We just got back from Berlin where our friend Ernst Altmann arranged for us to stage our first public performance of the new music and Tagtool work that we have been developing in the studio with our musician friends K.U.N.T.Z.
Bar Babette on Karl-Marx Allee is a very nice venue but as always there was a lot of equipment needed for both music and visuals for the performance.
It took Dima all day to get everything set up and working satisfactorily!
The visual in the photo above, which accompanied the opening set by Berlin-based musician Axel, is a large scale projection of the mobile made by Ernst Altmann for this event. The mobile itself was installed at the opposite end of the bar with a spotlight trained on it in order to cast an ever-changing shadow on the white curtain behind.
I took all these photos of Ernst’s work with my little camera but unfortunately they don’t really capture either the charm of the slowly revolving mobile and its accompanying shadow – or its grand presence when ‘translated’ as a projection on to the full height of the curtain behind the stage.
Dima took both photos and video of the song cycle by K.U.N.T.Z. that formed the centrepiece of the evening’s performances.
For each of the seven creatures represented in the songs I made a separate Tagtool image, moving from one scenario to the next as the music progressed. This was a really challenging live drawing project for me – developing seven different drawings in 40 minutes of continuous drawing, and I usually draw people, not animals – but it was great fun to do! Here are a few of Dima’s photos – I will post the full video of the performance later.
The set of Rare/Primitive/Remixes by DJ Al Chem completed the evening’s entertainment and I did some more ‘freestyle’ Tagtool drawings which, because Bar Babette is essentially a glass cube with floor to ceiling white curtains, could be seen in reverse by people sitting at the tables outside as well as in the bar.
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