Monthly Archives: November 2011

Here is the video of the opening performance –
the electric guitar solo by Margaret Unknown
(our friend Max, from Vienna.)

In this performance, for the live Tagtool drawing accompaniment to Max’s improvisation, I decided to make a sequence of entirely abstract visuals, concentrating on exploiting the different textural and layering effects that can be achieved using the transparency slider and fading.

On Saturday we went to Kolin with Max Bogner, the Austrian guitarist aka Margaret Unknown to do a guitar and Tagtool performance at Mark and Sonia’s ‘Divo and Holubnik’ evening concert.Max’s guitar solo with my live drawing background was the first item on the programme. Of course I wasn’t able to take any photos while I was drawing, but Dima made a recording of Max’s performance that I will put in a later posting.But I did manage to take these photos and made the collage above of the next performer on the programme, the musician ŠOUMEN from Kolin. I enjoyed this performance a lot, but because the vocals were in Czech unfortunately I was not able to catch all the nuances of language that were obviously very much appreciated by the (mainly local) audience.The next artist on the programme was the American instrumentalist Nathan Bell and although he hadn’t seen any of my drawing except for the visuals that I did when Max was playing earlier in the evening he said he was happy for me to jam with him in his performance. For his compositions he used a combination of banjo, bells, drum and voice – really great music for drawing! I will post Dima’s video of this performance later – here is one drawing sequence from his photos.

Here is the (very short – less than a minute long!) video that Dima took of some of our Tagtool drawing at the 15th anniversary party of NIX.cz. The music is an excerpt from ‘Historia de pescador’ by Batukatum, who were also performing at the party.

Once Dima had put in position the Tagtool and the two projectors there wasn’t really enough space to set up another tripod for video – hence the hand held quality of this little recording.But throughout the evening Dima took loads of photos of my drawings – and the full set can be found in this Picasa web album.

The music and theatre club Malostranska Beseda occupies the first floor of an impressive late renaissance building (that was formerly Prague’s City Hall) in the centre of the historic Mala Strana district of the city – very grand surroundings indeed for our live drawing performance at the private party given by NIX.cz on the occasion of the company’s 15th anniversary!Our double projection covered the full width of the wall of the chill out room for the party – which was great for Tagtooling despite the fact that with coloured spotlights and the chandelier lit while the cold buffet was being served, the room was quite light. The drawing below, which had an animation of flying birds and a happy anniversary message for the opening of the reception, was to ‘set the scene’ for the first of the after dinner performances in the theatre, from the Brazilian percussion group Batukatum and the Rio Dance Show.
The niches and alcoves with the vaulted pillars between them made this a much more interesting surface for drawing than a plain flat wall….

…and once the buffet was served and the chandelier switched off leaving only the more intimate lighting from the coloured spotlights, suddenly the projection appeared to be much brighter and more dramatic.As the guests were moving backwards and forwards between the theatre, bar and chill out room during the course of the evening, we were able to do a variety of drawing sequences and animations. Dima took many photos – here is a selection.I made use of the niches to do a bit of slightly scary trompe d’oeil drawing…I don’t know how much of the background would appear in their photo!Here are photos of what Dima always refers to as, ‘one of your Lady Macbeths’!In this photo our projection is seen through the doorway from the bar.For us it was a really nice evening of drawing – and we also enjoyed the superb buffet and friendly company – so, happy 15th anniversary from us to NIX.cz!

We did another Tagtool performance last Saturday at the closing party for the exhibition,’Utopia on the Abyss’ at the National Gallery in Prague. This time, as in our first performance at the opening of the exhibition, I drew on the installation in the main space while our friend from Vienna, the artist and musician Jan Linke (aka Chann), drew on the gallery window that I had painted with ‘Coolglass’ greenhouse shading paint for our performance on 22 September. Here are some photos of Jan’s work, as seen from inside the gallery and from outside.Dima also took this close up shot of the figure that appeared in Jan’s final image.As well as documenting Jan’s Tagtool drawing, during the course of the evening Dima also took lots of photos of my work. Here is a selection.As usual, a number of people in the audience who hadn’t seen the Tagtool before showed a great interest in it and wanted to know all about it and how it worked.

The evening ended with a short sequence where sculptor and performance artist Tobi Möhring and Paul ter Veld added to my initial drawing. We handed the pen back and forward to each other to make this little impromptu ‘Tagtool conversation’ – great fun and a really nice end to the evening’s drawing!