I was filming lots of random actions and things around the apartment. I filmed this giant art book opening and closing, and the word ‘resolution’ jumped off one of the pages. A resolution to do something, to snap out of this loop. Made me think it would be cool to do an video dictionary, a collection of a bunch of short videos like this.
(POSTSCRIPT: This short little video would become a key video in the chain of ideas which led me to start the Vidtionary project.)
This video was done simply as an experiment in syncing together a music keyboard powered by the Logic music software with my Arkaos VJ software. I could load the still images into Arkaos, and then use a midi keyboard to simultaneously trigger the images as well as music notes. Someone complimented me on the music, which is funny, because I essentially just banged away at the piano keys at random since I don’t know how to play.
I have taken literally thousands of pictures along the Han River of Seoul in the past year – granted many of the photos are similar one to the other. I don’t know yet what I’ll do with all these photos, but for sure something more than this eventually.
Sam goes to the science museum and the day gets remixed.
How this came about is my friend Ryan Gerard took the student he was tutoring to a science museum. When he came by my place, I was showing him my VJ software (Arkaos), and we loaded in his photos into the software, then linked the VJ software with a keyboard in the Logic music software, so the sound and the images are pretty much synchronized. See my recent video Han River VJ Demo for another example of this linking between the VJ software and the music keyboard.
An underwater electronic meltdown filmed off the coast of Miyakojima Island, Okinawa, Japan in 2006. I hope this captures some of the awesome feeling of snorkeling far out from shore on a sunny day. I love seeing the bubbles, breaking the surface, and feeling the difference between air and water. The light and color dance everywhere.
The music is “Automne” by Seafran. I’d been to Miyako in June, and collected a lot of underwater images with my Olympus camera. I still want to edit this footage using the water sounds as music, but that’s technically difficult – and as I was working on this, my friend Seafran sent me a few of his tracks, and I thought this one matched really well.
I threw a lot of the video clips into my VJ software, Arkaos, and visually jammed along with the music for several takes. Then, using Final Cut, I edited together the better takes.
I made this video as a demo for English teaching purposes. It’s not particularly great animation, but still I think my students would enjoy it. I’m actually really amazed that I could even make this. I look forward to trying some other motion graphics like this. I’d love to build a whole set of videos for teaching like this.
a compilation of time-lapse videos from an apartment window in the Oksu area of Seoul
Yesterday, despite warnings to go outside because of the rain mixed with yellow wind of China, I walked up the small mountain behind my apartment. It disappointed me to realize that all up the mountain there were cherry blossom trees, where the cherries had already blossomed, and were already falling off and scattered across the ground. It is a beautiful to see the cherry blossom petals scattered, like a spring snow — but already they were really scattered, really days past their peak.
I somehow missed it. Japanese obsess over cherry blossoms to the point that you get sick of hearing about them, when you live there. I’ve watched NHK (Japan’s national network) a lot lately, and seen all the reports of the blossoms. I guess they bloom in Seoul and Tokyo at about the same time.
The Japanese word for cherry blossom is “sakura.” There is even a word for a cherry blossom in its later stage, when it has leafed and the blossoms are beginning to fall — that is “hazakura.” There is a certain type of person who prefers the “hazakura” to the “sakura” — it’s like the first glimpse of beauty compared to the last glimpse of beauty — which is better?
(This footage was taken about one year ago in Kamakura, Japan — a very cool little town an hour down the coast from Tokyo. The town is famous as the hometown of director Ozu and for its gigantic outdoor Buddha statue.)
If I knew Buddhist scripture or Chinese mythology, I think there would be a really good quotation to describe this turtle. One watches it, wondering where its soul is, what sort of journey its spirit is on, while its body beautifully floats reflecting the sun’s rays.
After the epic yellow-wind clouds of Saturday and Sunday cleared up, some nice weather came in. The sky and weather was amazing on Monday. I noticed that the wind was coming from a different direction than usual, seemed to be blowing more from the East to the West — so, in other words, the dirty air from China wasn’t being blown in. Under that beautiful sky, I rode my bike down the Han River, and stopped for a while along the bank. I saw this dead turtle floating in the water. My first reaction was to assume the turtle died because the river was so dirty — but of course it’s also possible that the turtle peacefully died after a long life. I wonder what species of turtle one would find in the Han River? Would there be a lot of such turtles in the river? Considering that turtles have a fairly long life expectancy, wouldn’t it be unusual to come upon one that is deceased? Do you think that the turtle died because the river is dirty? Just how dirty is the river? What other life can be found in the Han River?
These are questions that I don’t know who could answer.
Or, was this turtle simply someone’s pet? And if so, did the turtle even die in the river or was it simply thrown in here after passing?
Cycling by a few months later, I glimpsed a few kids in the same spot I saw the turtle. They seemed to be looking at something. Had the turtle come back?
“The sun rises only to decline, just as the moon wanes after becoming full.” – 1000 Classic, Verse 3
Keith from Kungga organized this party at the Platform L Loop Gallery. Here’s a few clips, and then more description below.
This is footage taken of a sound+video installation by Seafran (Francois) from France. These days, he is seen around Seoul DJing dub and reggae. I don’t know if there’s some particular explanation or story behind this installation, but anyway it’s cool just as it is. Music producers can take note that one of the pieces of equipment hanging from the ceiling is the Boss 303 Dr. Rhythm Sampler. Some of the sounds are coming from the installation, and other sound is just spilling over from the live performances that were happening on the lower floors.
James White has been doing some really cool live looping stuff lately, mixing up his fun rhymes, didgeridoo, ukelele, and mini-korg. On this night, his performance was right near where my VJ station/installation was set up. I pointed my camera at him and did my best to interact with what he was doing, by effecting the camera footage – you should see that in some parts of this clip. I love my Kaoss Entrancer which basically lets me run in a live video feed and effect it with my fingers.
As for the party itself, it was a wicked night with a really good turnout. I think Keith’s goal was to bring together a lot of different artists from different backgrounds and create an event where they’d mingle, interact, and collaborate. The party spread through the three floors of the beautiful Platform-L Loop gallery in Hongik, Seoul. I think there were drummers, dancers, a Korean traditional music group, amongst other performances. I didn’t actually get to explore much, because for most of the night I was trying to sort out why my video signal was all distorted. After much grief, it turned out that something was set to PAL which was supposed to be set to NTSC. So I never really got to do what I was trying to do with my own installation, but then again I’m not sure I really had anything specific in mind to do anyway.
Anyway, this party really represented the best aspects of the current scene in Hongdae, an area of Seoul near Hongik University, which has the reputation as being Korea’s premier fine arts university. The surrounding area is a vibrant area of cool little buildings, quirky bars, art schools, galleries, and even woodworking shops.
