Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/videojackstudios/sets/72157618575508944
Master and Margarita Audio-Visual performance; VJ performance
Places: Kiasma Theatre and Suvilahti, Helsinki, Finland
Dates: 4-5/4/2009
4/4/2009 – VJing performance
5/4/2009 – Audio-Visual performance
1. About the Festival
This was the second time Video Jack participated in the PixelAche festival, folowing the 2007 edition:
http://www.videojackstudios.com/blog/200703-vj-performances-and-talk-pixelache-festival-helsinki/
From the 2009 program:
With the 8th edition of Pixelache Helsinki, the festival is returning back to its roots. Instead of focusing on one main theme, we’ve allowed the programme to develop gradually around a selection of diverse topics. This reflects the nature of the festival: it’s built from bottom-up, with the voluntary efforts of the Pixelache community.
We participated in two of the “sections” of the festival: Live Video Lab and HELOW09.
Regarding this sections, the PixelAche program stated:
Pixelache and VJ Finland are collaborating to bring together local and international VJs, visual artists and designers to present their latest audiovisual performance work. In addition to audiovisual shows, there will be improvised VJ jamming sessions and collaborations with local club events.
Pixelache is collaborating with VJ Finland, Basso, Renegade to organise HELOW09, a festival of electronic music and VJ culture. Six interationally recognized artists of the electronic music scene and fifteen vj groups from six different countries arrive in Helsinki to perform during the weekend in HELOW 2009 -event in Voimala, Suvilahti
2. AV Performance
The AV performance on 5/4/2009 was particularly important for us. It represented the culmination of the development of our Master and Margarita project, which we started in the Summer of 2008, and that we had partially presented in St. Petersburg in November 2008 (Electro Mechanica festival). We were also very motivated by the technical qualities of the venue – Kiasma Theatre – and the documentation possibilities facilitated by PixelAche and Kiasma (namely, audio, video and photos).
In the end, we were very pleased with the way the performance went. Despite the limited rehearsal time I had with André, and some minor glitches, I consider that we achieved a good audio-visual integration, mainly due to past work together; the previous performance at Electro Mechanica; and the long discussion we had regarding this work. We also managed to be playful with the material. The documentation, while not technically perfect, is good enough for audio and video release, at least for the web. Meanwhile, we have uploaded music, video and photos of the performance to our different social media networks.
3. VJ Performance
The VJ performance on the previous day also went well. The visual setup at Voimala / Suvilahti was superb, with multiple projections and many small touches – congratulations to the VJ Finland team who set it up. The sound system was also very impressive. We played with Harmaa/Beige, whose visuals had very good quality. We did not control the final video mix (between our signal and Harmaa/Beige’s), which is understandable under the circumstances, but it did not lead to optimal results in our opinion. This just highlights how difficult it is to find the right balance for a fruitful collaboration. In any case, it was a pleasure to participate in another event with the Finnish VJ community.
4. Additional photos and videos
Photos from the VJ performance:
[flickr album=72157616677560287]
Video from the VJ performance:
[youtubegallery tag=”pixelache-hellow”]
Video from Finnish TV regarding our AV performance
[youtubegallery tag=”pixelache-yle”]