I’m at a new website! Please visit:
CHRISVIK.COM
NEW WEBSITE
Reply
ETHNO TEKH | Live at Enig’matik Vibrations 2012
After a lot of hard work we finally got to unveil Ethno Tekh Performance v.2 at Enigmatik Vibrations last week.
This version is built to fit onto a smaller screen and has been extended to 20 minutes which is broken into 2 tracks, ” Tekhnology ” and ” All Frequencies “. It was a mad rush to get it all done in time and we missed out on a few planned features for this one. There’s not quite as much visual fluidity as we had planned between instruments, but that didn’t seem to phase the crowd who seemed to absolutely love it. It was some of the most positive and vocal feedback either Brad or I have ever had for a gig before and it was very encouraging to see other people really enjoying our hard work.
ETHNO TEKH | live at Enig’matik Vibrations (Melb,Aus) 2012 from Ethno Tekh on Vimeo.
It was an honor to get a great slot in such a tight line up of top notch producers tearing the place apart with mad textural glitch, twisting psy breaks and the fat chunk that Grouch always brings. Would love to say a big thank you to Enig’matik Records, particularly Jake Rose ( Sun In Aquarius ) for supporting our ideas from the ground up and giving us the opportunity and the audience to share our creativity with.
Ethno Tekh (teaser) – TechEd 2012 (Aus) Rehearsals
Here’s a short teaser of our live A/V performance system currently under development by us (Ethno Tekh). We’ll be releasing many more videos in the near future, including more performances with much high recording quality (apologies for this one), as well as interviews with both Brad and I outlining and discussing our project and approach.
For the moment, please enjoy the very first video featuring our new system!
“Ethno Tekh” is born
Image
I’ve recently teamed up with visual artist and programmer Brad Hammond (XY01) for our project Ethno Tekh. We’ve been slamming it hard and since we’ve teamed up in early August we’ve already had our first public interactive installation ‘public override Trichild()‘, which was a great success, as well as our first performance to an audience of over 3000 people at Microsoft’s TechEd 2012.
We’re focusing on real-time, interactive and generative digital artworks; as well as larger-than-life and futuristic bass music A/V performances, all performed completely live using motion capture and audio-reactive visuals.
Video of the TechEd performance coming soon, but for now, there’s these couple of photo. But head to the Ethno Tekh Facebook page to keep updated on the project. We’ve got some interesting stuff coming up.
Here’s a video from our debut interactive installation ‘public override Trichild()’:
Motion-capture Music Live Set Demo @ Ultralounge 2012
Image
Although I’ve spent literally the entire last 14 months of my life on making and performing motion capture music, with around live 30 performances I only just realised there’s very little footage online.
I’m currently in the process of updating my whole live performance system, so I most likely won’t be performing for at least a few weeks, so here’s an except of a performance I did earlier on in the year with my Kinect/foot pedal setup.
My 24 hour YouTube video remix challenge (done in 10 hours)
I’ve been wanting to remix a YouTube video for ages, but it’s something I always put off. Not a video in particular, just any random video that inspires me.
A bit of background on myself. Making my music (Synaecide) involves a lot of heavy editing to samples. There’s just something about zooming all the way into the arranger view of Cubase, cutting up, then manipulating little bits of audio into a track that gets me going. In high school I did a bit of video editing in media class, but since then I haven’t touched the visual side of things. Having said that, it’s an idea I’ve always been excited about.
To get myself motivated, the idea was to pick a video and have a finished remix in 24 hours. The video I picked was Elders React to Dubstep (Skrillex).
I ended up finishing it after about 10 hours of work. Here ’tis!
For those interested, this is the outline of the process:
- Record the audio from the video
- Bring the audio file into Cubase and cut out single audio samples (ones that don’t have any background music or sound that taint the sample)
- Create a drum beat and main ‘hook’ bassline
- Put the sounds from the video into a (very) loose order of narrative to give it some form of cohesion
- Limit the sh*t out of the mix
- Rip the video
- Pop the audio and video into Premier
- Spend hours editing the video and making it look like the people being interviewed are doing the sounds with their mouths
- and Presto!
Interview in The Age newspaper
Image
I forgot to post this last month, but I was over in Seattle and forgot about it when I got home. A few weeks ago I was featured Australia-wide on printed newspapers and on their subsequent online services with both a written and video interview.
You can check out the interview here.
Leap Motion
Image
If you haven’t heard of the latest motion capture device that’s been making waves in the community, let me break it to you. The Leap is an amazingly small device (literally smaller than a computer mouse) that can capture your hand’s input.
It’s been quoted to be 200 times more powerful “accurate” than the Kinect (whatever the term “powerful” “accurate” means is referring to), and from the videos on their website, it looks to pick up a very solid 3d image of whatever you put in front of it. Not to mention that it’s RRP at only $70.
Because it’s so small and works in such a small area, it’s much different than the Kinect, which is primarily aimed at tracking your whole body’s movements, which limits it’s uses somewhat.
I’ve managed to wrangle a dev release for this little motion capture beast. I’m receiving it in the next few weeks, so expect to seem some finger-music-making experiments from me shortly!
Demonstration at the Seattle Science Festival
Image
It’s been a while since I’ve last posted as I’ve had a busy time with a lot of cool stuff coming up! As a massive highlight to my year, I’ve been given the honor of being invited to the US to demonstrate my Kinect system at the Seattle Science Festival. My performance is on this coming Saturday (9th) for the Hacker’s Luminary show.
I’ll be in Seattle for a week before heading home, so make sure you say hi if you’re in the area!
My next Synaecide performance @ Mister Mode fashion market (28th April 2012)
Image
Yo dude peeps. I’m venturing into the world of fashion and gonna be slammin some beats and bass during my live performance at an upcoming event this Saturday (28/04/12) – Mister Mode Fashion Market. This is a great event to come and check out my work if you’re not into the club thing and even better if you’re the kind of person to wear clothes. I’m on at 8pm!
Chris Vik 