another live.

I went on Monday to do a "surprise" live at the Saroulla building, ground floor, in the space facing the building, this time no invitees! After vain trials to find an outdoor plug for the projector, I took off and decided to try another location. I finally went to the pub down the street, and I managed to convince the manager to do a show on the spot. It was early evening, around 8, so the place wasn't really packed, (people here start going out for there evenings around 9:30 - 10:00 pm). I managed to document some nice footage, I also edited this live and added it to the other live that took place at bread. Now I am waiting for the file to render!

Saroulla Building and Projection on Monday

I will go tomorrow to this location (Saroulla building, where my father's office used to be located and that is facing my school) to take a better view and search for a good spot in the building where I could do the projection. Meanwhile here's a photo that I found on the net, shot by "Bluescape" and posted on "Panoramio". Originally this building embeds two cinemas, one still functioning and turned into a theater "Al Madina Theater" and the other cinema has stopped functioning in the early 90s (according to my father), and is being used as a storage space.

According to Al Madina Theater website http://www.almadinatheatre.com/, the Saroulla cinema was built in the late sixties and was abandoned during the entire period of the Lebanese civil war.

The projection I am planning on Monday does not take place inside the cinema, rather outside it, on the walls of the actual building.

about the live documentation - final decisions

I had doubts earlier whether I would want to show the live documentation as well as the edited clips in the show, I sent Jonathan the edited version of the documentation to see whether it is necessary or maybe if I get rid of the documentation it would be better? Jonathan's opinion was that the 2 films do work together, they could be on the same screen side by side, and that maybe if the films are different lengths then maybe loop them until they are close in timing, I would then have different juxtapositions. Jonathan also mentioned that it would be good if I do the projection onto a wall or a background, a little bit the layers that I use in the animated film (the original plan, what we discussed during the tutorial and that was not applied accordingly during the live, as people helping me set up said that the colors were coming out too dull on the grey door at bread republic).
Jonathan: "This wouldn't have to be a formal live show with invited guests, I could imagine it just projected quite small, almost without people realising it is there, and then document the showing of it. Maybe the projection is very low, the projector kind of hidden under a table, and people are walking in front of it? I am just thinking of ways to connect the film even more to you home city. You have a good documentation of the live show with guests but is it worth more subtle, more hidden projections, without permission, maybe just for you, but putting the films back onto the surface of the city. Hope this makes sense, but obviously there may not be time to do this now, maybe these are ideas you develop in the future."

I was not sure whether I will still have the time to do one more live before traveling to London, but just now I decided to pull myself together and try another live maybe on Monday? I thought I could project live either on one of the walls of the Saroulla building (where my father's office used to be located, facing my school, and where we used to hang out a lot when we were kids) or on a surface at the GEFINOR building (where my mother used to work, and where we used to spend some of our Saturdays, waiting for my mother to finish work).

I will not invite people, whoever is passing could just stand to watch.

GEFINOR is not a very busy area at night (it is the one I use in the crane clip); and since Saroulla is on Hamra's main street, maybe this option will win? I will think more about these 2 options and decide tomorrow.

the live documentation - the edited draft

This is a draft edit of the documentation of the live show of the final clips that I planned on July 30th, 2011, at 9:00 pm, at the outdoor of the Bread Republic café, Beirut, Lebanon.

documentation of the live show in beirut - transitional digital objects from maya chami on Vimeo.

List of to dos and to remember before the live show!

The live already took place last Saturday at Bread, an outdoor café in Beirut. I will be showing documentation soon! but first, I will have to upload the steps, one by one, for archiving purposes. Above is the to do list and the material needed for the live (prepared before the show). I should add on the list a multiple outlet for all the plugs! and a good surface (or screen for the projection) as the grey door was desaturating the colors in the rehearsal, so I had to replace the door with a white wooden board.

I will write in detail about some of the steps listed in the picture above later on.

Configuring Korg to Modul8 – notes to self (for future use)

1- Plug Korg Mini before opening modul8

2-Launch Modul8 and open the project

3-Go to Mapping > Edit Midi Map



4-The different functions will become highlighted in green

5-Click on the function that you want to map on the korg controller, it will create white corners on the function you chose

6-Turn the button (or slider or press button) on korg, the one that you would like it to affect the highlighted function

or

or


7- Go to Mapping > Edit Midi Map to allocate the function to button, end of mapping!

8-If you want to keep the korg buttons and functions the same way all the time, you could go to Mapping > Save Map as Defaults.

9-To give the keyboard functions, same procedure could be applied using the Edit Key Map instead.

Happy Mapping.

H is for House by Peter Greenaway 1976

I was watching the shorts by Greenaway, his early works, and "H is for House" caught my attention, specifically how the narrator enumerates things that start with H: hesitation, hopelessness, hitchcock, hybrid, havana cigars, handle, hoover... Shot in the English countryside, thus the serene atmosphere.

I tried to research further what was the implications of the enumeration, as I am interested in what Greenaway will have to say about indoors and outdoors and houses in general... I learned the following from Greenaway's official website. (http://petergreenaway.org.uk/)

Greenaway on H is for House:
"I'd just married and had a small kid, and we used to spend our holidays in Wardour; we stayed in a magnificent early 19th century house belonging to a friend. It was the most extraordinary area of idealized, romanticized English landscape, very redolent of Roman Catholic history; all sorts of violent tragedies had happened there during the English Civil Wars. It was a rather shutaway countryside, so it had a sense of great drama and romance - in response to which, I made a series of films, of which this is the first. It was couched in the whole business of naming things - as in the late paintings of Magritte, the confusion between nomenclature, ascribing meanings and words... I made this enormous list of every single thing I could find in the domestic rural landscape that began the the letter H, which when juxtaposed gave you all sorts of interesting connotations. My daughter Hannah was learning the alphabet and her voice is on the soundtrack repeating and getting things wrong - the wisdom of the innocent. It was also very much to do with concepts of Heaven and Hell and how those are interchangeable."