Kicking off this Friday (3 June) is Rhythm_o1, the first of several events inspired by the visit of New York VJ, digital artist and theatre designer, Josh Goldberg.

Josh Goldberg while VJ at the annual Burning Man Festival, Black Rock Desert, Nevada

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Josh Goldberg, a top New York City VJ is the first digital artist in residence at Wits Digital Arts this June. Organised by Wits Digital Arts together with AT.joburg, his visit is designed to expose Johannesburg artists and musicians to a new kind of video artist, the VJ, who mixes live visuals and effects together with music. Josh will be hosting various workshops as well as a cutting-edge live performance at Carfax on the 11 June and a presentation of a site-specific work at the Johannesburg Art Gallery on the 17th.

Carfax: conceptual by nature in downtown Johannesburg. Scene from the 2004 group exhibition, Cube.

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With the rapidly growing popularity and increasing visibility of VJs, an exciting variety of visual styles have emerged from around the world, ranging from conceptual work which overlaps with contemporary art to hardcore psychosis-inducing trance. Like a DJ mixes audio, VJs mix imagery with sound using multiple sources of media to project them on to large-scale screens at parties, at events and in clubs.

The group Underworld in performance with British vj/design collective, Tomato.

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VJ Jay from the Brooklyn, USA group, Trigger Motion.

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Rhythm_01 will be an opportunity to participate in a music, visuals and dance event at Carfax, in Newtown, Johannesburg. A bunch of the top local VJs (christo_d and matr-x with guests) will be blasting images in sync with the left-field house beats supplied by DJs Glenn, Pierre, and Greg. This combination has happened before, but the totally new ingredient to the mix will be the Max/MSP patches developed by the Interactive MA students from Wits Digital Arts, under the leadership of lecturer, Nathaniel Stern.

The 2005 Wits Interactive Media Design class – Nic (mentor); Mitch; Mac (with the cap); Tegan; Onica; Mayav, & Nicky – checking out the venue for Rhythm_01 . . . the sidebar at Carfax, Newtown.

The whole system will run on two lightning fast Apple PowerMac G5s, sponsored by Apple IMC Southern Africa.

For a good overview of the VJ at work, take a look at the inteview with Melissa Ulto. To get practical advice about how to get started, begin with VJ Central

For software strategies and more background on Josh Goldberg go to Josh Goldberg

For more information about the Wits Interactive Media Design programme, visit WSOA

originally posted on nathaniel and the non-aggressive

Lawrence Lessig giving his presentation to a bunch of Joburgers at Wits

Lawrence Lessig, digital copyright guru, Stanford Professor of Law, advocate of creativity, and chairman for creative commons, gave a talk to a bunch of artists and businesspeople over at Wits yesterday afternoon.

It was really great.

Most of the gist of his talk can be found here; it was about Exclusive Rights vs. non-Exclusive Rights economies, how we need both to foster creativity, and that there needs to be a space between the two, where the world can reside (and thanks to America, this is not happening… we are leaning too far to the “ER” economy).

It was actually a pat on the back. Look at Joburg’s small community of bloggers (JoBlog, plankman for example) and anti-copyrighters (Christian Nerf, Aryan Kaganof for example) who both encourage re-mixing their work, and also sell their “big guns” to the likes of collectors/consumers. I, myself, have a CC blog (with loads of content – text and images – I’ve seen re-used), and also give away a lot of my software source code, video, images, etc, to any who ask… On the flipside, I use this popularity to sell works like step inside to the JAG (did I mention they bought it? First sale of a digital interactive installation in the country!) as an edition of 3, and promise NOT to copy it and distribute.

It was cool to hear how cool we are. And he also said a lot of other stuff I hadn’t thought of that was pretty smart. Watch Lawrence Lessig for more – he says he posts all his content online, and for free.

Oh, and also check out creative commons and ccmixter – the remix family tree.

Creative commons, south africa launch party tonight, 17h30, Rosebank Hotel. Don’t miss it!

This Friday, four Johannesburg turntablists, U-Looz, DJ Xoosh, Mr Mean, and the Kutt, will be present to demonstrate their technical approach to being Hip-Hop DJs and well as explaining their creative philosophy with Richard Rumney.
They will be armed with turntables and records and, aside from playing some routines, will jam together.
There might be magic . . . there may even be friction in the form of a DJ battle.
Come and witness the noise!

The Friday Digital Soiree
6 May 15:00 – 17:00
Convent Seminar Room
WSOA Digital Arts
All Welcome!

Free parking is available in front of the Convent. Go to http://www.wits.ac.za/artworks/contact/map.htm
For a map and directions.

circa nathaniel and the non-aggressive

at WSOA (Wits School of the Arts) seminar. Clockwise from left, around table: Natasha Christopher (artist), Professor Jane Taylor, Nicole Ridgway and Marc Edwards (artist)

Local scholar (OK, she’s also my wife) Nicole Ridgway presented this week’s WSOA paper, entitled in excess of the already constituted: interaction as performance. It was a fake debate, as provocation, between the two most prolific (in my not so humble opinion) new media philosopher / theorists around today – Brian Massumi and Mark Hansen.

Aside from the case studies of Bill Viola, in order to take a look at the performed vs the preformed in the “emerging space” of interaction, the most interesting thing Nicole did was in and around her respondents. Rather than asking for the standard academic response, she got local artists to talk about how they might apply its concepts in their work.

A great discussion ensued, and even carried on into a bar through much later that evening. A short version of said paper will eventually be online at http://inter-disciplinary.net/, and the full chapter will be published by Rodopi press later this year.