Burning Man 2007
My little studio is quickly becoming overwhelmed with equipment. I’ve decided this year for my annual trip to Burning Man, that I would take a small amount of my VJ gear out with me, and meet up with the video artists from all over the world, to collaborate for a variety of amazing events and parties.
In order to do this, I’ve had to purchase some used equipment that can live and breathe in the dusty environment and last for many hours. Last night I picked up an Epson Powerlite 76c (only 26 hours on it) with screen for $350! Never underestimate the power of people wanting to get rid of things in their homes.  Also brought home a used 13′ Macbook that is perfect for traveling. I need to come up with a plan to keep all of this stuff as dust proof as possible and with only 6 days to go, I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do it all. I am however really stoked to experiment out there. Not looking forward to lugging all this equipment on the plane with me, but there are an amazing amount of VJs that go to this event and I’m excited that this will be the first year that I am joining my peoples!
If you’ll be out there this year, I’ll be camping at 7 & C. Come find me & say hi. I will unplug from my computer universe here from Aug 28th and will be back in the default world September 8th.
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.
Jul 22, 2009 |
Gigs,
Music,
travel,
vj
Just a quick update to say thanks to all of you who came out to Lorenz Studios last weekend for the Chrysalis Dome fundraiser. Saturday night was a beautiful night with 6 projectors running in the front of the dome, live band and djs. This weekend we’ll be taking her to the Starwood festival in Sherman NY, outside of Erie PA. I’ll be driving 7 hours tomorrow morning with friends, camping, and computer gear in tow!
I expect that I’ll be projecting video for the next 4 days on the dome! Much much photo & video will be sorted through and posted here in the next week. Then it’s time to prepare for Monkeytown with Kodomo, Thursday August 6th, 8:30PM!! Â
Thats all I have time for, for now!  Struggling to finish editing for the night at the day job. Then movie trailer graphic revisions. Then VJ editing. Then packing gear. Then a stop at Trader Joes to fill my coolers…  Don’t know which direction to go in first. Full report upon return! Â
Pray to the rain gods and please ask them to hold off on any precipitation until next week!!
Jul 16, 2009 |
Gigs,
Music,
travel,
vj
Photo by Waking Dream
This weekend, July 17th & 18th will be the first launch of the Chrysalis multimedia dome project at Lorenz Studios in East Morris, CT. There will be a number of DJs coming up to perform and myself & my friends of Waking Dream, Light Harvest & Levitation Theory will be spinning the inner world with our 360 visual designs..Â
I’ll be up there Saturday July 18th and setting up camp! Looking forward to road-tripping out there & projecting in the middle of the woods! Come out and play with us!
Details:
Chrysalis is an interactive multimedia performance space. Full surround visuals and sound inside a 100′ inflated dome. It will be a unique experience, which we hope to present on an ongoing basis. This event is to help us get it up and running, and to help us present it at the Starwood Festival the following week. Please come support us and spread the word to all your friends and please have them do the same. Free Camping. $20 Donation. Food & Drinks served. Music featuring live electronica by the Spinning Plates, electrofunk by Stratus-M, and guest DJ’s.
New projects are underway for upcoming summer festivals and collaborations. One that I’m particularly excited about is a project called Chrysalis. It’s an inflatable, multimedia dome, which stands at 100′ in diameter. 12 projectors will be affixed and mounted on the inside to create a 360 degree live video performance. DJs, VJs, musicians, dancers, and puppeteers will be performing from within, and will create an incredible, experimental, interactive, multimedia experience. The project was conceptualized by my friends of Waking Dream and Light Harvest Studio.
Tonight I designed a flyer to promote a few upcoming fundraiser dates for the project. I’ll be projecting visuals in the dome on Saturday July 18th, with Waking Dream, Light Harvest, and Levitation Theory. There will be endless amounts of music both nights, and camping available for free.
Make sure to mark your calendars for July 17th, 18th, and a pre-event fundraiser at the House of Love on July 11th.
Click here for location of the dome in Google.
Photos below taken by Waking Dream and Light Harvest Studio.
J&R Kodomo Danger Show / 6/20/09
Yesterday morning, I packed up my car with my new portable screen, my laptop, mixer, cables, gaffer tape, wires & hard drive, and headed south to hit J&R’s Summer Expo.
At noon Kodomo and I set stage amongst thousands of CDs in the back of J&R for an afternoon set promoting his album, Still Life. While projecting under fluorescent lighting makes for a difficult performance on my behalf, it was a lot of fun and ultimately a successful rainy afternoon for both of us. I didn’t realize how much I missed being amongst all those records & CDs, and I always love performing. Especially for a good old fashion record store audience.
I really miss the experience of going to my favorite local record store on any given afternoon and spending hours wandering in the aisles. Record stores have always felt like design museums to me. Album covers spanning years of musical history and varieties of style, art and culture. Â Since downloading has been so easy and accessible in the last few years, I’ve watched all of my favorite music stores close down one by one, and many more musicians releasing digital downloads instead of putting money into tangible albums.
These days if I want the experience of picking up an album I have to either drive an hour north to Culters in New Haven or an hour south to my NYC spots. My preference these days is Kim’s Video, or my latest favorite, Ear Wax in Brooklyn. J&R was a first for me, but they had quite a collection, and it was cool to be a part of it.  Happy Summer Solstice!Â
Don’t forget, this week I’ll be at Monkeytown, Thursday (Jun 25th) projecting for the Cutlery. 8PM Showtime.  Just make sure that if you plan on attending that you shoot your info over to Monkeytown’s reservations. You can do that by clicking here. See you Thursday!
Â
May 21, 2009 |
Gigs,
travel,
vj
Warper Party May 26th Theatre Ste. Catherine Montreal, QC
It’s official! I head out in less than a week to make a trek to the lovely & charming Montreal. I’ve taken off a few days of work following Memorial day, and am ever so tempted to use a few more days and stay out there to make another visit to Toronto while I’ve gotten that far. Especially since there is another Ghostly International tour happening the day after our show that I would looove to be at. It would involve some last minute maneuvering, but I’m tempted!
As it stands, Kodomo & I will set stage at 6pm at the Theatre Ste. Catherine in Montreal on May 26th to be part of the Warper / PreMutek Party. I’m a little nervous about the early time slot, but we’ll make the best of it. Very much looking forward to another journey, and see what may happen along the way..
May 7, 2009 |
Gigs,
Music,
travel,
vj
Thanks to all who made it to our first collaborative gig together last night at the Warper Party!! I’ve been eating, sleeping, breathing those visuals for the last 3 months and it felt amazing to have a room full of people there to finally share it with!Â
I am VERY happy with how many people showed up from all over (much appreciated!), the energy of the place, and our performances went better than I could have even expected. There were a few personal flubs that were probably unnoticeable to anyone other than myself, but it will just fuel the fire to keep doing this and get better and better. This was the first gig that I’ve actually rehearsed visuals with a musician beforehand, and designed different concepts around each song specifically. The results, to me, are far more exciting and stronger than anything I could have ever improvised.
Right now I am ANXIOUSLY awaiting the time to digitize footage from last night. Check back tomorrow and I will have a full posting of video from our gig!
We are currently looking into the possibility of playing a show in Montreal during the Mutek festival that is happening at the end of this month, but need to see how we should go about doing it. If you, or anyone you know has any insight to Mutek and/or booking shows during that week up there, please let me know! Â I can’t wait for the next show!
Last Thursday and Friday I was privileged to spend my normal workday at the F5 Motion Design conference held at Roseland in NYC. I kept my eye on this conference from the early stages last year and watched it bloom into one of the biggest, baddest lineups of designers from all over the world. After being exposed to all the presentations, I’m personally going to keep my eyes on 1st Avenue Machine, Dvein, and Moment Factory. These guys blew my minds eye and have opened me up to some new ideas & approaches to design. Here are some of my other favorite speakers from the day, to note a few:
Dvein, Prologue, Psyop, Black Heart Gang, 1st Ave Machine, Imaginary Forces, Rachel Maddow, Moment Factory, Jonah Lehrer.
Since having worked in the corporate world of video production for the last few years, I haven’t had much opportunity to immerse myself in the art world (or even the commercial world) of motion graphics the way I wish I could. Thankfully, conferences like F5, after effects meetups and the VJ world have brought this back into my life in many ways. Most nights after I come home from day to day editing, I begin to collage my own new work and find myself experimenting into the early hours, to create a bigger, more original and more ecclectic library for future live video performances.
The F5 conference reminded me just how powerful motion graphics are, and how much I love that world & the people who make that sort of magic happen. Not only did the conference showcase some of the best work I’ve seen in years, but there was a really interesting discussion about the state of creativity, and how it works from a scientific angle. We talked about how to better access innovations from the left side of the brain, and how we should be open to all new endeavors that allow us to create connections, and draw inspiration from experience. Insights seemingly flourish best when not forcing creativity. Some highlights for me were seeing & hearing all of the bizarre places that people reach to for inspiration.  Found everywhere from rubberbands that were made into stop-motion spaghetti to one person dipping their hands & feet in cement just to see what it would feel like to wear on their limbs for a week!  Ideas are formed in some of the most oddly beautiful ways and it has always been a passion of mine to explore how other people’s brain’s work.
Later this week I’d like to transcribe my notebook that I had with me for the two days and capture the raw thoughts I had while listening to these fabulous heros of mine. Â As a result of the festival I’ve already taken some of the advice and put it towards a new identity scope for my danger visuals.
A few frame grabs from new Danger intro visuals
Lastly  I want to mention how VERY excited I am to say that a new collaboration is underway with electronic musician Kodomo. It looks like May 6th will be our first performance at the Delancey for the next Warper Party. Details soon to come!!
I recently started digitizing my last batch of footage from my little San Francisco excursion, and while I have some personal criticisms for the way it came out, I am also seeing a lot of good useable stuff as well that I’m excited about. Macro shots of grassy fields, waves under the golden gate, colorful San Fran architecture, street traffic, sunshine through the tall trees and some hot dukati shots, thanks to my good friend Adrian who lives out there and offered to model for me. Thanks Adrian!Â
Last year I was really inspired by Pipilotti Rist, who created a huge video installation at the MOMA. A lot of her work was seen from a sort of bug’s eye view, and I took that inspiration to do a bit of that style filming on my own at all the beautiful parks in SF. Looking forward to cutting some of that up this week and integrating it into my footage library.
I’d also really like to create a new reel for the hollydanger.com front page, as it is supremely choppy and outdated at this point. The page itself is also unfinished and in limbo, waiting for me to add my entire portfolio to it, and link over here to this blog! Cliche to say, but there really aren’t enough hours in the day. Last night I just finished my 3rd round of package designs for a canadian musician that I’m working for. Things are looking really great, but I’m afraid of how many hours I sit slaved to these machines working on projects! I have a full time 9-5 job during the week editing videos, then I come home to freelance work & VJ stuff on the side. There are barely any hours left to sleep & eat.
Thank god I love to do this stuff, I just wish that I had ways of doing it all faster so I could do more of it.
This week I’ll be receiving my new video controller in the mail!! Â I splurged last week and bought the OHM. I should be receiving it in the next two days. Perhaps just in time to learn how to use it, and give it a try at the Monkeytown gig on Apr 3rd. I think I’m also going to drop the dime on a new laptop to make sure everything runs smoothly. It’s about time for a full round of upgrades!
