Techno for Luddites

Underbelly Photos

Many thanks to Aidan Calabria, for taking photos during our Underbelly gig in the dome on July 12.

More photos can be found on Flickr.

posted by deprogram @ 9:35 PM

Underbelly Festival over for another year

Life seems strangely empty now that the Underbelly Festival + Public Arts Lab is over. No more sleepless nights in a playground filled with eccentric creative artists. Now we're adjusting to life back in the studio, the desire for collaboration stronger than ever.

We hope to work with the REJENR8 Productions dome crew again, as it takes our performance way further than any standard pub/club stage and PA could ever do. There's also a lot of work to do on the tactile mixing surface. More development is needed to make it a stable system that can rival traditional mixing methods. At least we can see the possibilities now.

posted by deprogram @ 7:31 PM

Last day of the Underbelly Arts Lab

We're pushing ahead, trying to get our Underbelly project finished by tomorrow. I'm now able to manipulate my vocal effects using gloves and the visual output is projected onto the geodesic dome as smoke. The result is a far more expressive performance, as I can use my hands to 'draw' the sound rather than sit behind a laptop mumbling into a microphone.

Now we just need to finish the mixing surface so that Nick can mix individual tracks during the performance. We are all severely sleep deprived by the two weeks of intense experimentation but also buoyed by all the exciting projects going on during Underbelly.

We appeared as part of a story on the festival on ABC News last night, and also got a mention in this Herald article:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/creative-collective-swings-into-action/2008/07/10/1215658038123.html

We are performing at 6:30 on Saturday 12 July and 6:00 on Sunday 13 July.

posted by deprogram @ 2:06 PM

Our first week at Underbelly has been an inspiring work in progress. Our idea is unfolding in unpredictable ways, and we still have a lot of technical hurdles to overcome, but we're getting there. It's been fun working with other digital artists in Bay 17 and also watch installations morph and grow in the foyer.

Nick and I are taking a breather today but Dave will be selling Deprogram CDs, T-shirts, posters and his own Black Tees prints and artwork at the Twilight Markets from 4-11pm this evening. The market brings Sydney designers and emerging artists together to sell their wares.

posted by deprogram @ 2:27 PM

What we've been up to at Underbelly...


Nick Mainsbridge's Blog - Audio Stuff

posted by deprogram @ 3:02 PM

We've finished our second full day at the Underbelly Public Arts Lab, and are preparing for another day of experimenting with the program Nick created - Smokescreen. Our aim at the end of the arts lab is to create a tactile mixing surface that accepts commands from Ardour and displays that information visually on a projection screen.

When we first arrived, the skeleton of the Figure Eight geodesic dome had already been erected - a commanding structure in an already huge space - our home for the next 2 weeks. It will house a PA and up to 250 people. Five projectors will be used to display images throughout the dome.

On Monday we managed to get a display and controller going for live vocal effects, which will enable me to control my own effects easily while singing, rather than having to lean over equipment and twiddle knobs. Now all I need to do is wave my arms around in front of a webcam.

Yesterday we tested the display for the mixing surface, feeding the visual output into a projector. All the basics seem to work, but now we need to build a durable physical control surface and moveable objects with inbuilt LEDs. There's a workshop at the venue, so hopefully we can do some construction today.

posted by deprogram @ 2:23 PM