’m doing these days. I always wonder what we would be creating today if she were still around. In our short time together we collaborated on one stopmotion film, Fascade Filosophia (also posted below), a few bare experimental tests of painted waves (will be posting soon) and animated sand.

Fascade, full of dark puppetry and mysterious castles, was a big hit last night from what I heard after the show. It felt amazing to have her with me last night, breathing through the walls. I’ve been missing her something fierce and showing that film reminded me that she’s still here inspiring me everyday. For me, last night’s set was dedicated to her.

That venue is so intimate and personal, I wish I could project visuals there more often. It’s absolutely my ideal space, and motivates me to make better and better work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

Driving home from yoga, Saturday morning sun. Canon SD780.

I finally received my new digital camera in the mail last week, the new Canon SD780. My last camera was my absolute favorite, the Olympus Camedia 5050z, and I’m looking to resurrect it from it’s death one day. However, for now it’s all about life through a new lens. I’ve been without a point and shoot for nearly a year now, and I think it’s finally time for me to open up my eyes again. I’ll be doing a series of test shoots over the next few weeks and collecting them here. We’ll see how she fairs next to my old trusty Olympus.

 

Inspired by the hauntingly beautiful music of the Cutlery ladies and the poetic words of Nick Cave. I created this piece with an old wooden frame & collaged imagery found from fashion photos from around the world. It almost came together in a seemingly unconscious way, and became an animated photo album that expanded from the corners of my imagination. The photography was altered, animated, arranged and woven into these treasured memories. This piece was created to be projected during the Cutlery’s live performance of this song, and was debuted on the four walls of Monkeytown last Friday night. Looks like we’ll have another gig there in June!!

Lately I’ve been feeling nothing less than colorful & vibrant. The world is opening it’s doors down all the paths that I’m curious to explore, and I’m happily skipping down each one with wide eyes. I had some time today between edits to remind myself how much I love layering in photoshop, and how much I love doing work that is purely for the art of enjoyment. For the last many years I’ve been working insanely long hours, and insanely hard for other people. Finally I have time to make art again, for myself.

This piece is inspired by one of my all time favorite design heros, Scott Hansen. It reminds me that as a designer, sometimes we don’t have to over-think our work down to every last detail.  Sometimes if we just start having fun and doing what attracts us, you get the best results and are happier for it.

Sunny, brisk, energetic, bellowing light, ocean, colored, gritty city hills, homeless, bold coffee, honey-fruit plates & tea lounges, wine & dinner talking to bartenders and travelers, solo wandering, cameras, old friends, dukatis in the street after ethiopian food, scooters in soma, fantastic fashion & tattoos, geekgasms at multimedia mezzanine show, amoeba, celebrity sightings, architecture, trolleys, parks, love, haight and art gallery hostels with barefoot patrons..

My trip recently fueled a new little video piece, and I wanted to share it here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

 The Haight was breathing with gritty, hot, fantasies that day. It’s a nostalgic place full of history, fashion, and subtle unmentionables. Along the outskirts of dirty memories and coastlines that linger, someone is always willing to tell you stories over scotch in the evening, and put a flower in your hair as you undress the sunlight.

Mostly found footage collected from very many obscure locations, mixed with my textures & experiments.

The song is called Lust, by the Raveonettes.

I started getting email from Warper after signing up on their mailing list at Burning Man’s NY Decompression party last year. They were announcing their monthly shows and looking for volunteers to help out, project, play music, give workshops, etc. I signed up to project visuals and got a time slot within a couple days. It all turned out to be such a great night, at a perfectly lounge-worthy venue. I had a super fun entourage of friends who came out to support, drink and help in case of disasters, and I met a whole crew of great folks, musicians that were interested in what I was doing, future collaborations and just a general good vibe overall which made the night so wonderful.

I was so inspired by the night that I strung together a bunch of my latest designs and put it to a piece of music. I’ll probably end up doing this regularly after my projection nights. Each are different, and I add new work each time I play. I’m already looking forward to projecting again because of how excellent my experience was last week. I never knew what a rush it could be for me. The next show is this Friday night at Seaside Tavern (formerly Jimmy Seaside) in Stamford. It will be my first time collaborating with my brother, who is the drummer of the band, Manyhose, who I’ll be visualizing for. Please come out if you’re a Stamford local! Should be a fun night. We go on late, 11:30pm. Hope to see you!

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

I love, love, love this graphic!!  Having grown up with the idea of originality and uniqueness as a strong core value, I had a lot of trouble borrowing images to use in visual work, even though I’m a collage artist. I knew for VJing, the only way to get my start, was to develop a visual library. This is where I began collecting old movies and video clips that had elements of interest to me, whether it be in color, texture, or action. I’m slowly starting to realize what is stated in the graphic above makes a lot of sense to me, and that it does not negate the originality of the intended idea or the uniqueness of the person creating the work. While I do enjoy taking my own footage & photography, I also really love collecting elements from other sources and remixing them to new heights, almost as much..

 

Tonight I’m performing some live visual action at the Delancey in NY, Upstairs, 9-10PM for the 3rd Year Anniversary of the Warper Party! This will be my first experience with Warper, and I’m excited to say that I’m slowly starting to move from using just collected imagery, into using more of my own pieces.

My goal is to strike a more cinematic experience, with a designerly approach. I’m sick of all the techno typographic explosions, epileptic color choices and digital noise that hurts your eyes. The work has been flowing nonstop, and I’m really feeling more and more how this will become a permanent part of my future.

 

This is a result of an experimental night spent with my mac pro. I cut the vocals out of the song and strung together a quick rough cut of all the designs that came out of me last night. The elements used are a combination of print work that I’ve done, footage I’ve shot, as well as found footage to add texture.

Song is by the Knife called Silent Shout.