Live VFX - visuals for live events

Tokyo Art Gallery Visuals

Here's the decription from the artist:
"Interactive movie installation Initially shown at Sendai Mediatheque before moving to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, Tokyo, the piece was a massive installation born from the "Motion Texture" project. Using both horizontally and vertically mounted projectors, images were projected onto the floor and walls of the installation space, completing immersing the viewer.  Cameras captured the movements of people in the space and created water-like textures on the floor, creating a virtual reality trompe l'oeil.
A small windmill, through which viewers could blow, would also generate a reaction that would change the environment.   The entire space became interactive, proving the video is not necessarily just something that starts with the pressing of the "play" button.
Here, before your eyes, you could witness life behind the images, see a nascent consciousness, and truly feel that this was extant imagery."

Projection Mapping with 35,000 images

After watching the Grammy's last night and seeing dancing pears rotating behind Kanye West (and wondering how much the "artist" got paid for that) I was reminded once again of the tremendous opportunities that exist for visual FX artists who are interested in getting involved with live event performances. To that end I was also thinking about this website and of course in the beginning of any new site like this you're not sure of the direction it's going to take but overall the focus for Live VFX is on ORIGINAL visuals in live settings, I'm not so interested in people copying videos from MTV and reconstituting them for vjing, I guess the same goes for cutting films as well. It has to be original, either the technique, output or story.  With that said here is a nice piece...
 
SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

Forever at the Victoria and Albert Museum

This is a very elegant piece done by design and visual FX team Forever at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Last year at Moma Doug Aitken had a video draped alongside as well and it seems like here and there the museums and galleries are recognizing the potential to attract younger audiences. In last month's Art in America one writer intimated that 6 out of 10 grants for new projects could go to digital art projects within ten years. 


Forever at the Victoria & Albert Museum from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

Design Studio Strukt Concert Visuals

Following up my post yesterday about design studios possibly extending their work into the live visuals realm you can see here design studio Strukt using some of their motion graphics as a backdrop for the band TNT Jackson.
 

Concert Industry rolling - 2009

Despite the economy in a deep recession, advertising budgets being slashed, VFX artists being asked to do more with less, pump out more work and get paid the same, the concert industry is holding strong.  Right now there is a plethora of people all over the world creating moving graphics for commercials, trailors, titles, 3d work etc. and it's getting easier and easier to grab an after effects template, customize it a bit and export a logo or 3d graphic you might need. While designers will always be needed, and most can't do what a good designer or VFX artist does, one also has to recognize that the industry as a whole is changing so fast, with custom web driven content and concerts leading the pack, and the eventual fullscale mobile device assault.  On the flipside there are only 3 or 4 VJs (DJ Girltalk, etc) from the United States making any noise, yet what about all these people with amazing VFX skills?  The mashups are just the beginning, kind of like what wingdings were to entry level designers 15 years ago.  We see all kinds of amazing visuals, but also many cheezy loops with dancing bears or beating hearts, and not many people have figured out how to tell a story visually with music and visuals in a live concert setting.  I envision a future where people are cutting animations, claymation, stop motion photography you name it for more robust concert experiences. 

What if studios like Stardust or Psyop had departments dedicated to creating and licensing visuals for live events? 


#1 - CUTTER_OFF @ VISIONSONIC (25 Oct. 2008) from PIXELS Transversaux on Vimeo.

Slumdog Millionaire vs. Addictive TV

Nine Inch Nails Lights in the Sky Tour

Nine Inch Nails is currently touring with an amazing visual stage filled with L.E.D.s across it.  Trent Reznor ever the progressive mind has also made over 400gb of HD tour footage available for VFX artists and VJs to use from his live shows here