Steve Reich: Second Movement 

(2006) 

- D-Fuse, in collaboration with César Pesquera performed with the London Symphony Orchestra for Steve Reich's 70th Birthday concert at the Barbican Hall featuring live video mixed to Reich's The Desert Music.

"We've explored the relationship between image and sound, by creating live video mixed to accompany Steve Reich's music. Both the music and visuals draw on similar processes of rhythm, texture and meaning". (Mike Faulkner, D-Fuse)

 

The imagery for Reich's The Desert Music was specially created for this concert by VJs D-Fuse, in collaboration with César Pesquera. The video manipulation during Desert Music is the result of a live mixing process, which allows D-Fuse will build a visual performance in sync with the music as the LSO play it.

 

American composer Steve Reich is known as one of the godfathers of minimalism, but his shimmering orchestral scores are both spacious and generously expressive. The 50-minute cantata The Desert Music is his heartfelt response to the poetry of William Carlos Williams and the age of the bomb. 

 

Reich composed Desert Music in five sections, with a long middle section sandwiched by two shorter sections on either side. The first and the last, and the second and the fourth sections relate to each other musically. In this way, the structure of music can be described as an arch (or A-B-C-B-A). D-Fuse made use of this structure visually and graphically in their live video material that evening, and manipulated their video footage with pulses and repetitions, similar to those which Reich uses in his music.

 

Much of D-Fuse's inspiration for this performance has come from the work of photographer Richard Misrach, whose moving images of the Mojave desert carry a powerful message about the implications of the controversial nuclear testing there; his photographs of Snow Canyon State Park and the Wendover Air Force Base in Utah have been particularly relevant.

 

Source: D-Fuse website

 

 

Steve Reich: Second Movement, stripes, london, Live Visuals

Reading

‘vE-”jA: Art + Technology of Live Audio-Video (2006) by Xarene Eskander is a global snapshot of an exploding genre of tech-art performance: VJing and live audio-video. The book covers 40 international artists with 400+ colour images and 50+ movies and clips on an accompanying DVD and web downloads. (VJ Book)

VJ: Audio-Visual Art + VJ Culture (2006) edited by D-Fuse. A major change has taken place at dance clubs worldwide: the advent of the VJ. Once the term denoted the presenter who introduced music videos on MTV, but now it defines an artist who creates and mixes video, live and in sync to music, whether at dance clubs and raves or art galleries and festivals. This book is an in-depth look at the artists at the forefront of this dynamic audio-visual experience. (Laurence King Publishing)

 

SEE ALSO

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Orchestrion / Conductor (2011) by United Visual Artists was initially build as part of their ongoing relationship with the Creators Project, redesigning the main stage for Coachella 2011. Creating both a platform for performance and a standalone light and sound sculpture, Orchestrion is a collaboration with composer Mira Calix. Featuring sliding doors, the 64m3 cubic structure opens for bands to perform in it, and closes as part of its own performance taking place at set times during the three day festival. (United Visual Artists)

Massive Attack World Tours (2003-2010) by United Visual Artists. UVA and Massive Attack have an ongoing artistic relationship. Up to date UVA have created four world and festival tours for the band, the 100th Window Tour (2003) being the first. UVA created a new stage set with a wide, sculptural LED screen as the centrepiece for the fourth tour in 2008. Perfect synchronisation between the music and the visuals was made possible by United Visual Artists’ custom d3 software. (United Visual Artists)

Proud Creative was formed in June 2005 as a creatively led multidisciplinary design studio based in London. Their goal is to create work that makes their clients and everyone at the studio proud. It's the reason for their name. (Proud Creative)

Semiconductor make moving image works which reveal our physical world in flux; cities in motion, shifting landscapes and systems in chaos. Since 1999 UK artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt have worked with digital animation to transcend the constraints of time, scale and natural forces; they explore the world beyond human experience, questioning our very existence. (FatCat Records)