Froth: Return to Planet Froth
Return to Planet Froth was a Four Stage Event at The Grand in Wellington, NZ. I had the pleasure of organizing visuals on all four stages: Main Stage, 360 Stage, Techno Stage and Garden Stage.
Main Stage
Main Stage stared with Hip-Hop then transitioned into Techno and Bass msuic. It was designed imagining how a alien Froth-guy would look. The Froth Logo was given tentacles and antenna, taking inspiration from the Toy Story aliens (although some people thought it reminded them of Shrek XD).
It was designed in Adobe Illustrator and imported into Resolume for Mapping. The structure was made out of plywood, painted white and silver and rigged using a truss. The main structure was mounted behind the DJ and projection mapped.
A copy of the content was also projected onto the wall to the side. This helped animated dead space and gave a good first impression for the GIG, as it is the first wall in sight as you enter the venue.
Thanks to Tor for making some UV maps, allowing us to wrap regular content along the tentacles.
For the final Wristcontrol set, We had a VJ b2b2b, with four VJs, using three computers, each controlling different sections of the stage. It was a lot of fun :D
The stage was manned by a stellar crew of VJs including:
Vision Chips (@vision_chips)
Pixelotti (@graceblla)
TOR (@torhallemcintyre)
Myself
DJ: Paige Julia, VJ: Pixelotti
DJ: Brownlove, VJ: Vision Chips
DJ: Ebb, VJ: Uncle Gray
DJ: Chazz, VJ: E//T//V
DJ: DJ Bax, VJ: IZCORN
360 Stage
The 360 Stage was curated by the Safehouse and 3rd Space collectives, playing Donk, Footwork, Techno and Bass music.
It was a challenge for me to design a stage that would work in a 360 setting, with the booth in the middle of the floor. I used a technique of projecting onto white coreflute, that allows the projection to be seen on both sides of the sheet. I created a design with four triangles that mimics an upside-down squared-based pyramid. SO whichever way you looked at the design, you would be able to see the visuals.
The stage was made from coreflute and bamboo bracing. Two wide-throw projectors were used to projection map the triangular sections.
The stage was operated by an amazing line up of VJs:
E//T//V (@enterthe_void)
IZCORN (@izcorn
Vision Chips (@vision_chips)
Previs example render of the stage design
Techno Stage
The techno stage didn’t have VJs, but a camera system using a Xbox Kinect camera, pointed at the DJ. The filters were displayed on a TV, which was already mounted directly above the DJ
I created a set of four different filters, using Touchdesigner that used the camera and depth data from the camera. There was a rotating point cloud, a fish-eye like camera, a ascii-like texture effect using math operators and a movement heat-map filter. All filter used the infrared data from the camera, so they worked regardless of the lighting quality of the DJ.
The effect, colors and a strobe option was connected to MIDI controller and given to the lighting techs, Emile and Kahu, to operate with the other light fixtures.
The footage I got is quite over exposed, the actual effect is much easier to see in the test footage.
DJ: Ebb b2b Keepsakes, Point Cloud Filter
Test footage of the different camera effects
DJ: Kraayjoy, Movement Effect
Garden Stage
The Garden Stage is in a semi-outdoor space, with lots of fake plants and a flow of fresh air. This was the more chill stage of the evening, featuring mixed genre experimental music.
The stage was operated solely by Perescope (@perescope). He uses a microscope, in conjunction with inks, dyes and materials to create beautiful analogue visuals that give glimpses into the hidden microscopic world. He amplifies the visuals with simple video effects to add more depth, color and movement.
The content was projected onto the back wall and duplicated on a existing TV behind the DJ. It created a organic soft space, where people could get away from the intensity and chaos of the other stages.
Microscope visuals of a shell with cellular automata effect
Microscope visuals of a shell
DJ: Gardens, Visuals using inks and dyes