In the future "Who's the VJ?" not "Who's the DJ?" might well be the question being asked on dancefloors around the world as clubbers go in search of the true multimedia experience on their night out.
Enter Tim Fleming whose digital art and video production company, Plastic Reality, has created transcendent immersive environments for Sony PlayStation, MTV, artists like Radiohead and illustrious DJs such as Adam Freeland, Dave Clarke and Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), using a personal but universal graphic language from their base in Brighton, England.
"Plastic Reality has and always will work with like-minded folk who wish to deliver an experience that leaves the audience both invigorated and elevated" says Tim. "We work with designers and programmers whose vision is to rock the psyche and nothing else!"
While Plastic Reality might not be quite as familiar a name as say, Tomato, the multimedia outfit responsible for much of Underworld's tour visuals and staging, Tim Fleming will be hoping to change that as he prepares his next flight of fancy for Fatboy Slim's One Way Ticket To Palookaville world tour throughout 2005.
"We could see that combining audio and visuals from the same emotive perspective was not only inevitable, but essential!"
According to Tim, Plastic Reality materialised from No Future, a fluid troupe of techno-heads with a passion for very loud music, the emergence of affordable computing power and booze". As a matter of applying technology for art's sake, this was an innovative sight for sore eyes and music to the ears. "The music artists of No Future were generally ahead of their time and are today recognised as masters of their art, people such as Cristian Vogel and Jamie Liddell," explains Tim. "Within the No Future fraternity a number of us were interested in the development between audio/visual as one source (it takes a bit of thinking about, but not too much). The prime motivation behind this was to create a "˜stronger" experience on the dancefloor. We could see that combining audio and visuals from the same emotive perspective was not only inevitable, but essential!"
Skint Records, also based in Brighton, initially harnessed the power of Plastic Reality back in 2000 to work on Fatboy Slim's Star 69 video. Norman's Big Beach Boutique gigs followed and Plastic Reality naturally became integral to Slim's audiovisual performances. This summer Plastic Reality is enhancing Fatboy's "The One Way Ticket to Palookaville Tour"with Palookavision. This is a mesmerising visual accompaniment to Norman's audio album, Palookaville, as seen in 3D at Glastonbury by donning special glasses or by viewing festival footage broadcast on BBC Radio 1's website.
"I was allowed to stray beyond the constraints of Planet Fatboy and bring a bit of Plastic Reality to the table,- says Tim. "We have been helping build Norman's shows over the last couple of years and are really proud that there's a team that sees fit to have a drink and a laugh and put on major league shows where everyone is having fun."
"It's a bit of kit, a box, a thing that allows you to become immersed in the intimacy of delivery"
Revealing in Channel 4's superb PIXnMIX VJ masterclass that his approach to the Palookaville project adopted a ‘Timothy Leary meets the Beach Boys in the 21st century aesthetic’, Tim’s visuals are as vivid as his words. With artwork by Red Design added to original Plastic output, Tim is currently dispensing eye-popping shows by creating and sequencing video clips to mirror the movement and mood of the music. He’s also artfully (re)mixing and scratching the medium in real-time using Pioneer’s DVJ-X1 DVD turntables.
The palookavision @ glastonbury 2005 (Channel 4 TV)
Although first to admit that the DVJ’s abilities aren’t especially new, Tim is seduced by the turntables’ hands-on functionality. “What the DVJ does is exactly what the science of VJing has needed for a long time,” says Tim. “It’s a bit of kit, a box, a thing that allows you to become immersed in the intimacy of delivery. A box that means you can fully interface with the visual material at your hands… As badass as a 1210 but with warp drive and bells on, the DVJ is here ready to assume that heritage. The already awesome CDJ now updated to control a video signal at the same time. Happy days!”
"heavy rain, large thunderstorms and floating tents – good morning Glastonbury!"
“Glastonbury was a lot of blood, sweat and big grins” recalls Tim. “After a hard day’s meeting in the hot tub at Norm’s complete with a well-manned bar, taking notes and drawing suggestions on the whiteboard, we felt that we were prepared for the muddy invasion of Worthy Farm. It was a well-planned free-for-all that meant what resembled a fruit machine or celebrity squares was planted on the Other Stage for a Friday night session. It took a little longer than anticipated to get the screen built, but we were hampered by the small fact that no one had done this before. Equipped with this voice of reason we strove forward, getting a signal out at about 3.30am Friday morning, leaving us plenty of time… for heavy rain, large thunderstorms and floating tents – good morning Glastonbury!
“The visuals at Glastonbury, for us, were all about the glasses and the vibe this would create between everyone at the gig. The Fatboy gigs are all about people having fun together so to be part of the recipe for that is cool. I knew the glasses thing would work because I had road tested them with a lot of friends and the reaction 90% percent of the time was the same: that it was like being on drugs without being on drugs. Now if I can help people feel like that then the job’s well done – saving a whole lot of people a whole lot of stress and while having a whole lot of fun. “Aside from the glasses we had a lot of LED screen to play with – the biggest ever used at Glastonbury and the first to be configured so that the DJ could be suspended [on a platform] in the middle of four tonnes of LED wall. The screen was aesthetically cut into nine panels so that we could develop visuals to fit this, including Norman doing a nine-panel version of The Brady Bunch.”
Following Glastonbury, Tim declares that other standout gigs have been in an amphitheatre in Rome with the Circo Loco crew “who have good time partying in their blood”, as well as events in Switzerland, Serbia and Poland. “Then it’s Australia for New Year’s Eve, although I may be doing an Adam Freeland and Tommy Lee special in Los Angeles,” says an as yet undecided Tim, “but there are gigs in England and Ireland this summer before that.”
Tim Fleming In Action @ glastonbury 2005
Words / RA
Published / Wed, 27 Jul 2005
source: www.residentadvisor.net
More infos: www.plasticreality.tv & www.red-design.co.uk
post here: http://dj-electrohouse.com/for um/showthread.php?t=59327 cheers btw.check my blog...
