AntiVJ is a visual label initiated by European-based artists whose work is focused on the use of projected light and its influence on our perception.

Clearly stepping away from standard setups & techniques, AntiVJ presents live performances and installations where projection on volume, visual mapping, tracking and augmented reality, stereoscopy and holographic illusion are providing to the audience a senses challenging experience.

There will be an afterparty at the end of the week, Cuisine, the 21st of december at Timbuk2.

                

Technical setup:
- Custom screens and installation.
- 6 x 8 000 lumens video projectors + 1 x 12 000 lumens.
- hundreds of meters of vga and RGB cables.
- 8x8 VGA Matrix switcher, signal amplifiers
- 4 laptop computers (all Apple, running on Modul8) with multi output support.
- 7 different video signals (with a dualhead and a triplehead 2 Go)
- Loads of different Midi controlers. 

The result was a very impressive and immersive setup, the crowd was literaly surrounded by amazingly well produced visuals (ratsi, Aalto and Lego_man all have very unique visuals, but with some commons points in style and subjects, and their content blends really well together) and this setup created a very cutting edge experience for the audience.
To be honest the audio lineup in this room was good, but didn't sound "that" special, and it's funny to realize that sometimes the visual element is starting taking over the music side, and I'm convinced that many people that will come back for the visual lineup, and because of the great visual experience they had, which left much more souvenirs than the usual silhouette of a dj pushing records.

Video report
Here's a short video (edited by Lego_man) which might talk by itself :



It's a bit of a shame that the Lighting was a bit random and didn't really add anything, organisers might have better switch that off rather than having multicolored oldschool and disco patterns overlaying the projections sometimes, but anywayyyyy....

It was great to hookup with Pikilipita (which actually is from Caen, before he left to London to hack gameboys), grominet and other nice friendly people.


Radio interview
Aalto and Lego_man have been interviewed on a local radio show (at 4AM during the festival), and I was around to show some support while ratsi was busy playing live.
If you don't fluently understand french, here's a good opportunity to practice.. :)



Download the podcast. (french only)

The skypephone
Following the Iphone release, all the phone providers have to think about competitive and attractive offers to be not left behind by Apple, and turn up with new products and packages.
This is what the english company 3 (three) comes up with: the Skypephone.

It looks like a regular phone (it does the same really: call and receive calls / texts / mms anywhere, on pay as you go or monthly contract from £12) but..

.. it has a built in skype software, so you can do voice calls over IP and chat with one of the 250 millions skype users around the world, wherever you are in UK (you just need to get the phone network signal, and 3 has a good coverage) and talk forever without any extra charge ! It's also free when you travel to Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Australia and Hong Kong, and hopefully even more countries soon.
It also means that you'll always be connected to skype, so people can skype you at anytime, while you are in the park or at a gig, for free.
As a bonus you also get unlimited msn, ebay, facebook and other popular websites access with no data charge, and the phone has a nice 2.0Mpixels camera, mp3 player etc..

The bad points:
Well, it's not perfect yet, as it's quite a new thing, there are a couple of negative things:
- No skype in / skype out: you can't use these great options to give even cheaper calls to international numbers via voIP.
- No skype video conference yet (I can't wait to get the next firware update, with hopefully free video conference option using the built in camera).
- Usually the signal is fine and good quality, but you can expect a few cuts and voice robots sometimes. Not ideal when you talk to a client, but pretty funny anyway. ;)
- You only get the free skype option when you're in one of these countries which have 3's sisters networks.

So for the time being, I have another phone for the other countries, and I skype (in/out) over Wifi network for free as well, with the good old Belkin phone.


Hope you get as excited as I am by this new revolution !

Edit: This is not why I wrote this post, but I just noticed that 3 offers a voucher to new recommended customers.