Drawing and technology part II

Getting the bug for hand-drawn visuals for VJ'ing is one thing but getting it to work live is the big thing. First step was to try switching between the LP animations and some hand-drawn ipad visuals and in the process of setting this up I found something called Tagtool! It didn't work so well live on the old ipad 2 and it was at beta testing stage but I took a punt and got a new ipad pro with the pencil to test it out...

Tagtool is the creation of Josef and Markus Dorninger in Austria and it cleverly combines simple drawing with simple and sometimes complex animation. Once I tried it I was sure it could work live and broached the idea to Iain with whom we'd occasionally discussed audio-visual collaborations. The idea we came up with was to try to compose music and draw live and see how it turned out.

We set our sights on an upcoming private party and then a local gig along with DJs Koa, Benny and Vertigo (Berlin). And started rehearsing. Which turned out to be a total blast; being in the studio with Iain while he conjured up all sorts of sounds and looped and sequenced them was not just a blast though - it was also incredibly stimulating and I started creating all sorts of crazy characters.

Here's some footage from the first gig - you can see the ipad at right and Iain at left creating beats.

From here it went pretty fast; at the Kanikani gig in Paekakariki Dj Mu joined us and added another awesome layer of sound onto the beats. Then gigs at Splore, Performance Arcade and Meow, followed by the Carter Observatory. And a solo visual gig for Olmecha Supreme, plus Rhombus at Coastella. Lots and lots of fun.

I was also experimenting with the Tagtool app over January, trying for a daily animation on the theme of aboriginal astronomy. Although I don't know much about the Yuin birrung (if I already had a Masters I would love to do a PhD on it though) but I had lots of info about Wardaman astronomy through Bill Yidumduma Wardaman's book Dark Sparklers so I read that and let my imagination fill the spaces with some characters.

Still from the Jan 23 animation..

It wasn't something that would work live but it was lots of fun. The 30 or so one minute animations (mostly sped up versions of the longer drawing process) were cut together to make a final one minute summary for IG; probably too short to show much but it gives an idea..

After these gigs and other local ones (or not so local with the NZ Symphony Orchestra Shed Series) we were wondering how to tie the visuals in a lot more with the music. Which led to chaining in some audio-reactivity with some software called MMV (Magic Music Visuals) and then going crazy with a Leap Motion sensor, to capture hand movements as midi signals and add lots of effects to drawings.

Having now tested the setup over an almost 5 hour New Years Eve DJ support gig at Te Awanga Festival I'm pretty sure we're on the right track with it, but I realise that there are no presets and there's a lot of hand-crafting for each hand-movement and effect. But it's getting there! Here's a quick grab from a mirror/line drawing effect on a practice drawing..

We even have a customised Kuki Koori midi controller made by Yaeltex in Argentina which has held up well to my bashing the buttons.

It's interesting having the extra layer of technology over the original animated visuals - I'd say it's essential for longer DJ gigs but for Kuki Koori we will probably keep it to a more subtle level depending on Iain's music and the dancefloor crowd...