New Adventures in Folklore

"TRUTH MOVEMENTS" and live shows coming up in 2009..

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:08:00 +0000

"TRUTH MOVEMENTS" is a short documentary film taken from The Light Surgeons Live Cinema performance TRUE FICTIONS.

The film weaves a tangled web of conspiracies theories, divergent views and public oratory, from the 5th anniversary of 911 together into a escalating argument about truth.

Contrasting two points of view: the protesters or "truthers" who want to re-investigate 911 and those who oppose their intervention outside the memorial on this national day of morning. The conversation flits from person to person as the exchanges of opinions become increasingly passionate and emotional. A group of US marines berate a crowd who proclaim that 911 was an “inside job”. Their heated exchanges reveal how this defining event is still being fought over and will continue to be manipulated for different political motives.

The film is scored with a track created during the TRUE FICTIONS project (see earlier posts for how this process came about) and includes a building vibraphone melody, live drums and an Oud solo by Mavrothi Kontanis.

All the video footage, stills and interviews were recorded at ground zero by Chris Allen & Rob Rainbow on the 5th anniversary of 911 in 2006.

The film and TRUE FICTIONS project is produced & directed by Christopher Thomas Allen

Audio arrangement by Tim Cowie & Mark McRae
Edited by Chris Allen, Tim Cowie & James Price

TRUE FICTIONS continues to tour with shows coming up at the Loop Festival, in Brighton and in potentially a show in Belfast in July as well. We are hoping to arrange a big show in New York in the autum.. Stay tuned.

TRUE FICTIONS at IMAX Pictures..

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:31:00 +0000

"Home of the Brave" - AV excerpt from "True Fictions"

The recent show at the BFI IMAX was a great success, we had a toally sold out audience thanks to great publicity by the lovely people at the onedotzero festival. Here's a selection of pictures from the night:

Our True Fictions show was followed by performances by two other audio visual acts: D-Fuse and Hexstatic. Both presented great work in this amazing venue - all round it was a legendary night for live cinema in London!

We hope to post future dates for shows here very soon!

TRUE FICTIONS AT THE LONDON IMAX

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:34:00 +0000

We've just confirmed a big show at the London IMAX cinema on the 15th of November as part of the onedotzero festival and in conjunction with the BFI.

True Fictions will be presented as part of a triple bill of audiovisual performances along side other leading artists D-Fuse and Hexstatic.

More info to follow soon..

ORGANIZED LIES from THE LIGHT SURGEONS on Vimeo.

CONFIRMED: BIG CHILL 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:03:00 +0000

True Fictions will be performed at the Big Chill Festival in conjunction with the British Film Institute. The show will take place on the Friday night in the Media Mix tent. Tickets for the festival are availble here.

Its a great festival, one that we've been involved with for years and we're really looking forward to bringing this show there this year, its one of the few UK summer festivals that have provided a platform for this form of multi media art. There should be a full line up of TLS artists involved in the performance and we're hoping to make a few changes to show as well, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, here are some lovely stills from the last show at the ZEMOS98 Festival in Seville:

ZEMOS98 : SEVILLE

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:21:00 +0000

True Fictions: New Adventures in Folklore performance will be presented at the ZEMOS98 Festival in Seville, Spain on the 29th of March.

tickets are available here.

Excerpts from "Organised Lies" recorded at the world premier performance in Troy New York:

Milan Performance

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:20:00 +0000

True Fictions: New Adventures in Folklore was presented at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan, Italy, on the 22nd of November 2007.

Pictures by Lorenza Daverio

The venue was the amazing Opera space of the Teatro degli Arcimboldi.
http://www.teatroarcimboldi.it

Blindsider Video

Music produced and arranged by Scanone
CGI Animation by BlinkinLab

Featuring: Emskee, Dezmatic , Atypical , Nobs ,

European Premier in Manchester

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:45:00 +0000

True Fictions: New Adventures in Folklore was presented at the Urban Screens Conference in Manchester on the 11th of October. It took place in the spectacular surroundings of The Great Hall, a lofty Victorian-Gothic salon within Manchester Town Hall, completed in 1877 to a design by architect Alfred Waterhouse whose legacy includes the Natural History Museum, London.

Video documentation by Luden AV

More info on the other events at the festival:
http://www.manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk

Press review from the Manchester Metro:

True Fictions Trailer - European Premier

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:18:00 +0000

True Fictions: New Adventures in Folklore

An audio visual exploration of truth and myth through the voices and musical collaborations of New Yorkers.

This audio visual spectacle fuses documentary film making, music, animation and motion graphics with cutting edge digital performance tools.

“True Fictions” is the result of a year long digital art project produced and directed by Christopher Thomas Allen, commissioned by The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre, Troy, New York.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 11TH 2007 - 21:00 - 23:00 - THE GREAT HALL
European premiere. Manchester Urban Screens 07.

This performance will take place in the spectacular surroundings of The Great Hall, a lofty Victorian-Gothic salon within Manchester Town Hall.

Limited public tickets available, cost for non delegates £5 (£4 concs.)
from the Cornerhouse Box Office on 0161 200 1500

Free for Conference delegates.

Link to Event:
http://www.manchesterurbanscreens.org.uk/index.php?page=EventDay&day=1&id=47&lft=12&rgt=23

World Premier

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:16:00 +0000

EMPAC, The Armory, Troy, New York
- 14.09.2007

Credits:

Produced & Directed by Christopher Thomas Allen

Assistant Production by Annie Kwan

NYC Production Co-ordination by Sarah Pace

Research Producer Helen Omand

Cinematography by Chris Allen & Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow

Photography by Chris Allen, Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow & Helen Omand

Edited by Chris Allen, James Price & Tim Cowie

Animation by Martin Banks, Tim Cowie & Blinkinlab

Field Recordings and Audio Interviews by Chris Allen,
Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow & Jo Williamson

Studio Sound Recording & Initial Arrangements by Ben Allen

Music Production & Arrangements by Tim Cowie

Addition Audio Production by Malcom Litson & Jude Greenaway

Drums & Percussion:

Scotty "Imp" Lehman – Drums
Brian Fishler – Drums
Pat Rock – Drums
Isabel Pupo Walker - Percussion
Rev Mofo – Drums & Percussion
Valerie Opielski - Percussion
Sean McCall - Vibraphone

String Instuments:

Robbie Seahag – Bass & Electric Guitar
Jason Deiso – Bass Guitar
Valerie Opielski - Electric Guitar
Laurent Medelgi – Guitar
Jo Williamson – Acoustic Guitar
Luke Cissell – Fiddle
Tom Mayer – Double Bass
Brent Arnold - Cello
Mavrothi Kontanis – Oud
Chris Chalfant – Grand Piano

Vocalists:

Jo Williamson
Chanda Rule
Marrie Mascari
Adrienne Hecker
Melanie Moser
Kendra Flowers

MC's:

Dezmatic
Emskee
Atypical
Nobs

Wind instruments:

Joseph Jarman – Flute & Saxophone
Martha Hyde – Soprano Saxophone
Welf Dorr – Tenor Saxophone

Special Thanks to:

The Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, Salamanca, NY
The Ronathahonni Cultural Center, Cornwall Island, Ontario
Nichols Meat Processing, Altamont, NY

Kathleen Forde, Jason Steven Murphy
and all the staff at EMPAC

David Lublin & Ray Cutler at VIDVOX

An EMPAC Commission supported by The Jaffe Fund
for Experimental Media and Performing Arts

Performance

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:58:00 +0000

Technical set up

As we got nearer to our first performance on the September 14th we had to lock down the technical aspect of the show. I knew that I wanted to stick with the multi screen set up we had developed in our previous shows, APB - All Points Between and The Z-Axis.

These performances used multiple projection onto a large gauze screen at the front of the stage and a screen at the back. Originally I was planning on back projecting two side by side video projections at the back of the stage and front projecting one over the gauze as we had done things with the Z-Axis performance. EMPAC had arranged for us to use a small rehearsal space for three days before the show which proved to be invaluable.

After these rehearsals I noticed that some of the narrative elements were getting lost in the layering of the projections. I decided to flip the projection layout back round to how we did the APB show, two video projections onto the gauze screen and one at the back. As the Troy premier was in a huge sports hall we had plenty of space behind the stage to back project this screen.

(don't try this at home)

The complicated bit was working out the play back of our material. We wanted to mix material that was edited across all three screens and in sync with the audio with improvised cuts and scratches from a set of Pioneer DVJ turntables. In this way we could get a balance between edited sequences and live improvisation. This required us to scan-convert the three outputs from Tim's laptop that was running Vidvox VDMX 5 and a Matrox Tripplehead VGA card.

Each of these synced outputs where then passed through a Edirol V4 mixer which had some other sources connected to it, a DVJ, another laptop running VDMX and some live camera feeds. The V4 was then midi controlled from a Pioneer DJM800 mixer so that we could cut audio visual samples in over the three screen backing track.

We had three people operating the sub mixes on each screen and decided to use Appleton Live to run the audio and used a midi controller to trigger the three screen compositions in VDMX. This allowed us to compensate of any lost frames that would occur with the scan conversion and long video cable runs to the projectors.

In addition to the video projections we had two side projections that had a sequence of slide that followed the narrative themes in the show. They were back projected through the gauze screen and controlled with a rather old school dissolve system which we modified to fade to black after each set of two.

The artists performing the Troy Premier were:

Christopher Thomas Allen - AV
Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow - AV
Ben Allen - AV
Tim Cowie - AV
Jo Williamson - Vocals & Rob's Guitar

We had a great technical support guy, Burle Avant the video engineer at EMPAC, who was super helpful and we had a great time working with him.

For anyone thats a real geek, here's the tech rider for this show:

1 x Stage - 5m L x 3m D x 0.5m H approx
3 x Steel Deck Table - 3m L x 1m D x 1m H
2 x Steel Deck projector Stands – 1m L x 1m D x 2m H
1 x 10m Truss
5 x Profile spots
1 x 16 Channel Line mixer
2 x Mic Stands
3 x Mic's
5 x Audio monitor wedges
3 x DLP Video Projectors
1 x Rear Projection Screen
1 x Hanging Video cradle
3 x 9” Preview Monitor
3 x 13" Preview Monitors
1 x Rack of 4 TFT Preview Monitors
2 x Zenonon Slide Projectors + Lens
2 x Datatron Slide Control + G3 Laptop
2 x Adjustable Projector Stands
6 x LED Spots
1 x DMX Lighting Control
3 x Roland V4 Video Mixers
3 x DVJ-1000 DVD Decks
2 x DJM800 mixer
3 x External Hard Drives
1 x Matrox 3way splitter
3 x VGA>Video Scan Convertors
3 x Midi Control
3 x Apple Laptop running VD-MX 5
1 x Guitar & Delay Box

Cables & Power
Sound System

Technical Crew & Riggers
Audio technician

Tea & Cutters Choice

Phase Four

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:27:00 +0000

Post Production

First step in the post production process was to capture all the footage that had been shot during our two trips to the states. This came to a approximate total of forty five tapes, 15 hours of DV footage and 22 hours of HDV footage. After we had logged and captured the best bit of this huge archive we would begin the painful task of re-syncing all the audio we had recorded with the video from the music sessions.

Tim Cowie took on the task of re-syncing the video with the audio that we had recorded in Logic, as he made his way through the tapes he began to familiarised himself with the recording with an eye and an ear to re-working the arrangements in Logic once we had the project matched up in Final Cut Pro.

I began editing work on the narrative material, capturing the various documentary footage we'd shot and listening through hours of recorded audio interviews and chopping them slowly into statements and themes. This was a good three weeks work before we got into the arrangement stage.

We started to create the music compositions by opening the arrangements that my brother Ben had created during the recording sessions and selecting the best takes. Slowly we started to get a picture of the different tracks and Tim began to refine the arrangements and write new elements to these tracks. I continued to edit the narrative while listen to the tracks coming together. Working with the narrative and the music at the same time we were able to allow each to influence the other. As i got sections for story edited we would try playing them with different tracks. We soon had a rough sketch of all the tracks and their themes, we then began to focus on the musical arrangements in Logic and translate them into video sequences in Final Cut Pro.

As we got these sequences together it back clear that we had lots of work cut out for ourselves over the summer. It had always been my intention to get different artists to remix the audio compositions and I got in touch with a handful of producers that i wanted to get involved in the project. Me and Tim decided which tracks would work best with which producer.

After failing to pin down several music producers including Patrick of DJ Food fame, we opted to stick a bit closer to home. We began work with Malcolm "Blip Vert" Litson (who had been helping us with Logic) and
Scanone, AKA Mr Jude Greenaway. Jude has been a integral part of The Light Surgeons AV performance work from day one. I really wanted his skills on the audio and his involvement in the performances, but due to his limited availability and my slim budget he only ended up writing one of the tracks in the final show.

We had to start thinking about how we were going to present the final piece as this had various ramifications on how we went forward with the editing and audio production. At times the complex layers of chicken and egg situations got the better of us but we continued to march on at a fair pace.

The narrative edits were sketched out and coming together, we had to do a fair bit of bouncing tracks between the two programs, re-arranging the audio to work with the narrative and visa-versa.

I knew there was one or two pieces that I wanted to use a more animation approach with, so we enlisted the help of some friends, Martin Banks came on board for a week and worked on a 2D typographical sequence in Aftereffects that illustrated word for word a battle between two poets about 911.

Towards the end of our post we commissioned two animators, Tom Wall and Luis De Jorge Ladrero from BlinkinLab, to create a more complex 3D animated sequence to the final track that Jude had created with the MC's we'd recorded. This sequence was created using Maya, I providing the vector artwork in a sequence that corresponded to the MC's lyrics and they set about creating these graphic files into a landscape of logos which rush past with track.

During the post production phase we had several deadlines where we had to up load work in progress to an FTP site for EMPAC to see how things were coming on and they could give us some feed back. They were more than happy with what we were making and didn't meddle with anything, which was great, the only issue for them was the title: New Adventures in Folklore, which they felt wasn't exciting enough (!?) so i began a painful process of finding an alternative.

Its hard to have any sort of objective view on something like this when your right in the middle of it all and I hate having to come up with titles under pressure at the best of times. Titles can be a really tricky thing and i don't think you can find them when you most need them, they tend to find you in my experience. After going round in several big circles, digging through piles of notes and going generally blind to the whole thing, Helen came up with some good surgestions and we decided to go with one of hers: True Fictions.

Phase Three

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:18:00 +0000

Road Trip in Up State New York

After the music recording sessions in New City, the project moved back to documentary mode with the last phase of filming and recording. I was joined again by fellow Surgeon, Rob Rainbow as well as researcher and producer Helen Omand for a road trip up state to explore the stories, culture and voices of Native American culture.

Helen contacted various Native organisations and through her research arranged to meet and interview representatives from the Seneca and Mohawk tribes, both based in New York state. We traveled up from New York City by train to EMPAC's base in Troy, before collecting a hire car and hitting the road west towards Fonda to stay with the Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community. Once off the main highway we headed along the Mohawk Valley and while trying to find the community we had arranged to stay at, we stumbled on this amazing architectural feat below.

After stopping for a closer look we were greeted by John, the rather eccentric home owner, who had constructed this house himself and who informed us that it was a work in progress and lead us over the rail tracks to see the pier he had created from reclaimed railway sleepers and flood debris. Next to his ad hoc out-house construction, John and his wife lived in a old bar from the prohibition days!

We spent our first night with Emily at the Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community where we discussed the history of the community and explored their beautiful woods and river.

Upon returning to our room we discovered this little fellow:

Our first filming location was with a group of historical re-enactors who had organised an event at Herkimer Home State Historic Site. We visited them the night before the main event and spent the evening in animated discussions around their various campfires.

They enlightened us with stories about the culture of re-enacting, the various faux pas associated with wearing the wrong gear and their passion for history in general. After a few warming sips of home made cherry brandy and some Monty Python jokes, we decided to get out of the cold and the leave the hardcore history buffs to a night under the canvas.

The next day saw the re-enactment of a raid on a farming community by loyalist British and native American forces, a intense musket battle ensued between the invaders and the defending group of local militia, ending with a British soldier scalping one of their young female captives. We managed to catch a few interviews and made a sharp exit..

We continued our journey west the next day and headed for the town of Salamanca and the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum where Helen had arranged several interviews. We stayed the night in the charming Mountain View Motel, run by a suspect lady with no teeth. After a brief, disbelieving look at our rooms we ventured out to investigate the nearby and newly built Casino which was beaming out bright search lights into the evening sky.

Not being much of a gambler myself, I always find casinos very curious and strange places and this one was no exception; a maze of whirring machines and flashing lights, adorned with countless kitsch "native" references as well as overwhelming number of security cameras. After several foiled attempts to film and record audio covertly we fled to the relative safety of the Mountain View.

The next day we visited the museum and conducted our interviews which taught us more of the rich history of song, dance and oral traditions of native culture. We did some recordings with an amazing local singer, Josh Jonnyjohn, who sang and played the water drum. He then told us about the various traditional songs and dances as well as contemporary songs he had written in his native Seneca language. He told us about the battle to save their language and uphold their many teachings and mythologies.

I then had a long theological debate with another gentleman who was a born again Christian. Ralph was an elder who had left the ideology and teachings of the native Longhouse tradition for Christ. Kari, our contact at the museum, also explained the local politics of the casinos, the chief system and the many related issues surrounding native identity, all of which I found fascinating.

The next day, after exploring the town of Salamanca some more and getting lost in its back streets, we headed off towards Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

We arrived fairly late at night and crossed onto the Canadian side of the falls as we had been told that the view was better from there. Niagara is a very touristy place; full of casinos with their bright lights and kitsch attractions. We ventured out to explore this curious theme park.

The Falls are definitely worth the trip, they look amazing illuminated at night, I found it especially captivating to watch the the spay and mist dissolving into the air. We shot some footage the next day and decided the best place to film was from Buffalo on the US side, it gave you this nice sort of "edge of the world" perspective. This decision lead to a number of border crossings as we were booked into a hotel in Niagara, which seemed to stress out the immigration people somewhat, or maybe it was just the beards me and Rob were sporting.

On our way back east from Niagara we stopped off in Rochester to check out the home of Mr Kodak, George Eastman. There is an interesting museum which tells the story of Eastman and a great gallery of photography. The quote above was displayed on the wall in the entrance to the main exhibition and I thought it very relevant to the project..

We continued our road trip with a long drive up to Cornwall Island, on the Northern border of New York state, to meet Haudenosaunee people from the Mohawk tribe at The Ronathahonni Cultural Center. We arrived late at night and decided to investigate the casino and see how it compared to the Seneca casinos we had seen in Salamanca and Buffalo. This casino was smaller than the others and was decorated with some interesting sculptures depicting various native clan symbols. It was Rob's birthday the next day so we decided to hit the casino bar and began chatting with a local Mohawk guy who entertained us with his tales of hunting wild bears!

After we had explained the project to him he insisted on introducing us to his artist friend, Brad Bonaparte, who had been involved with the decoration and sculptures displayed around the casino. The next day, as if by some sort of magic he pulled up outside our hotel in the morning and escorted us to Brad's workshop. Brad showed us round and introduced us to a painter friend of his called Dave Faden who was installing his work in a community gallery space. We interviewed both of them and got some really great quotes. We discussed many things; cultural identity, local politics and the environment. Dave had a beautifully calm way of speaking which was a joy to listen to. After a brief tour of Brad's workshop we headed on for our afternoon appointment at the Ronathahonni Cultural Center. This involved crossing the border again where we were stopped and asked yet more questions by the guards.

The Ronathahonni Cultural Center is located in Akwesasne, between the borders of New York State, Ontario and Quebec. It is a cultural education and resource center dedicated to teaching the culture, traditions and history of the Haudenosaunee People. There was a strange atmosphere on this island, a limbo state between states. On arriving at the center we were met by a lady called Sarah and introduced to several young members of the Haudenosaunee community that were willing to take part in our interviews. A local singer called Sean sang some of the traditional Mohawk songs and played the water drum for us. After this we began discussing many of the topics we had covered in earlier interviews with Sean and another lady called Derry. With a growing understanding of the current native perspective and issues we posed more questions this time and got some new and enlightening responses.

We left Akwesasne in the afternoon and started the long journey back to where we started out in Troy. This final journey took us through the Adirondacks, a beautiful range of mountains and woodland which are among some of the only remaining wilderness in New York.

The sun set in the stream of tall fir trees and the road snaked through the mountains as we found our way to the small town next to Lake Placid. As it got dark and the snow began to fall we began to recall all the stories and information we had taken in over the last few days. It had been quite an adventure. Rob was due to get the train back to NYC the next day and make his way home to London. Myself and Helen had one last location to visit before we were done but neither of us were really looking forward to it...

Helen had arranged for us to film at Nichols Meat Processing, a meat packing and slaughter house located just outside Troy. Upon reflecting on the story of Uncle Sam me and Rob had recorded on our last visit, we had thought it would be interesting to show the reality of meat packing, Rob being a vegetarian had strong views on Uncle Sam the Meat Packer. I felt as a carnivore I should face the reality of my choices and go see it for myself. Once we had dropped Rob off at the station we gathered ourselves and headed for the last appointment with the Albany Butcher! To calm our nerves we stopped under a flyover where I had spotted a curious collection of hand painted murals.

Somehow they all seemed to be echoing the various threads of the project, the story of Uncle Sam, George Washington meeting the "Indians", the settlers of this "New" world, the patriotism of war and "victory", the fragility and sorrow of 911; all the various layers of history and myths that make up the collective American psyche.

We arrived at the slaughter house a bit later than planned after getting a bit lost and confused as to where it was located. Eventually we tracked down the right road which lead us up a hill to a small building below the power lines of a huge electricity pylon. Jeff the man who greeted us on entering the place was very friendly but had these huge glassy blue eyes which were a little unsettling. Helen chickened out of entering the main area were the animal processing took place and stayed near the entrance. Due to our late arrival we had missed the main work of the day, the slaughtering of 13 spring lambs and a cow. The real gore was over with already and all that was left was the still steaming carcass of a cow cut neatly into two halves.

I filmed a series of rotations with a motion control tripod head in the cold store room. The textures of the flesh of these suspended animals had a sureal quailty in the flickering florescent lights. It seemed a fitting end shot to the project, it really made me think of all the millions of animals we consume everyday without really acknowledging the reality of our consumption. This is another truth which is obsured by the packaged myths presented in advertising and perpetuated by our collective desire for freedom and choice.

Needless to say, we didn't stop for a road side burger as we made our return trip to Troy...

Phase Two

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Tue, 29 May 2007 23:45:00 +0000

Audio Visual Recording Sessions, New York City

I landed in the US on the 28th of February to start the next phase of the production, a month of audio visual recording sessions with a collection unsigned New York musicians!

After sifting through the many emailed replies from artists to the call out that was posted on various web sites, New York's huge pool of diverse musical talent became very apparent. Excited by the prospect of this quite random creative collision, as well as the prospect of working with my brother, Ben Allen AKA Loop Professor, I settled into a month of cat sitting in a appartment in Brooklyn Heights kindly on loan from our production coordindator Sarah Pace, while she was out of town. Sarah had worked on sourcing a space to work from for the duration of this leg of the project and had scored this amazing basement in DUMBO, down-under-the-Manhattan-Bridge.

On the junction of Pearl and Front street, the space run by Marching Records was to be the base camp for the next month. After a brief period of adjustment to the New York ways, namely, bagels, coffee and a distinct lack of cat flaps, we started to get things organised. After the first few days in the space sorting out some of the technical issues, we began to realise that we were going to have a major issue with sound spill from the neighbours. It now seemed apparent that the place we had hire was a rehearsal space and a random section of different rock and hipster bands would be thrashing it out next door on a regular basis.

After the initial panic and a frantic search for an alternative space, we decided to stay put and work around this by holding sessions early in the morning and very late at night. This factor also meant we had to slim down the list of artists a little, which was a shame. I didn't want to cherry pick people too much as I wanted to let things happen organically and I tried to involve everyone who had responded to the initial call out. However, with limited funds and tricky session times, the list of prospective musical collaborators was cut down significantly.

We picked up a few choice characters through word of mouth and personal connections but the final tally ended up at a total of 28 artists:

Robbie Seahag - Bass & Electric Guitar
Link: http://www.robbieseahag.com

Rev Mofo - Acoustic & Electronic Percussion
Link: http://www.reverendmofo.com/

Pat "Rock" Woods - Drums
Link: http://www.myspace.com/theluckiestbandintheworld

Melanie Moser - Vocals & Electric Guitar
Link: http://www.melaniemoser.com/

Mavrothi Kontanis - Oud
Link: http://www.oudcafe.com/

Martha Hyde - Soprano Saxophone

Marie Mascari - Vocals

Luke Cissell - Fiddle
Link: http://www.myspace.com/lukecissell

Laurent Medelgi - Acoustic & Electric Guitar
Link: http://www.myspace.com/guitarpillbox

Kendra Flowers - Vocals
Link: http://kendraflowers.com/

Joseph Jarman - Saxophone & Effects
Links: http://www.artensembleofchicago.com/joseph.html

Jo Williamson - Acoustic Guitar & Vocals
Links: www.myspace.com/joscream

Isabel Pupo-Walker - Percussion

Chris Chalfant - Grand Piano
Link: http://www.chrischalfant.com/

Chanda Rule - Vocals
Link: http://www.myspace.com/chandarule

Brian Fishler –Drums

Adrienne Hecker - Vocals
Link: www.myspace.com/blipsqueak

Brent Arnold - Cello
Link: http://www.audiofriction.com

Welf Dorr - Saxophone
Link: http://www.garageband.com/artist/monkfu

Travis - Theromin
Link: http://www.goldmineshithouse.com/

Tom Mayer - Double Bass

The other artists that aren't pictured above (because i didn't get any snaps of them) included:

Scotty "Imp" Lehman - Drums
Link: http://www.myspace.com/scottyimp

Jason Deiso - Bass Guitar
Link: http://www.myspace.com/jasondeiso

Valerie Opielski - Percussion & Electric Guitar
Link: http://www.myspace.com/valopielski

Emskee - MC
Link: http://www.goodpeoplemusic.com

Dell Wells - MC
Link: http://www.myspace.com/dellwells

Dezmatic - MC
Link: http://www.dezmatic.com

Atypical - MC
Link: http://www.myspace.com/atypical

Nobs - MC
Link: http://www.myspace.com/nobsfingerprint

Just to add to the general confusion of these sessions all the recording was done in total darkness! I decided that in order to preserve some continuity with lighting as well as the overall look and feel of the footage, I would shoot all the video material using Infra-red night vision cameras.

To do this I used two cameras, one Sony A1E, HDV camera set on night shot mode and a small security camera attached to a Sony PD150, this camera had a set of infra-red LED's which acted as a light source for the other camera. I also used a hand held infra-red light for extra illumination here and there.

This approach proved to be a bit of a tricky task when negotiating cables and equipment in the dark but it did allow each musician to immerse themselves in the music and not get too conscious of the camera.

Audio was recorded onto each DV camera as a headphone mix and then directly into a laptop running Logic through a 24 channel desk.

To create a conversation between these solo musicians, each artist was given a set of headphones and was played a series of takes from an earlier session. This was done as a total improvisation as none of these artists had worked together or knew of each other beforehand. We tried to stick to a principle of each recorded take being "passed on" to influence the next, in the vain of Chinese whispers, or if you're an American, the telephone game. The concept was to create a sort of musical form of rumour or myth.

The process was started by recording drums, bass and percussion to a series of click tracks and a few cheeky samples which were then removed as each track grew. We also played some of the narrative interview material to the vocalists to seed their ideas. Along the way, we created new tracks by sampling elements of the takes and looping them up to create new audio "beds" to develop into tracks.

The results have been amazing! Trust me.. but you will be able to judge for yourselves, I will be posting video and audio previews in the coming months so stay tuned.

Phase One

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:37:00 +0000

Foreward:

There are many grand narratives and modern day myths that continue to be perpetuated and passed on through song and spoken word. We are surrounded by archetypes; heroes and villains, story telling and myth are central to our popular culture and have become a very real currency of the information age.

The study of linguistics and the broader advent of structuralism suggested a form and a pattern to this collective psychology of language and as a science they have attempted to map these ever changing landscapes.

These various approaches uncovered hidden structures to our interwoven streams of language, but perhaps they are more fundamentally organic in their nature. When viewed as a separate entity or organism, they can be seen to have spawned many different strains of viral stories to create the dominant ideas and histories, a type of pandemic myth or evolutionary history.

At what point can we separate ourselves from our own language? Can we ever be truly objective?

Today we have a plethora of different media to generate and disseminate our various folklores and modern day myths. These stories are all pervasive and omnipresent, continually being recycled and recompressed so tightly that we don’t even notice when we are consuming them.

Myths are used to sell us products, create fear or happiness and entertain us; they mould public opinion and win politicians elections. The evening’s news becomes the Hollywood epic and both become all to quickly assimilated by the tidal shifts of the mass media.

They are collaged and recycled, multiplied and reproduced in the realms of our popular culture; the endless expanse of the Internet has become a fertile new frontier in this threshold of truth and fiction, rife with conspiracies and pregnant with gossip.

Existing between these platforms of information, these mythmaking breeding grounds; we have all become carriers. What was once perceived, as fact has now become a blur of factions.

It’s not so much the science of which source is right and which source is wrong, but rather which has more space to tell the story it wants to tell.

C. Allen

Call For NYC Participants!

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:14:00 +0000

The Light Surgeons request the collaboration of NYC based musicians, mc’s and poets who are willing to participants in a series of live recording sessions taking place in Brooklyn, New York throughout the month of March.

Participant Guidelines

We’re interested in musicians and performers in the following areas:

Bluegrass
Roots
Folk
Blues
Classical
Jazz
Rock
Alternative
Spoken Word
MCs
Poets

Musicians will be asked to improvise to a series of pre-recorded rhythms and respond to other pre-recorded participants in the style of the Dadaist game of exquisite corpse.

Vocal artists, MC’s and Poets will be asked to react to a series of documentary sound recordings and interviews conducted on the theme of truth and myth, touching themes such as the modern day folklore of conspiracy theories to national icons and archetypes.

Strong opinions and personalities are encouraged but please have collaboration in mind!

In order to participate, you need to be able to commit to a minimum of one 2 hour recording and filming session taking place in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn and easily accessible by the A,C, 2, 3 and F lines. The project can offer a small stipend per session.

Please submit links of your work via email [myspace profiles are ok]

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS 03 / 05 / 2007
Contact: avfolk@thelightsurgeons.co.uk

The Project

noreply@blogger.com (The Light Surgeons) — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:37:00 +0000

Under the direction of The Light Surgeons founder and director Christopher Thomas Allen, this new performing arts commission will create a ground breaking audiovisual performance that brings together a unique collaboration of different visual artists and musical talents. Creating a cross-disciplinary project that will fuse documentary film making, live and electronic music, animation and motion graphics with cutting edge digital video performance tools.

Production stage 1:

The project began by gathering documentary narratives that explore the idea of truth and myth. Using EMPAC’s hometown of Troy as a starting point, Light Surgeons Allen and Rainbow set out to investigated the story of Uncle Sam Wilson.

Uncle Sam has become central to Troy’s heritage and the local people have fought to secure his history from other towns and states that have wished to claim his resting place. He has been canonized into an icon and is how an international symbol for America.

Through a series of interviews with local Trojans during the Uncle Sam’s Day Parade, we uncover his many meanings and reveal their relationship to the man and the myth. Some see him as a man of thrift, a hero of capitalism, but he is also a figurehead for the military and a symbol for the state and the taxman. He provokes a range of different emotions and a deep sense of patriotism in many. His story reveals a sense of how “history” is created and can become hijacked for a cause or political ideal.

There is an almost religious patriotism that seems to surround iconic symbols like Uncle Sam and this theme was further explored by visiting ground zero on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Throughout the day we gathered interviews with a cross range of people who had congregated at the memorial service to pay their respects. Some came to voice their support of the subsequent “war on terror” while others came to protest and campaign for an investigation into the events of 9/11. This defining moment of the new century has already become a mythical event and the boundaries between historical fact and political belief are blurred in a stormy debate.

Production stage 2:

This documentary narrative will now be edited and used to provoke a response in further interviews gathered during a road trip around the state of New York . Through a series of call and responses, the organic nature of a new cipher will develop. This process will be used to generate new threads of investigation.

We intend to investigate myth further through a local Native American tribe, conducting interviews and recordings that will explore their oral traditions of music and storytelling.

A series of interviews providing a more academic perspective on the subjects of linguistics and biology will seek out parallels in the sciences, looking at areas such as neural structures and the behavior of viral organisms.

These very different documentary narratives will then be interwoven with a selection of recorded lyrical collaborations with local Hip-Hop MC’s, songwriters and poets. All collaborating artists will be asked to retort to the various themes gathered during our documentary investigations, with the aim of creating further debate and blurring the boundaries between truth and fiction.

The musical score for the final performance will be generated through a series of recorded AV sessions in New York City. A process of musical consequences will bring a collection of musicians from different backgrounds together. Taking its inspiration from the Dadaist game of exquisite corpse, each individual recorded during a session will be replayed and used to spark off a reaction in the next participant.

This process of recording reaction and responds will be used to generate new connections and develop a form of virtual jamming. The overall musical approach will seek to combine classical, folk and electronic instruments with modern production aesthetics to explore this concept converging languages.

These recorded jam sessions, and spoken word interviews will then to digitally re-mixed and arranged into a series of AV tracks. Each AV track will then be broken into a family of elements that will then be distributed across several different playback mediums for live improvisation.

Final live performance:

(excerpt from APB - All points Between Performance 2001)

An orchestra of DVD turntablists will reconstruct these studio arrangements as live AV tracks which will be presented as a multi-screen stage show. This stage show will premier at EMPAC in the fall and will then tour internationally. We also hope to incorporate several live musicians and a guest lyricist into the shows that tour in US.

Another vital aspect of the project will be the development of a bespoke new piece of live video performance software in collaboration with pioneering software developers VIDVOX.

We also hope to publish this project as a DVD at some point in the near future.