I’ve been exploring visuals more, prompted by the Anthony McCall work mentioned in the previous post.

Last week — nice timing — I received a message from Rhizome introducing me to the article, Maximal Art: The Origins and Aesthetics of West Coast Light Shows. The article included what one might expect from its title, but I wasn’t expecting the cultural commentary that was being explored with these performances. It has definitely given me a lot more to consider.

Not finding much more about these performances (the search has just begun), I started looking for anything documenting the visuals created for the 1990s rave parties where I’d actually seen this type of work. Again, more research needs to be done, but one hit came in the form of a podcast episode on XLR8R; you can see the episode below. In it Christopher Willits describes how to use Ableton Live and Max/MSP/Jitter to build a performance with music synced with visuals.

Even though I won’t be using Live to actually play music, I figure I can use it as a clock that I can sync with the sound then drive the visuals.

The realization of this is a ways off, most likely not being ready for May 15th, but I’ve downloaded a demo of Max/MSP/Jitter to start experimentation. The biggest time investment, even more I assume than learning the tools, will be collecting the actual visual fodder for the shows. I have zero film or video to play with, so I’ll be starting with still images, but even working purely with photography, I’ll have to spend a lot of time shooting then assembling video clips to mix with.

One note: my MPD is really similar to the Trigger Finger Willits was using to control the visuals. I’m excited I’ve inadvertently set myself up with the proper gear.