Basic Bloat
description
This work was created for "30 Days Notice" at the invite of David Bryant in Portland. The show featured rapidly produced pieces of an intermedia nature.
I created this piece by acquiring text from spam email and website misdirections, and then doing cut-n-paste exercises on the text. I then shaped the text into a "pitch" by three voices, ostensibly inviting the listener to create the media of tomorrow with zero skill needed. I originally used three Macintosh stock computer voices and mixed the narrative sonically as an audio piece.
David then introduced me to Crispin Rosencranz and Pippa Possible, who were ideal performers to bring this sort of absurdist piece to life, live. Their friend, the late Elena Steuber, generously joined our party, and I also used the chance to try things I'd had in mind for a long time, such as performing video and moving image in a gestural, musical, theatrical manner.
So I assembled found video and imagery with some of my own, and used iMagine software (from Steim in the Netherlands) for the live manipulation of those elements plus a live camera. I used a midi keyboard as one gestural interface, and was also mixing and manipulating a variety of audio sources during the show. My gestures were also designed to be as if in character - a religious blacksmith sort - but my interfaces never evolved to be as theatrical as I would've liked. Still, I think I achieved some aspect of what I was after - a character, rather than a VJ.
Shown here as a result of the kindness of video artist Karl Lind, who taped the two performances for me, February 2003. The insets you see were images that were being performed on the screen at that approximate time.
