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We provided the visual accompaniment for Anja Kaufmann‘s music in her performance on Friday 15 July at the Echofluxx Experimental Music and New Media Festival in Prague.In the photo above Dima is setting up our equipment in the main hall at Trafačka Gallery, an old power station building in Prague that has found a new life as artists’ studios. For this performance we used three projectors; the two that are visible in the photo covered the whole of the back wall and extended on to the side walls of the gallery and the third was positioned for back projection behind the translucent screen in the centre. Initially, Anja thought that she would perform behind this screen so that her silhouette could become part of my Tagtool drawing. However, in that position she could not see what I was drawing so instead she set up her laptop next to my Tagtool.In the photo below you can see the new (temporary!) modification that Dima made to my Tagtool specially for this performance. He extended the top of my Tagtool All-in-one so that I could have two Wacom tablets side by side, one to handle the drawing on the wall and the other the back projection on the screen – but best of all, with the one pen I could draw on either of the tablets or draw continuous lines from one to the other.Dima had video footage to project behind my drawing and for the performance he also put live video of Anja’s performance into the mix on the back projection. Needless to say this was all very complicated to set up and we had some very anxious moments before he got everything working…..I was too busy drawing to take any photos during the performance but Dima took video which I will put in a later posting.

As well as the still images that I put in the previous posting, Dima also made videos of all of our Kunstwekstatt sessions. Here are two of them. (I’ll put the others on the blog when Dima has had time to do the editing.)

Supra+ from Frances Sander on Vimeo.

The video above comes from the session where I was drawing with the band by myself and the second clip below, which is much longer, is from one of the sessions where Maki and I were drawing together.

And now for a bit of advertising!

If you would like to see this band perform live with more of our Tagtool drawing and are in London at the end of July, here are some dates for your diary….

Thursday 28 July, at The Victory, 281 Kingsland Road, E2 8AS
Friday 29 and Saturday 30 July (as part of the Hackney WickED Festival),at Liquid Studios, 55 Wallis Road, E9 5LH

Last weekend we were in Austria rehearsing with Maki and Supra+, getting ready for our performances in London at the end of this month.At the Kunstwerkstatt, Tulln, once Dima and the band had set up all the equipment, we were able to have some very intensive playing and drawing sessions.The photos above are from the first session where only I am drawing but in the ones that follow Maki and I are drawing together.It was a real marathon – more that five hours of drawing in total – and this time all of Dima’s camera equipment worked perfectly, with the result that rather than having not enough photos for the blog I now have so many that it has been difficult to make a choice!

The full set can be seen in this Picasa web album and my next posting will have some of the video footage from what was a really inspiring and fun weekend!

While Dima and Ilan, together with Itzi and the rest of the OMA International brigade set up all their equipment in the studio after breakfast on Saturday, I took some ‘time off’ to relax in the garden. Later on, when Supraplus was playing, I joined the company – and by then the studio had been transformed into a real jungle of cables, tripods, projectors and other electronic equipment!(Max from Supraplus – photo by Maki)
The Tagtoolers were all happily involved in deep technical discussions, plugging and unplugging cables and adjusting projectors. The talk was all about Modul8 and VVVV – completely above my head! I decided not to take any photos for the blog but instead just sat back, relaxed and surveyed the scene. Then Maki gave a presentation on behalf of OMA about current Tagtool developments. This was all very interesting and exciting – but again, most of it was too technical for me to be able to write about.In this photo Maki and Seppi are drawing using their iPads.
The big Saturday night jam session in the studio, using the set up with three Tagtools and projectors that can be seen in the photos below, began after dinner.There were several sessions of drawing and animation by Ilan, Maki, Itzi, Seppi and me – working at the Tagtoools in different combinations (with Ilan, another left-hander, able to use my big all-in-one when I wasn’t drawing – which was very convenient!)(Above, Eric with one of Maki’s iPad drawings – photo by Maki.)
All of these sessions were great fun and went on till very late, with Eric taking over from the band to provide the music to accompany our drawing. Although Dima and Seppi had their video cameras set up to capture the sessions this didn’t go quite according to plan – Dima’s camera overheated and switched itself off and Seppi’s card was soon full…..However, Dima says, ‘There will be some video’ – so maybe I will have it for my next posting! Meantime, here are some of my photos from what was a most enjoyable night of drawing.It had been a most enjoyable and interesting weekend of collaborative drawing – hard work but also a lot of fun!

NOTE: This event was made possible with financial support from the cultural promotion, “Wir sind Nachbarn” (we are neighbours) by “NÖ Landesakademie” (an institute of Lower Austria).

On Friday the rest of the guests arrived and in the evening the Tagtool Performers Weekend programme began. As the weather was good we decided to have our first projection session outside in the orchard.

But before any drawing could begin there was the very important business of feeding the company to attend to!
Itzi spent the afternoon in the kitchen preparing his special recipe for Austrian dumplings while out in the garden Seppi was in charge of the goulash.
He used the big Hungarian cooking pot I bought in Szeged when we performed there last year – it’s the first time we have had a big enough company to use it!As Holger had spent the day heroically cutting the (waist high!) grass in the orchard ready for the evening performances it seemed only right that he got the first tasting of Seppi’s delicious goulash – with Zuzi as usual hoping to be next in line!
Before darkness fell we got busy erecting the gazebo to shelter the Tagtool performers’ work area and putting in position the four polycarbonate sheets for the projections (They are lightweight and easy to assemble into a really impressive outdoor ‘canvas’ – though we got them originally to use as roof light diffusing panels in the studio!)After the meal (accompanied by calvados and beer of course!) everyone was in party mood and ready for our first night of Tagtooling.Dima’s dual Tagtooling set up enabled us to draw in pairs and cover the entire 7m length of the polycarbonate sheets as well as extending into the trees above. Here are a selection of images from this fun drawing session (some mine and some from Maki) – which needless to say went on till very late!Below is a little collage of photos showing Holger, Seppi and Itzi providing a very lively impromptu accompaniment for our drawing.This was a great start to the Tagtool Performers Weekend!

My next posting will have images from the rest of this weekend – and also some video (if Dima gets round to editing it!)

The first guests arrived mid-week – fully equipped with Tagtools, projectors, laptops, musical instruments and all the other ‘essential’ electronic equipment necessary for a weekend of serious fun!But in the photo above – the early arrivals are relaxing with the dogs in the garden before unpacking their equipment in the studio.And of course in the evening we had a big barbecue – with Itzi in charge of the grill while Holger was working his culinary magic in the kitchen – a great beginning to this event!

On Thursday evening Itzi packed his projector and Tagtool in the van and we went to Prague to participate in the programme of open air projections organised by the artists at Trafačka studios.Below are some images from this ‘open mic’ evening that was held in the inner courtyard of the Trafačka gallery and studio complex.This space doesn’t have a lot of ambient light so it is ideal for Tagtooling – but unfortunately this also meant that most of the photos I took with my little camera were either far too dark or out of focus!There was also music, the bar and grill – the perfect recipe for a most enjoyable evening and it was quite late by the time that everyone had had a chance to draw. Then Itzi packed up all the equipment and we drove back to Libušín.

In a few days I will do another posting with photos from the Big Tagtool Weekend – there were lots of opportunities for some serious Tagtool discussions, intensive collaborative drawing as well as some fun jam sessions….

This year we participated in the Luxury Goods Festival, performing in the programme ‘Moving Image’ at the Courtyard Theatre, Hoxton on 28 April. We were not familiar with this venue and, although we arrived at the theatre early to set up our equipment, as usual it was a last minute rush to get everything working in time for our slot in the programme. This theatre has a very pleasant, welcoming atmosphere but for projection it was only possible to use a screen set on the stage (smaller than we had anticipated). It was also difficult for Dima to find a suitable position to set up our tripod for the video capture.Photographer Patrick Foster kindly sent me this nice photo and below is Dima’s video clip from our performance. It is all shot at the same rather awkward oblique angle but this at least provides some kind of record of the event. Because my drawing area was limited to the dimensions of the screen on the stage it was not really possible for me properly to follow our intended ‘programme’ and although I was drawing over some footage that we have used before (from Dima’s project ‘Being Here’) our set turned out to be something of a jam session. The music is from (one of our favourite albums) ‘Blue Moustache’ by our friends from Rotterdam, the band Coolhaven.

The following evening we set up the Tagtool for a little party at Liquid Studios (where we did outdoor projections last year during the Hackney Wicked Festival). In the studios’ communal area the projection set up, covering the wall from floor to ceiling, became a real installation, and we used the same video footage and music to accompany the drawing as we used at Hoxton. In the first video Ed Hathaway and I took turns to draw (which was not easy for him as he is right handed and we were using my left handed Tagtool all-in-one!)

Next to ‘have a go’ at the party was another right hander, figurative painter Mick Martin, who is a very old friend of ours (and also did some drawing last year at the Hackney Wicked Festival). Despite having to draw ‘cross handed’ he gave a really virtuoso performance as you can see in the video below – and don’t miss the brief appearance (and participation) of some of the audience as well….

Postscript.

While I went off for a holiday in Cornwall, Dima remained at the studios and he acquired a new ‘toy’ – Kinect. It’s his new ‘most favourite thing’ so I’ve included below a clip of him trying it out (with the help of some of our friends at the studios).

I’ve had a go at dancing with Hatsune Miku too – certainly great for a party, but Dima has plans to use MMD in some of our studio projects in the future……we’ll see!

Dima was so busy managing the equipment that he didn’t take many photos on the two evenings that we went projector bombing with the Red Bull car during the Lunchmeat Festival – but he was able to shoot some video on the first night when it wasn’t raining. It’s all a bit shaky and hand held but I think it captures really well the atmosphere of working with the Tagtool outside. The first clip is from the roof terrace session at DOX.

The two clips below were shot outside the cinema BIO OKO and the club/gallery Roxy/NOD in the centre of Prague. While I was drawing we had a DJ operating the sound system in the Red Bull car, but Dima has used these two tracks by Mihaly Vig, ‘Valuska’ and ‘Oskigyo’ for the videos.
The festival organisers are making an official video of the whole event, which should also include some footage of our Saturday night performance at the Meetfactory. When this comes out I will post a link on the blog.

As it was not possible for Dima to take many photos I was very pleased to be sent some more images from the two evenings of projector bombing we did in Prague last week as part of the Lunchmeat Festival – so first, a big ‘thank you’ to the photographers – Kuba, Dita Havrankova and Lenka Balounova!

Here are photos of the performance on the roof terrace at DOX Gallery.As it was a real jam session I decided to make a sequence of both abstract and figurative images for this setting. Here are photos of the two musicians who provided the live accompaniment for my drawing.It was the sound system in the Red Bull car that was used for music to accompany the street projections.Below are some more photos from the street session outside BIO OKO.In order to cover the whole height of the building Kuba held the projector on its side – a great idea that worked really well – but drawing was much more difficult, as either I had to stand sideways or try remember that when I moved the pen up on the tablet, the line went down on the building and movement left showed up as movement right!
Unfortunately, on Thursday evening it was seriously wet – not the best weather for projector bombing!I was the lucky one, cowering inside the van (although this proved to be not the most comfortable position for drawing!)But despite the bad weather this was a great projection location.As well as ‘drawing’ on the wall I was able to incorporate the statue in the niche into the pictures.When we moved to the next location we parked the van next to the Red Bull car in the car park end-on to the wall. With the back door of the van raised to form a ‘roof’, a raincoat draped over the back of the Tagtool to give extra protection from the rain and the projector inside the van sitting on the tailgate, this was a much more comfortable drawing position for me.The audience was not so lucky!My projection area fell within one of the ‘loops’ of the permanent mural that covers this big wall and as there was a lot of ambient light at this location I chose not to use the transparency slider but instead concentrate on making big bold images in pure colours.I ended the session with a bit of advertising for the remaining events of the festival!It had been great fun, although we all went home very wet – and glad that our performance on Saturday at the Meetfactory would be indoors!

The evening began on the roof terrace at DOX – a wonderful location for Tagtooling! As I began to draw the rain stopped, the live music was great and a big audience came to see the performance. Everyone (except us!) seemed to be taking photos and video so I hope to have some images for a later posting.

Then we set off with the Red Bull Volvo to do some projector bombing on the street – and this was really great fun!
The photos below were taken from our first stop – outside Kino OkO. The gable end of this block of flats made a brilliant ‘canvas’ for drawing and the on-board sound system in the Red Bull car soon attracted a big crowd.

Our next stop was in Dlouha outside Roxy/Nod, a very popular club and gallery in the centre of Prague. Despite the narrowness of the street and bright lighting Kuba managed to angle the projector to make a huge drawing area for me on the front of the building next to the club. A big crowd soon gathered on the street, with lots of people taking photos. My new, beautiful Tagtoool All-in-one performed perfectly and was ideal for working on the street! Dima set it up and dismantled it very quickly – and in between managed to take these photos as well.