LPM 2008

Live Performers Meeting 2008

The fifth edition of the LPM was held in the old slaughterhouse at Mattatoio in the heart of Rome. The low-hanging hooks and carcass processing apparatus had been carefully covered up for safety, but the lattice-work of runs with strange, barbed, wrought-iron chandeliers loomed overhead. The FLxER crew had installed 13 screens in the cavernous space with a stage at each end and an A/V nerve center in the middle with places for the late night VJ sets.

Meat Hooks anyone?

VJ Talks interview with Jaromil

Each of the 4 days began with a VJ Talk hosted by AVIT. LPM is designed a space that enables VJs to engage with each other face-to-face, and the vjtalks were intended the catalyst for this. The talks started on the theme for the day (Digital Freedoms, 8Bit + Electropop, Breakbeat + Techno + Electro, and Visual Genders) and led into topics surrounding vj practice and to the participant’s own practice. Short interviews with some of the participants can be found on the AVIT site.

Le Collagiste, BomBaKlak, and Gianluca demo Codanova and FLxER

More workshops followed, including demonstrations of software FLxER, FreeJ, and Modul8; hardware from Codanova, Edirol and VMS; upcoming festivals Amore Festival, AVFactory 08, and LPM Mexico 2008; theory from Iwona Hrynczenko and Brendan Byrne of VJ Theory; and hardware hacking with Servando Barreiro and his Atemga8 based Minia microcontroler.

Akira in 8bit splendor

=ff= vs Return of the Space Invaders

Performances began in the late afternoon. The impact of the first few were deadened a bit by sunlight drowning out the screens. But with over 250 artists being slotted into 40 hours, some sacrifices had to be made. Many more VJs came with AV sets than have been seen in the past and at other festivals. Even if they were only using CD playback, the visual artists were taking control of their whole performance. Notable among them were live AV by Akira of Kiken Corp laying on 8Bits in all their Game Boy and Commodore splendor, Return of the Space Invaders vs =ff= had a tightly integrated performance in VDMX tracked to MIDI accompanying banging Dutch low-fi beats. Frank Sent Us offered a delirious send up of the Spaghetti Western. The BrandyAlexanderProject’s performance included live poetry. Synesthete acquired electrical signals from plants to create a live generative audio visual piece.

pintaycolorea

Spain was well represented by Negativo. The collective’s +AMOR A/V piece was a dark moody exploration of modern primitivism. pintaycolorea splashed the hall with colorful geometric forms. Madrid based Whiteemotion’s ‘Cuore International’ was made up of photographs, video loops and live camera.

The voyeuristic gaze of the camera’s eye was evident in Visuallab’s IS YOU(omaggio a Sophie Calle), which featured surreptitious shots of women in public places,only to cut away just before they seemingly became aware of the intrusion. Several performers also trained cameras on themselves, becoming stars of their performances. The aforementioned =ff= filmed an homage to THX1138 in the festival environs prior to their performance. Half-Machine also shot footage on location and of themselves in an exploration of the city and their time in it. Deftoo à La Yoa (who marked her first anniversary as a VJ at the festival) filmed herself when she could not find anyone to film. fomoke donned a wire and vellum mask to perform her odnoto piece in front of her computer’s built-in camera. PacOnAzim’s “Mrs. Soopradean” was keyed into stills of social situations and feigned interaction with people depicted.

Straight VJ sets rounded out each night with 6 artists at a time bathing the hall with projected video. Highlights included local multimedia artist S.A.D., who performed a set with anatomical line drawings. Jna the AnimalMan, EleKTro mOOn, and Klipman were also impressive.

Akira wins the VJ battle

A VJ Battle hosted by Fefè Project was won by Akira. First Prize was a Codanova VMX VJ controller. Further prizes consisted of 4 copies of modul8.

Strap-on dildoS

The Visual Genders day culminated in a audio-visual Bacchanalia befitting of Caligula’s Rome. Strap-on dildoS, a French troupe of liberated women, performed a 3 screen exploration of ‘chicks with dicks’. Their performance climaxed with the entire troupe at the front of the stage, stripped down to briefs and tapped breasts, drenched in whipped cream, fondling themselves. Warbear and Ugo Sanchez of the Rome based Phag Off events, took to the descks and the parade of flesh flowed on the rest of the night; caressed, shaved, licked, whipped and sucked; it was projected in all its glory.

Networking was on the minds of a great many of the artists. Representatives of a number of crews, organizations and festivals (aie prod, AVFactory, AVIT, LPM, Mapping, Vision’R, Visual Berlin, VJ Theory, Yroyto among them) all agreed in principle that pooling resources and knowledge was a must for expansion of VJ culture in the public arena.