Petard

(2003-08)

is Depart's 'synapsisyntactical dewelloperawe', an audio-visual live performance for synced fragmented audio and video, mostly improvised live.

From 2003 to 2008 Depart performed as Petard. This is a short capture of a Petard audio-visual live performance at Cimatics in Brussels, Belgium using Pure Data's Gem and Native Instrument's Reaktor.

Depart used patched Reaktors and Gems to craft and drill shimmering synthaestheoretic momentals in reeltime and space out. Twitching sound fragments and video snippets like twisted twins, Depart's first realtime audio-visual performance was a demanding but mandatory experience. Intriguing combinations of flip-floppy hazardous movements in frequency and perspective, audiences were shocked and awed by the sheer force of what Kandinsky only could paint about in still images: audio-visual sculptures, proliferated, processed and projected in realtime.

Source: Depart

Petard, mittig, design, 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)

VJam Theory: Collective Writings on Realtime Visual Performance (2008) presents the major concerns of practitioners and theorists of realtime media under the categories of performance, performer and interactors, audiences and participators. The volume is experimental in its attempt to produce a collective theoretical text with a focus on a new criticality based on practitioner/ artist theory in which artist/ practitioners utilise theoretical models to debate their practices. (VJ Theory)

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Depart are Leonhard Lass and Gregor Ladenhauf, both born in Austria. Leonhard Lass is responsible for the visual part and now lives and works as a visual designer and artist in Barcelona, Spain. The man behind audio, Gregor Ladenhauf lives in Vienna, Austria and works there as a musician and artist. They both meet on a textual level which forms the base for visual and musical ideas. (Transmediale)

Sitting Room (2008) is 45-minute performance for one performer, two loudspeakers, two microphones, on-body-projection and delicate sound balancing by Depart and Richard Eigner. Richard Eigner and Gregor Ladenhauf were responsible for the acoustic implementation of this concept that was first realised in 1969 by American composer Alvin Lucier. Together with Leonhard Lass, who is responsible for the visual translation of the piece, performer Gregor Ladenhauf adds to the piece as voice and screen at the same time. A speaker transforming into a projection screen of his own voice, gradually disappearing like this voice during the course of the composition. (Depart)

Glyph (2011) is a projection sculpture by Depart with references to ritual monuments such as obelisks or stelas. It deals with cyclic change and constantly regenerates itself. An alphabet based on fundamental geometric shapes (rectangle, circle and triangle) acts as an communication device as well as a pure aesthetic element. All texts displayed are permanently evolving and restructured based on linguistic rules. Made with Processing and Reaktor. (Depart)

Maxim Zhestkov (1985) is a video artist, and motion and graphics designer based in Ulyanovk, Russia. At the age of six he was given his first computer, a ZX Spectrum, and devoted his time to drawing huge and very detailed illustrations. He was also a keen gamer, and believes his enthusiasm for design and CG effects can be traced back to those days. After high school he undertook a degree in architecture, which he followed by studying graphic design, fine art, illustration and sculpture. In 2009 he signed to Partizan. (Maxim Zhestkov)

Grid Index (2009) by Carsten Nicolai is the first comprehensive visual lexicon of patterns and grid systems. Based upon years of research, artist and musician Carsten Nicolai has discovered and unlocked the visual code for visual systems into a systematic equation of grids and patterns. The accompanying CD contains all of the grids and patterns featured in the publication from the simplest grids made up entirely of squares to the most complex irregular ones with infinitely unpredictable patterns of growth, as editable vector graphic data files. (Gestalten)

Sonic Graphics/Seeing Sound (2000) by Matt Woolman presents exemplary work from studios around the world in three sections: Notation analyses the use of sign and symbol systems in creating identity and branding for music artists, recording projects and performances; Material considers how products can package the intrinsic nature of the music they contain; and Atmosphere looks at how space and multidimensional environmeaants can be used to visualize sound. A reference section includes studio websites and a glossary. (Thames & Hudson)

No. 5: Circular Tensions (1950) - Homage to Oskar Fischinger by Harry Smith begins with a static red triangle, then a green square, and then a red circle. It is as though we are being introduced to the protagonists of the film: simple, static shapes out of which complexity and rhythmic interaction will be produced. The film also bombards the viewer with a number of alternating colour transitions used in conjunction with shapes that emerge from deep screen space. (Senses of Cinema)

Rewind, Play, Fast Forward (2010) – The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video by Henry Keazor, Thorsten Wübbena (eds.) brings together different disciplines as well as journalists, museum curators and gallery owners in order to take a discussion of the past and present of the music video as an opportunity to reflect upon suited methodological approaches to this genre and to allow a glimpse into its future. (transcript Verlag)

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Petard

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