Video Salon Macworld/SF: Visual Lounge, Open Jam; Quartz Composer, Jitter, Wii, Motion Workshops

Some people at Macworld Expo assume “digital art” only means someone working in Photoshop. Thursday night of the show should give them a terrific introduction to live visuals, with plenty to appeal to advanced users, beginners, and eye candy lovers alike. The third annual Video Salon at Macworld will feature a lead visual programmer for Apple and creator of Apple’s free developer tool Quartz Composer, prominent VJ Grant David (VJ Culture), a book launch, an open jam, and, well, me. Grab a drink, a friend, and cozy up for some optical cocktails.

I’m proud to co-sponsor the event on behalf of Create Digital Motion. (Hey, that means if any of you show up, I may buy you a round. Particularly if I screw up during my bit!)

VIDEO SALON, SF
Jan. 11th 2007
7:30PM-12:30AM
Demos start at 8:00
Open VJ Jam starts at 10:00
150 Folsom St. (@ Spear)
San Francisco CA 94105 [Map]

If you’re in San Francisco, either as a resident or in town from Macworld, I hope to see you there. And definitely spread the word to anyone you know going to the expo. I’ll of course have full coverage here on CDM for all those who can’t make it.

Grant writes:

Quartz Composer demos by lead programmer/founder Pierre-Olivier Latour and graphic artist Alessandro Sabatelli.

Presentations by Peter Kirn on Jitter, v001, Flash and Nintendo Wii controller.

Grant Davis (VJ Culture) presents Motion2 and MIDI demo

We will also have copies of the long anticipated VJ Book: “Art and Technology of Live Audio/Video”. Written by Xarene Eskandar. $39.99 list; under $30 street

Cheap drinks 🙂 Bring your laptops and unplug, free wireless. Plus, bring your media for jamming. We have a new format for this Video Salon. We will have formal presentations for the first two hours, and then open the floor to the traditional Video Salon style VJ Jam.

See also the free Backlit Lounge music party I’ll be playing on Wednesday night.

Full details and background:

Quartz Composer started its life as PixelShox Studio, which was developed in 2002 and 2003 by Pierre-Olivier Latour. Development on the original application reached public beta 0.92b In the transition from PixelShox to Quartz Composer, the application was reworked to act as a showcase and development tool for all that Tiger’s new CoreImage technology has to offer. For VJ’s Quartz Composer is a powerful tool capable of being used as a stand-alone VJ application or, intergraded into 3rd party VJ apps. Pierre has been programming for years and in addition to Quartz and Pixel Shox his has written numerous Freeware and Shareware apps. Currently Pierre is focusing on Quartz Composer for Apple’s newest OS, Leopard. http://developer.apple.com/graphicsimaging/quartz/quartzcomposer.html http://www.quartzcompositions.com/phpBB2/

Peter Kirn, New York-based musician/visualist and www.createdigitalmotion.com and www.createdigitalmusic.com editor, will show how a Mac with Jitter and v001 can mix custom 3D and 2D visuals, hooked up to a Nintendo Wii controller and Nintendo DS. If none of that made sense, just come watch a guy wave his arms around and make some eye candy. Peter has his finger on the pulse of technology development for A/V artists.

Grant Davis (VJ Culture), Co-founder of Video Salon and Video Riot will demo the MIDI capabilities of Apple’s Motion 2. With enough RAM and GPU power Motion 2 can be used as a real-time VJ application or, a quick way to create key frames using MIDI.
http://www.vjculture.com/
http://www.dimension7.com
http://www.lightrhythmvisuals.com/

Who is Video Salon?:

Video Salon is an open community of visual artists representing SF’s thriving VJ scene. Video Salon is YOU.

The event is hosted at Dimension7, a San Francisco VJ institution.

What is Video Salon?

Video Salon is an open community of video artists who come together monthly to share ideas, show their work and collaborate with other artists in an informal and social setting.

We have video mixing stations setup for anyone and everyone to show their work. Mix live to the DJ’s or do your own thing.

Our Mission:

To embrace a broad spectrum of time based visual artists including CG artists, experimental filmmakers, live visual performance artists and installation builders.

To promote technical experimentation and aesthetic development within our community.

To create an open dialog encouraging mutually beneficial critique, cross-pollination and collaboration.