January – Dima built our Tagtool following the DIY instructions on the website www.tagtool.org and I started this blog to document our Tagtool projects. Over the year I did 46 postings and have had more than 2000 viewings of the blog recorded in my stats. We have travelled across Europe with our Tagtool, giving live drawing performances in Austria (the home of the Tagtool), Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands and England. This review, if you click on the thumbnails below, has links on Vimeo to the videos of our major projects of 2009.
February – After lots of practice drawing sessions and a number of different experiments, this was our first ‘finished’ video. Some of our Super8 film footage, colourised, forms the ‘background’ for my Tagtool drawing.
April – We were delighted to be able to attend the ‘Tagtool Think Tank‘ in Tulln, Austria where we met the developers of the Tagtool and showed this video. It features a soundtrack composed and played by Dima and this time the ‘background’ for the drawing is some 16mm film clips that we shot in our garden last summer.
July – We prepared this video for a party in Berlin given by our friend Michael Schmacke. It combines black and white Super8 found footage (some of it shot in Berlin in the 1950s) with my Tagtool drawing. The (pre-recorded) sound track is a jam session by Dima and Anja Kaufmann
September – Live Tagtool drawing to accompany a performance by Beseppy with Martin Janíček at the Brick Bar in Prague. This video is a frame blended animation of the performance. Post production by Dima.
September – Tales from the Attic – A ‘home made’ telecine version of our Super8 filming of my Tagtool drawing session in the Attic of WORM in Rotterdam. The finished film is to be shown in Dresden at the Schmalfilmtage Festival in February 2010.
October – We were invited by London events company GaiaNova and OMA International to participate in live outdoor Tagtool performances as part of the group of artists drawing on the ‘Wall of Light’, the Multangular Tower in York Museum Gardens. The performances were held every evening throughout the ten days of the Illuminating York Festival. The first picture is a link to our ‘solo’ performance. The second photo links to one of the ‘jam sessions’ in which the invited artists drew and animated together using two Tagtools simultaneously. The full set of Festival videos, showing the work of all the invited artists, can be seen by clicking on the link to this Vimeo Album.
November – Beseppy and Martin Janíček were in concert at A studio Rubin in Prague and asked us once again to provide live Tagtool drawing to accompany their performance. As this was a very dimly lit and crowded venue, recording proved quite difficult – this video shows only part of their set.
December – ‘Room of Ghosts’ is our stop frame video (post production by Dima and soundtrack by Coolhaven) of one of the Tagtool sessions we provided for the film ‘Nearly Departed’ that Canadian filmmaker Demetri Estdelacropolis is making in Amsterdam. The location is the interior of an historic canal house which was undergoing major renovation.
December – Our last performance of the year was at the D.I.V.O Institute post Christmas party at Kolin. For this video Dima used his new Canon 500D camera rather than his usual stop motion method of recording our Tagtool sessions.
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