LIVE VISUALS | GIGS | FILM REMIX
In my live visuals performance I mix and remix video, usually stuff I filmed and created myself. Other times I might use archive footage or samples that I work on in my live sets. I often use mix media and live camera feeds, for example in Transient Forms, a live painting performance, using slide and video on multiple projections.
I also use pre-edited film remixes in live sets bringing new associations to my own films and other films I admire. Some of my work has an activist feel to it, bringing important messages into the dancefloor, as it is the case with Earth: our home or the improvised jam with Ninja Tune bellow, using images of my activist documentary Give us Space, about the housing crisis in London.
I love to work visually in interaction with music. I also create music videos. Here are a few photos of gigs and a few video examples (scroll down!). Note that some of the live performances demos are recorded live without sound.
live visuals gigs
documentation
TRANSIENT. This is a little demo of the 40 min gig with live techno by Audio Dependent aka Tim Cowie (Light Surgeons) at AVTV at the Hackney Wicked Festival in 2013. Thanks to Malcolm for filming the gig with my tiny camera. I did the visuals live with fresh paintings painted/projected/filmed specially for this gig! this was the first time I did 'Transient Forms' performance all on computer and HD. Read more
MUTANT PAINTINGS | TRANSIENT FORMS. A video about the lives and forms of my mysterious Mutant Paintings; they keep moving and transforming. I paint, use live cameras, slide and video projectors, plus other offline and live manipulations. With the final artwork I create light-boxes. 'Transient forms', was the first live performance, took place in May 2010 at VHS basement when squatting the Carlton Cinema in London.
NINJA JAMM. This is a video of the collective Ninja Jamm or also called Elephant Jamm I had the honor to participate - with Matt Black from Coldcut / Ninja Tune, and Pete ElasticEye, Matt Sharp and lots of other people in a one day workshop on Projection Mapping at Hotel Elephant, in 2014. I'm doing the live visuals on the screen on the left, remixing footage about my housing crisis activist project Give us Space. Read more
VJ demos & sets
what you would see on the screens
METTA MORPHOSIS. In July 2015, in London, I performed a live visuals gig, with djs, for 2 video screens. Live, I presented 3 different sets all based on transformation, metamorphosis and Nature, poetry in movement for deep drum and bass. in my live remix I started with video samples of insects; most images were Nature based and included migrant butterflies, bees, Earth. Metta Morphosis is an edited version of the live recordings I did while transforming (using VJ software Resolume) the documentary images that I sampled from youtube. In the edited video I maintain the sort of repetitive movement and the subtle variations of the live performance. The video uses music from a favourite band, Godspeed the Black Emperor. Metta Morphosis is about, not only about the mysterious life and the transformation of these butterflies who cross the ocean and fly thousands of kms, alone, to reach a new land, but also about the inner transformations we are all undergoing. I send Metta to all beings in transformation!
Watch it on full / big screen with loud sound please! Read more
EARTH: OUR HOME. these are live visuals recordings from the same performance gig back in July 2015. I played my live visuals along with drum and bass djs. recordings from resolume are silent and a night is short, so I wanted to edit those bits into a video to pass on the message. for the purpose of this edited version I borrowed music from Future sound of London. that night I played 3 very different sets, all Nature related. here I remixed images from the film 'Home' and some of the words in the film giving facts about the Earth destruction that is undergoing. the Earth is our home, take good care of it!
ON THE ROAD and RUN-FLY are 2 excerpts of a 4 hours VJ set live performance at the benefit massive party 'Push Play', at Egg London, March 2013. This was a benefit gig for our friend Sonia and Anthony Nolan Trust. Organized by Botchit & Scarper label. Read more
I used Millumin (as VJ software), in super bright colourful LED screens ** the videos are silent - Syphon records without sound. I was playing along with the Djs
TIME FOR ACTION. This is an excerpt of a live visual performance I did using images I filmed in the riots in London in 2011, plus a few protests that year. The women's faces were recorded during the creation of videos for a theater performance with the actors. This was a VJ performance along with DJs at the Egg London using LED screens.
VISUALS & AV performance on stage
'Bombs or dying for a week' was an experimental theater piece inspired by a tumor, the edge, the inner scream; with women about to explode! These are excerpts of some of the videos created which were projected on stage using mobile pocket-projectors handled by the actors. **the videos are silent as they were part of the live show. This was a collaboration with Susana Vidal and B Negativo Teatro. Susana invited me to create the videos for her stage performance. The challenge was that we would do it using the internet and new media and work between London and Lisbon. The videos were recorded through Skype and manipulated/re-created/edited in London. Read more
Shows: Cinema São Jorge | The Museum of Electricity (Temps d'Images Festival), Portugal
MEYOUIT. Centre of Modern Art, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, 2008.
Collective Show by Cláudia Tomaz, Tiago Dionísio, Carlos Oliveira
In the summer of 2008, for 10 weeks, I was one of the 11 participants of the course in Interactive Performance - The Lisbon Interdisciplinary and Technological Performance Arts Course (ITPA) - at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation with tutors from the postgraduate program in Performance and Interactive Media Arts of theBrooklyn College of the City University of New York. It was an intensive full-time experience in performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, and interactive media technology. Historical and theoretical study of improvisation, performance, and collaboration in the performing arts was also an important component of the program. Eleven artists from all disciplines came together to create a total of 5 performances per group. The final performance was presented to the public at the Center of Modern Art on the 23rd August 2008. Ours was called 'MEYOUIT'. I recently found the footage on my hard drive and edited this short version of the show. And yes, it's me the cyborg on stage!
"You spell it ME-YOU-IT, all together, as a new word, because the result is more than its parts. The building up of this piece is based on metamorphosis. We started with an object, a glass that becomes a mirror and broken mirrors that become projection surfaces. Then we got inspired by ‘The invention of Morel’ written by Casares, a friend of Borges, ‘Alice through the looking glass’, cyborgs and clowns and music! and little by little characters and events started to take place. Over 2 weeks we developed this… thing… this IT. We presented it as a work in progress, unfinished as any transformation process."
film remixes
SEARCHING. This was an editing exercise for my course Creative Editing in which I asked students to remix footage from 3 films. I did this in that context as an example on how to transform meaning through editing while using film clips as a source for remix. We were working around technology themes, the use of screens in modern life and how to create a narrative and atmosphere through editing. Students were using the same set of images to create their own short film. The film clips for remix were: 'Blade runner', 'Matrix' and 'Pulse'. Info about past workshops here
TOUCHING THE NERVE. I made this in 2005 as an editing exercise when I was as Artist in Residence at Temple University, Philadelphia. I also played the music on an electric guitar that I borrowed for a film I was making at the time. It was a fun way to practice remixing, effects and generally working with Final Cut Pro. I also used this as VJ material for live performances.