LEVR.TV Launches with Live, Multi-Camera 360 Degree Streaming of CCB’s “The Battle in Paradise”

LOS ANGELES  – October 13, 2021 – Virtual reality and Celebrity Championship Boxing (CCB) fans should keep calendars clear on October 23rd for “The Battle in Paradise,” a PPV boxing match featuring Black Ink Crew’s Van Johnson versus Social Media Influencer Gorilla Season from St. Thomas’ University of the Virgin Islands. The event will be ...

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MO-SYS TECHNOLOGY PLAYED STARRING ROLE IN MOOV’S VIRTUAL SET FOR BBC SPORT’S TOKYO GAMES COVERAGE

MOOV’s innovative Virtual Studio Production, featuring Mo-Sys StarTracker, has been shortlisted for the Broadcast Sports Awards.  Mo-Sys Engineering, a world leader in precision camera tracking solutions for virtual studios and augmented reality, today announces that its StarTracker technology was front and centre of the innovative virtual studio production for BBC Sport’s coverage of the Tokyo Games. The ...

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State-of-the-art of live media performance – part 1#

The first post of a series on the state-of-the-art of live media performance curated by Federica Patti, focus on live stream. With three live shows to see and follow here.

Call for Submissions: CURRENTS Festival 2022

CURRENTS New Media is now accepting submissions for our 2022 art and technology festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.

Kykeon – a virtual reality trilogy that aims to expand audience perceptions through shamanism, dance and data

Kykeon is an immersive experience that intersects contemporary dance, art and VR technology to offer glimpses of a hidden world––through the eyes of a shaman.

Thanks to Tribe XR and Pioneer DJ, you can play the CDJ-3000s + DJM-900NXS2 in VR

Pioneer DJ has partnered with virtual reality company Tribe XR to make some of their latest gear available to use on Tribe XR’s VR platform. The flagship CDJ-3000s and DJM-900NXS2 mixer from Pioneer DJ are both now usable from a user’s virtual reality headset where you have the Tribe XR app installed. The best part? […]

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Stream from Beatport in VR with Tribe XR’s new LINK integration

If you’re a DJ with no decks at home, or wishing you could play on that club setup you love so much, listen in. Tribe XR, a virtual reality platform for DJing, has teamed up with Beatport to integrate Beatport LINK into their program. This move ultimately makes it possible for Tribe XR users to use […]

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Interview to VJ Suave

Of course we couldn’t hold ourselves from interviewing this beautifully talented duo of audiovisual artists.

We have never hidden the fact we particularly love the playfulness and delicacy of their AV style. Their street art itinerant approach open the door to a myriad of creative opportunities.

Throughout the years (while keeping fit cycling their AV bikes) they have been engaging with audience of all ages and backgrounds. Here our interview to VJ Suave: enjoy it!

0. How did you meet and decide to work together on this beautiful project?

We met in 2009 in Buenos Aires, and we’ve decided to work together. Cecilia comes from animation and Ygor from painting and drawing. We mixed our best and created VJ Suave.

1. How have your techniques advanced since the beginning of your career? What specific technological tools have enabled you to express yourself in a different way because of this?

In the beginning, we took a class on how to use Modul8 and it blew our minds. Cecilia came up with the idea to animate Ygor’s drawings and. Using a small projector, we’ve projected the animations from the window on the street outside.

At that time, we used Adobe Flash, After Effects and Photoshop for animation. Later on we met Maki, and he introduced us to Tagtool, a tool to draw and animate in real time.

The first version of Tagtool was a DIY thing, you needed to have a wacom, arduino, knobs and sliders, ps2 controller, all connected to a computer and a controller box.

You needed to build it yourself, it was a bit complicated. Later on Maki and his crew started to develop Tagtool for iPads and we fell in love with it.

Most of our animations are made frame by frame, using Flash, and this takes time and people to work. Tagtool is easier. It’s a tool that allows us to create drawings and animation by ourselves in a short amount of time.

We also started to investigate virtual reality. In 2017 we’ve created Floresta Encantada / “Enchanted Forest”, an interactive VR experience.

The VR is a very immersive solo experience. You actually believe you are inside a different reality. In Floresta Encantada, together with our crew, we’ve created an experience where participants are teleported to a magical forest where they can interact with both characters and the scenery.

They can play instruments near a bonfire and even drink medicine from a shaman. Each experience is unique as the map is very big. Some people say that they saw a spaceship, others say they had a trip on mushrooms, experiences which are rare in the map. At thee end of the journey all travelers come back to reality with a big smile.

2. Your work with the Suaveciclo is possibly the one thing that you are most well known for in Europe. What was the original thought behind the idea and did you realise how successful the concept would be when it first occurred to you?

In 2011 we created 2 short movies, Run and Homeless. They were very experimental because it was our first time trying to move the projections. The videos have been showcased by MTV and received a great response.

We were happy and we wanted to keep doing moving projections. Instead of keeping on creating videos we wanted to try the performance format, so people on the streets could see it live. 

Instead of a car, we thought of a way that could be affordable to us, first a bicycle, and then finally the tricycle as our moving base to project from.

Suaveciclo was created to be able to move our animations throughout the city, bringing joy to everyone who happens to be around. As we don’t use background in the projection the characters look more alive, with a digital graffiti style.

The idea was to take the characters out of the TV screen and make this colorful universe that was inside our heads to merge it with the real world.

When we started VJ Suave back in 2009, we did a lot of research into the VJ world and, at that time, it seemed to us there was no character animation in the VJing scene.

It felt like a perfect gap for us to fit in. From then till now, we keep on doing what we love, what is true for us and we believe anything made like that will always be successful.

3. What technical issues did you encounter when you first came up with the suaveciclo setup? How do you feel about other artists using this idea in their performances?

There have been a lot of adaptations till we got to the actual version of Suaveciclo. First version was very heavy, had small sound speakers and an overall flimsy structure for the projector.

We also had issues as we bought the wrong batteries (now we only use deep cycle batteries). We now have 2 tricycles in São Paulo, one for Ygor and one for Cecilia. What we use now is actually the 5th version.

A few months ago we finally installed an electric battery to help us doing the cycling. It’s also equipped with great sound speakers and a tripod head adapted for the projector.

We like the idea of more visual artists working with images in movement throughout the city. We encourage and help people around the world to build an audiovisual tricycle to express themselves. 

4. Do you remember what first drew you to the audiovisual world? What do you think you would be doing now if you hadn’t discovered the art of video projection?

Ygor: VJ Suave was the starting point for me. Thanks to that I developed my career in animation, creative technology, virtual reality and music. If it wasn’t for it I would still be doing graffiti on the city walls, or maybe working in the forest.

Ceci: I would be applying technology to some other area, maybe holistic health.

5. How is the world of video art in Brazil? Is there a big scene, or is it something quite unusual? Is there anything about your artistic context that you feel influences your work?

Nowadays it is blooming. During the isolation, many audiovisual artists from all over Brazil started to project videos on building walls outside their windows. They have come together and created a group called Projetemos. Thanks to this group, we can share our animations to be projected in different cities. 

Great artists have come out of Brazil like VJ Spetto, VJ Vigas, United VJs, and there’s definitely a scene for vjing and videomapping!

6. What has been the most exhilarating experience or biggest achievement for you? What are you most proud of?

We are proud of having been able to show our art in more than 20 countries at different kinds of audiovisual events: film, street art, animation, music, bike, art technology and light festivals.

If VJ Suave had a little bit of each event, we would be defined by this mix which is something new with technology, animation and movement. 

With Suaveciclo we can create magical moments. We gather people to see the city in a different way, more imaginative. We colour the path with light, expressing love. We think this can open people’s hearts, at least for a second. 

7. A lot of your animation work has an infantil theme with bright colours, organic shapes and friendly faces. Would you say that children are your main audience, or at least, that they are who you most have in mind when you come up with the narratives for your work?

We don’t have a specific audience in mind. We create what we are able to express. Sometimes it is naive with simple forms, sometimes it can be more complex. 

Regarding the colours, we have the limitation of the projector. For Suaveciclo performances we carry a 5.500 lumen projector, which is very bright and powerful for a tricycle. However darker colours can be difficult to project. That’s why our colour pallet is always bright, with high contrast and saturation. 

Kids are essential for our performances, because they appreciate magical beings. They want to play with the characters. When they do, adults start to believe in that magical moment too: when kids are yelling and chasing our enchanted characters. 

VJ Suave on Audiovisual City

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Xite Labs

Xite Labs is an audiovisual creative studio working at the intersection of art and technology, digital media and interaction design.

The team is formed by top-notch audiovisual artists who have left an unparalleled mark in the world of electronic music.

They have delivered off-socks-knocking 3D mapping installations since 2000, working with internationally renowned musicians such as Tame Impala, Infected Mushroom, Steve Aoki, Skrillex and Amon Tobin to name a few.

We have been lucky enough to attend their mind-blowing audiovisual experience developed with Amon Tobin, for his international tour following the release of the album ISAM. That was back in 2012 at Sonar Festival in Barcelona.

Tobin’s avant-garde IDM soundscapes lead the way for the audiovisual storytelling who took the audience on a unforgettable journey. The show started with an otherworldly cube-shaped structure coming to life.

The stage then turned into a ship launched into space with Tobin residing in a hyper-sleep pod. After dream-like hallucinations Tobin comes out actually wearing the suits shown in the animation.

A complex audiovisual narrative that blurs the boundaries between real and digital world, firing all sorts of trickery to cleanse out the audience of all their spatial references. Only when we lose all the anchor points we are truly primed to experience the digital voyage.

ISAM takes us on a journey through the unexplored universe generated by the EDM soundscape of Amon Tobin to the bring us back to the core of the action: the musician and his performance.

In my opinion, Xite Labs major breakthrough is their ability to truly animate their installation, snapping out of the static AV sculpture by delivering an immersive experience where all senses are captured within the space.

Their audiovisual world is disorienting and astonishing as it builds up in front of our eyes, departing far away from the bidimensionality of the screen experience.

Formed in the year 2000 as V Squared Labs by Vello E Virkhaus they have then merged with Tandem Digital Entertainment in 2018 to form XiteLabs.

Through the leadership of Greg Russell and Vello Virkhaus the audiovisual studio continuously executes next level experiential visual artistry.

The duo is always taking “never been done” concepts and turning them into reality. This process always starts with the blank page, and working with clients to define the words, scenery, illumination, content, interactivity, and the means to deliver it all.

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GOGBOT: Enschede, 10 – 13 September 2020

Gogbot is an audiovisual event for creative technology, science, new media arts and music.

Out and about robots, hard-techno futuristic music, crazy bonkers live performances, audiovisual extravaganza with a general cyberpunk attitude to bond it all together.

All of this and much more is offered by Gogbot Festival, the techno-hardcore-sci-fi audiovisual event based in Netherlands.

Basically the kind of event we would go on a normal weekend if we were living in the Mad Max universe. The main aim of the event is showcasing the most avant-garde and cutting edge trends in the audiovisual and new media world. And then push a little further!

There is nothing quite like Gogbot on the audiovisual scene: AI meets AV, Science meets music, art meets activism during 4 intense days of multidisciplinary activities across Enschede.

Every year, the organizers propose a controversial and thought-provoking theme set to trigger reflection in the community and cutting-edge experimentation by the selected artists. Innovation in digital creativity is key and the festival creates a sonic space for this.

Every year, the result is an insanely powerful and immersive artistic rendez-vous that leaves a lingering impact awhile after the end of the festival.

This year theme is Quantum Supremacy, a mind-blowing, controversial, but extremely urgent theme.

Big companies such as Google, Microsoft, and IBM are competing to build the first quantum computer, a ‘supercomputer’ expected to be a staggering one billion times faster than today’s best computer. What will the quantum future hold?

In this Age of Pandemic, we are made acutely aware of our dependence on digital technology for work, education, and healthcare. Now more than ever, the growth of digital technology demands critical reflection.

Globalization and economic growth have brought us pandemic and environmental destruction. How can we break this cycle? Can we harness quantum technology to protect ourselves and the world we live in?

Pubblicato da GOGBOT su Domenica 12 luglio 2020

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PATCHLAB FESTIVAL: Krakow, 23-25 October 2020

Patchlab Digital Art Festival is an annual audiovisual event showcasing digital art created with the latest technologies and new media.

The theme of the 2020 edition is CONNECTED. It explores the implications of the digital revolution we are undergoing in our lives due to the pandemic. The head-spinning rise of the internet based communication during the last months is still quite hard to grasp.

The internet was created originally as an effective and immediate form of communication. With the evolution of social media platforms, the world wide web is now a primary channel to express our emotions.

Audiovisual artists can help us understand the fast-changing environment we live in by visualizing the Nietzsche’s unsaid. Anything that is too complex for a total comprehension can be grasped by living the artistic experience.

Immersive installations, interactive artwork and live performance communicate complex statements through sensorial experience, giving us the chance to digest information slowly, at our own pace. Generative art as an antidote to the overwhelming data dump we experience everyday.

Due to the uncertainty of in-person attendance, the organizers are planning the audiovisual event through virtual platforms. It will be therefore accessible to a wider audience through the experimental use of new technologies.

Patchlab will present art projects online and via AR (augmented reality). There will be experimental computer animations presented in the virtual cinema, remotely accessible workshops and also a dystopian multi-person computer game allowing the exploration of a post-apocalyptic New York. There will also be AV NIGHT, during which we will see unique audiovisual projects in 360° format.

OPEN CALL – DEADLINE: 30th of July 2020

All audiovisual artists are invited to submit their project proposals for this year’s program to be implemented online in an unexpected way.

Proposals can only be submitted via the online form.

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VJ Suave

Ceci Soloaga and Ygor Marotta are a duo of audiovisual artists based in São Paulo, Brazil.

VJ Suave bring something colorfully unique to the international panorama of audiovisual art. They have been combining street art and projection mapping since 2009.

Thanks to their innovative audiovisual approach, they are able to travel around the city with portable projectors and draw with lights on the streets, buildings and landscapes. In real time. Improvising. Like a graffiti writer would do.

Audiovisual and street art are in my opinion the true forms of contemporary art, as they reduce the distance between the art world and the people. They speak a more familiar language than any other art forms. They are anti-elitist by nature, not as a result of a specific political statement.

Vj Suave audiovisual live stories are called “Suaveciclos”. They make use of Tagtool, an app for tablet allowing drawings in real time.

These itinerant projection mappings are colorful, imaginative and highly engaging. Kids absolutely love them as they perceive immediately the drawings are made specifically for them to play with.

VJ Suave create fantasy friendly characters on the go that take on the streets, riding on ethereal light beams. As they come they disappear. Only to then reappear somewhere else. Constantly playing catching up.

It’s very hard not being immediately charmed by their delicately funny audiovisual storytelling. And there is no reason to resist! Their communication with the audience is honest, inspiring and most importantly inclusive: none is left out in this projection mapping extravaganza.

More recently the audiovisual artists have been taken a step further allowing the viewers to step into their visionary world by using VR.

In their enchanted forest (“Floresta Encantada”) the explorers are invited to build relationships with the native inhabitants of the forest: indigenous and animals. A very powerful example of how virtual reality can be used to get us closer to our ancestors and the natural world rather than alienating us.

The viewer is invited to find their own inner harmony with the sounds and visual elements of the forest in order to become unified with the surrounding environment. The result is an unique experience with plenty of food for thoughts to be snacked upon.

As we often advocate the meaningfulness of the artistic experience depends on the artist intent more than on the tool that is being used.

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KEEP YOURSELF CLEAN Exhibition: Online

Virtual Reality and gaming tools are rapidly becoming the essential vehicles of expressions for audiovisual artists during the Covid-19 imposed restrictions on public events.

We know, we know: no virtual experience can substitute the actual audiovisual event. But that is not the point. The point is experimenting and evolving beyond boundaries accordingly to the contingencies we face in a particular given time.


Audiovisual art as every form of art expression is driven by the tools available, the internal factors such as time and budget, and the external ones, such as venue restrictions or the total lack of them.

Now a lot of digital artists are facing the same problem and they are responding in different ways. The Russian audiovisual art collective VOLNA decided to turn their first solo exhibition: KEEP YOURSELF CLEAN into a virtual reality experience using Unreal Engine.

The video gaming tool is being widely use in audiovisual art and virtual events. It allows you to simulate real-time scenes and lighting effects.  Exhibition visitors are invited to immerse themselves in the surroundings of each installation and can move freely in the room and choose any observation point.

The following works were reconstructed for the exhibition: the audiovisual installations NEUBAU (2016), Powerline (2017) and Rotor (2018), the light installation Octave (2018), the installation Vague (2019), and two kinetic light installations, Duel (2019) and Nymphéas (2020).

Despite the site-specific nature of the works, the overarching artistic principle behind all of them is the search for a universal language of pure forms. These forms, which correspond to the abstract subjects of the installations, are refined during an extensive detailing process, minimalist in their expressiveness and often even have a functional nature.

The eight installations generate intimate spaces where the viewers sits in contemplation of the structural semiotic elements that compose them: light, sound, movement. Each room triggers different emotions slowly revealing themselves while we explore the space and embrace its unique atmosphere.

The primary expressive element in VOLNA’s work is light and its various characteristics, its interaction with space, as well as its movement, the rhythm of chiaroscuro and the way chiaroscuro scenarios unfold in relation to time. Some works include synchronized sound, created to interact closely with the light’s dramaturgy.  

The virtual exhibition space itself is hetero-topic and at the same time proportional to the original exhibition locations. The model exhibits displayed inside it are as close as possible to their real prototypes and preserve the original structural details, including the nature of the lighting and scenarios behind each of the live installations.

The original sound design and ambient sound environments are reproduced, and each work’s context and theme are discussed in an accompanying text.

In conclusion the exhibition Keep Yourself Clean attempts to embrace all the real and virtual layers of information that make up each of the works, and then let the works themselves become the determinants of perception.

Each of the contexts will “re-sort” in the virtual world, rethink and obey the laws of perception, and each work, in turn, will become an experience of sensory contemplation.

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ATHENS DIGITAL ARTS FESTIVAL: 10 July – 10 September 2020 ONLINE

ADAF is an audiovisual event constantly evolving along with the new creative trends and breakthroughs within the digital arts, without loosing the core vision of its foundation days.

Every year the organisers finetune their artistic program through their open call for audiovisual artists, to keep themselves up to date with the ever-evolving new media art landscape.

From the initial focus on video art, installations and live performances they have been widening their program up to include Virtual Reality experiences (VR), Web Art, Video Games and more.

The Athens Digital Arts Festival has been founded in 2005 and it is the pioneer longest living institution in Greece dedicated to audiovisual culture and digital arts. This year, as other audiovisual events, ADAF is responding to the Covid19 crisis with resilience and creativity.

Their 16th edition ADAF ONLINE| TECHNOTRIBALISM will be accessible to everyone through the internet. More than 5,500 audiovisual art proposals from 100 countries around the world are the source for the ADAF 2020 program selection.

The 2020 year theme reflects upon our primitive status in the foundations of the new hyper-informational world, where the data-flux is absorbing the entire existence reaching the status of God.

Is technology serving us or we are serving the data-totem by providing our more sensible information, giving up our privacy for a greater good?

Algorithms, already present everywhere in the digital realm, are reading us better than ourselves, better than our friends and siblings and in the name of  optimization of our virtual experience, we are gradually letting them make decisions for us, filter our perceptions predict our behavior, our bio metrics, our emotions.

All manifestations of culture can now be experienced on a digitized basis, translated to a language (code, DNA) and stored for everyone who possess it to experience regardless the circumstances. Markets and Money are transfiguring into intangible algorithmic byproducts. Everything to serve the information flow.

Close your eyes and connect to your data-doppelganger your mirrored algorithmic self to your digital footprint. You are part of techno-tribalism, you are part of ADAF 2020.

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About Kusmos Live by Kuflex Lab

During these tough and uncertain times it has been inspiring to see so many audiovisual artists and events coming up with tools and formats to overcome the quarantine restrictions and social distancing.

A few weeks back the guys from Kuflex Lab reached out to showcase their latest tool that stands out among all the virtual/hybrid solutions we have seen so far. Kusmos Live allows to turn online concerts into interactive digital shows. Pretty neat uh?

Let’s dive in and explore how it works. Down to the nitty-nerdy-gritty Kusmos is a custom VJ software written on openFrameworks + VDMX5 + Syphon.

In spring 2020 Kuflex studio began an experimental project Kusmos Live. The purpose of the experiment was to upgrade the Kusmos system in order to create a interactive online home shows.

In 2018-2019 the Russian audiovisual studio experimented with the innovative tool together with SILA SVETA studio on the Therr Maitz concert, Caprices Festival 2018, Nina Kraviz experimental performance at Coachella 2019.

OK, really cool but how exactly does interactivity work? We gave some feedback to Kuflex lab with a few tricky questions to better understand the whole potential of this new audiovisual tool.

KUFLEX: The Tracker program receives depth-sensor data, calibrates a point cloud as we need it (we can rotate the cloud, cut off everything you don’t need keeping only the data of the artist oneself and merge point clouds from two sensors) and sends it to the renderer (UE4 scene).

Scene functions build a 3D model using the data provided by the Tracker and then we can layer all kinds of features with effects on the model and also transform and distort it according to the artistic concept. We also captured video from the laptop’s webcam and sometimes showed its picture. 3D scene acting as the artist surrounding, a set of virtual cameras for capturing from different viewpoints and visual effects were set up in advance in the Unreal Engine. Then the OBS program captures the video of the launched scene and sends it to the video streaming server.

During our second live experiment we tested some new features for the viewers interactive communication with the stream. While Leksha (Smolensk, Russia) was playing his ambient-set, a VJ (Moscow, Russia) was controlling visual effects with the use of commands via YouTube chat in real-time mode. Our team has implemented this function between the concerts and decided not to tell the viewers about it.

During the stream, noticing weird messages in the chat, some of the viewers started to realize that they could not only send a message to the chat but to even affect visualization. In the end the concert has turned into a digital quest. Some viewers picked up effect control by sending particular commands to the chat. We have yet to comprehend how to develop this function in the future.

 AVC: We think it’s a really interesting and innovative project responding to the challenges of the pandemic. In terms of appeal for VJs there is the risk of potentially being extremely limited for the audiovisual artists creativity, and the aesthetic I guess would always be the same.

It would be key for the tool to have a wider range of possibilities of customization for the artists otherwise they might get tired soon. I guess they all want to leave their unique mark in the scene.

KUFLEX: Kusmos is a universal software tool, with the possibility of variability of visual and interactive solutions. As a rule, our team creates a virtual stage specifically for the performance of the musician. Of course, we want to upgrade the program creating a database with different scenes, effects. In this case, the user will be able to construct the scene himself and combine the effects for his live/stream. 

AVC: It’s a bit unusual to keep promoting the idea of “God is DJ”. Is the DJ persona so relevant the viewer wants to watch during the entire show in a virtual environment?

KUFLEX: Regarding Kusmos Live project, the Kuflex team is collaborating with various musicians. We wanted to support the performers. So this approach determined the emphasis on the figure of the musician on the virtual stage, under whose musical personality, sound we come up with a visual solution. We do not just shoot a video with a musician, as is often done in broadcasts, but create a digital avatar that changes depending on the script, music and VJ control.

At the same time, Kusmos Live is primarily a show, a kind of mix of live performance, a computer game and fantastic movie. The virtual camera can fly through digital space, we can switch to different visual elements of the scene and include additional visual effects to the music.

We try to achieve the effect of real interaction with the viewer as well. Our team is developing a function of interaction through chat – viewers’ comments fall into the scene, they can affect the content through certain chat commands. But Kusmos can be used by artists of other genres. In the near future we want to try to create a dance performance. Now we are discussing this idea with one Russian choreographer.

We will explore the topic of distances – where physical space ends, digital begins, the relationship of body and sound. Both dance and music will take place in live format.

Technically, the performer will find himself in different areas of camera scanning, on the screen we will observe how his digital avatar changes. Again, it will all be like shooting a movie in one shot and in real time!

AVC: We truly appreciate the viewers becoming active, participating and communicating with the stream. That creates a collective experience. Could people really tell if this was a live performance or not? It feels like the interaction should be more meaningful somehow, with a bigger impact to the overall audiovisual artwork.

KUFLEX: Our team worked on a concert from different cities. We thought about how best to organise remote control of virtual cameras and effects. And suddenly our creative director had an idea to manage content through Youtube chat. During the broadcast, he wrote commands like cam1 (switching camera 1), stars ( the star effect was launched).

We intentionally did not talk about this function in advance to get the quest. As a result, some viewers guessed and began to help in managing the scene. We explore different possibilities about other ways of interaction.

In the future we want to create a client application for connecting to the broadcast via a mobile phone, desktop PC screen or VR. We intend to develop Kusmos as an art tool. Our team believes in a power of collective interaction. We want to give a palette of visual solutions, effects. Let’s all together create beauty here and now! This idea is a sincere inspiration for us. 

AVC:  We would like to know more about how the collaboration you have done with Leksha where the viewers were controlling visual effects with the use of commands via YouTube chat in real-time mode.” How does the input of data modify the visuals? is it like a live coding or common human language and how it is related to the VR software?

KUFLEX: Usually in an offline format, we work like this: musicians play music, and VJ manages visual content live using MIDI controllers. Some effects are linked to the amplitude of the sound. But in a situation where we did not have the opportunity to be onsite will all team, we decided to make control through chat commands.

We wrote a special function for our software that receives data from chat on YouTube using the Google API. We came up with several commands, for example: cam1, cam2, skin1, skin2, electric noise, lasers and the like. And when someone in the chat wrote one of these words, then a certain visual effect or a corresponding camera was included in our program.

In general, we have an idea to expand the number of commands and their appearance, so that it looks more like live coding. For example, add numerical arguments to the commands, which will additionally specify the parameters of a particular visual effect.

As for virtual reality, we have plans to create our own application for viewers who can watch live broadcasts using VR devices, thus more deeply immersing themselves in the atmosphere of the digital scene and additionally receive personal effects. 

 AVC: Fascinating this idea of “universal tool” for content in real time and interactive show. We think it’s important now to dig more into the idea of how it can involve more people in the creative process. It opens new ways of investigation on how to make every audiovisual experience unique, not only in terms of the aesthetics of the piece but also regarding the narrative.

KUFLEX: Yes, this is the main object of research for us. Usually, a limited number of people can come to the offline exhibition. So we want to overcome any space frames. With Kusmos we don’t have any restrictions online! We can find ourselves in amazing digital worlds that are impossible in the physical world.

Now that Kuflex Lab and its creation Kusmos entered our radar we will most definitely keep following their progression, as always supporting innovation and creativity in the audiovisual art world.

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HASBRO and Oculus Bring Popular Gaming Brands to Oculus GO

PAWTUCKET, RI – MAY 2, 2018 – Announced yesterday at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference, Hasbro Inc. (NASDAQ:HAS) is working with Oculus to bring Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for Boggle, Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly to people with Oculus Go, for the first time. The VR games will be accessible in the Oculus Store wherever Oculus Rooms […]

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AR and VR: Two sides of the same coin?

Will VR and AR become mass-market applications? Over the last year, I have been thinking about this from a consumer perspective. A variety of VR headsets are now generally available, and although AR headsets like Microsoft HoloLens are harder to come by, Apple’s ARKit and the just released 1.0 version of Google’s ARCore are available […]

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Playsnak Announces New VR FPS – Wanted Killer VR

  BERLIN – 24 April, 2018 – Get ready for fast-paced action and innovative bullet-time shooting in Wanted Killer VR—a stylized high-octane FPS coming to Steam Early Access in May 2018. Created by Berlin-based developer Playsnak, Wanted Killer VR casts you as a member of the clandestine WK4 group – an elite team of agents sent in to protect the […]

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Pixar Co-Founder Teleported Live into a Virtual Classroom with Students

25 April 2018: – Yesterday, the boring classroom lesson was finally consigned to the history books when technology pioneers, Immersive VR Education, beam experts from California and Dubai into a virtual classroom to teach students at Langley College near Slough, via a short trip to the moon. Pixar co-founder, Loren Carpenter, will be ‘beamed’ in […]

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Ridley Scott Launches Ridley Scott Creative Group

June 12th 2018, Los Angeles, London – Ridley Scott has brought together all RSA Films affiliated companies in a multi-business restructure to form the Ridley Scott Creative Group. The Ridley Scott Creative Group strengthens the network across the affiliated companies to take advantage of emerging opportunities across all entertainment genres as well as their existing work in film, television, […]

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