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It was an easy job to assemble our new screens in the studio. Putting them into position was much trickier!Many thanks to Ash and Barry for their expert help in getting one screen floating in the air above the lane and the other safely positioned on the wall opposite the roof terrace.  As the photos below show, this required some acrobatics……Once this ‘floating’ screen was in position I just couldn’t wait for darkness to try it out!The next task was to prepare the projection area. Our new gazebo was easy to erect and just the right size to fit the end of the roof terrace.To shelter the Tagtools, projectors, sound system and other electronics, Dima and Lukas improvised this L-shaped work station under the gazebo from some old doors and other bits and pieces. We were all ready to begin!

Recently we have been looking for some kind of material to use as a screen to project ‘double sided’ images. We experimented in the studio with various types of sheeting and mesh net but finding a cloth that is both transparent enough to give a bright image on both sides of the screen but not so transparent that there is glare or a ‘hot spot’ from the beam in the middle of the side opposite the projector (the ‘back’ of the screen) proved not an easy task. A couple of weeks ago in a handicrafts shop we bought a few meters of a textile called ‘Netkana’. It has a mat white surface, is waterproof, doesn’t sag or stretch and has just the right amount of transparency to give a bright image on both sides of the fabric. Best of all – it was not very expensive! We hung up this material in the middle of the studio and these pairs of images are from our first test session.

Next week we plan to do some ‘double sided’ outdoor Tagtool projections, so the next step was to use this material to make up a proper portable screen. I made an edging of black Gaffa tape and put in metal eyelets (from the same handicrafts shop) all round.To make the supporting frame Dima used lengths of narrow gauge plastic drainpipe with right angle connectors (from the local D.I.Y. store). Then the material can be held in place by looping strong plastic string through the eyelets. We haven’t tried to use it outside yet………
We have made two of these screens and yesterday I made this box (from some old cardboard covered with Gaffa tape) so that they will be easy to transport and store.

A crate of beer, a barbecue in the garden, live music and Tagtool in the studio – the perfect recipe for a great summer weekend with friends!

Markus. Malu, Jan and David arrived on Saturday afternoon and once they had unpacked their laptops, instruments, projector and Tagtool, the jamming and partying began immediately. As usual I was too busy partying to take many photos……. but here is a compilation of the shots I took of Jan, David and Dima having a ‘warm up’ session in the studio.Dima took these shots of our big Sunday night Tagtool jam session.Here I am drawing with Markus.Jan and David provided the music (which was a really inspiring accompaniment for our drawing!) I’m so sorry that we didn’t think to make a video or a recording of this set – next time we must be more organised! However, Dima did take quite a lot of photos and I hope the selection that follows at least gives some idea of the development of our drawing.As usual our jam session ended on a rather dark and sombre note!

If you have a pair of these glasses at home – now is the time to get ready to put them on!

And if you don’t have these glasses and/or would like to see the ‘mono’ version – here it is.

The music is by Samka, the St Petersburg-based band that we think are producing some interesting work and have been listening to a lot lately when we have been drawing in the studio.

For this experiment Dima asked me to do a set of three Tagtool drawings. In the first session I was to draw only the background. Then, against a green screen ‘background’ I drew only what was to appear in the middle ground. (I found this quite difficult, trying to remember my previous drawing so that I could make the middle ground look convincing when the three sessions were put together). In the third session, again against the green background, I drew only the foreground elements of the composition.I took these screenshots from Dima’s post production work.The top two are from his first trial render and the second two from the final edit. Both trials produced an uncanny and surreal 3D effect but in the final edit the narrower ‘overlap’ produced a more subtle stereo quality and this is the one that appears in the video above.

Here are the videos from our latest drawing sessions. I am posting them together like this to enable comparison between working in 3×4 format and widescreen ‘letterbox’.

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In both of these sessions I used Dima’s very powerful tower computer (the first time he has let it leave his office!!) instead of my own laptop. For the first black and white video I drew continuously without releasing my drawing for forty minutes – and this time there was no ‘drifting’ of the line. So, it seems that this ‘drifting’ problem has everything to do with the powerfulness of the graphic card in the computer…… The second session was slightly shorter (about half an hour) and again there was no ‘drifting’ but this one has a lot more transparent drawing and, before when I have drawn in this way using my laptop, the problem with the line seemed to occur much sooner than when I was using opaque drawing.
The widescreen video is in full high definition and Dima used frame blending in his post production so the lines are markedly sharper and the transitions more fluid than in the first black and white video. (He also made a frame blended version of this drawing but we decided that both the drawing and music did not lend itself to this treatment.)

The music for both of these videos comes from our newest and most exciting ‘discovery’ – a band from St Petersburg called Samka.

After the weekend partying (and the football!) – we had a Tagtool session in the studio at Wassergasse. These screen shots are from the set of drawings I did at the beginning of the session. These were recorded as a test piece for Maki, to demonstrate the length of time it takes for the Tagtool star to start ‘drifting’ when I draw continuously without releasing my drawing. This is a problem I encounter with the current version of the nodekit when I am doing very fast drawing in order to make dense multi-layered single images. (The only way we have found to avoid this happening is to switch off the antialiasing – which means that I am unable to achieve smooth lines and edges in my drawing.) Dima had thought this might be because I use a PC but in this session when I tried the Mac the result was the same.

Then we had a jam session – using two Tagtools and projectors.I drew first with Maki. We haven’t had an opportunity to jam together like this for quite a while – so this was great fun!This still is from my session with Jan.I took these two photos of our computer screens to show our ‘division of labour’ in this session. (The black and white drawing is by Jan and Maki and I did the blue background.)

This little clip is a record of Dima’s special contribution to the evening – his ‘Instant Stereo’. This D.I.Y. effect he achieved by asking me to take some ‘still’ video footage while he jumped up and down on the floorboards in the studio, shaking the tripod on which one of the projectors was mounted!

As usual – lots of fun with the Tagtool! Now I am really looking forward to the crew’s visit to our place. (It’s next weekend! So I hope to have lots more stuff to post soon.)

The Danube was blue, the weather was warm and sunny – perfect conditions for a relaxing weekend at the ‘home’ of the Tagtool (despite the mosquitos!)Partying started early on Saturday afternoon with preparations for a barbecue in the garden and by evening a large crowd had gathered in the courtyard and the bar in the cellar. Once it was really dark Matthias switched on the projector and the Tagtool jamming began, projecting on to the beautiful old textured wall behind the washing line that you can see in the photo above. I took lots of photos but it was so dark, most were not very goodWhen my turn came to draw I gave my camera to Dima and (as usual!) his photos turned out much better than mine – so here are a few of his shots of my drawings.

I haven’t done any postings recently as I haven’t used my Tagtool for nearly two months now! While Dima has been away I have been in my studio working on some ‘old fashioned’ drawing and painting instead. Today we had our first Tagtool session since his return and I must say it was great to be doing some ‘live’ drawing again. It was the first time I had an opportunity to use the new version of nodekit that Dima installed on my laptop (see all about this latest version of the software on the Tagtool website) . As this was just a short test session to see if all the equipment was working and I was really only scribbling we didn’t record anything, but I thought I should take at least one photo for the blog.We are going to Austria this weekend – with our Tagtool, of course, so I hope to be doing more (and I hope more interesting!) postings with new stuff very soon.

On Sunday afternoon when everyone had (more or less!) recovered from the Saturday late night partying we all met up at the Kunstwerkstatt for the final day of the Chink Chank. It was time for more small group discussions about the Nodekit, copying and sharing photos of the previous days’ sessions and (most exciting!) the moment for the Tagtool builders to try out their brand new minis for the first time with Markus standing by to answer people’s questions and lend a hand. Ange took these photos of Alistair and Kellie with their new Tagtools; I was too busy trying to write up my blog!Dima installed our Edirol mixer and Tagtool in the main space of the Kunstwerkstatt and we did a short demonstration so that people could try out the possibilities of using film clips and drawing over them.The photos below show Rasmus, with a relaxed but attentive audience, developing a large scale animation while other people played with the Edirol mixer.The final session of the afternoon was a presentation on the future development of the Tagtool community by Markus, based on the outcomes of individual inputs of ideas and our moderated discussion on Saturday afternoon. This was accompanied by a very nice Tagtool flow diagram made by Matthias, but I was so busy writing the various points in my notebook that unfortunately I didn’t take a photo of it! The six topics covered Hardware FAQs, Software development, Moderation of Tagool.org and Editorial, Web 2 and Web development – so, lots of things to do, and to think about in the weeks to come!

Our last evening in Tulln included Lilly Jäckl reading passages from her newly completed book, ‘amen,amen’ while Dieter Puntigam made live Tagtool drawings based on his illustrations.I was so sorry that I am not able to understand German as I am certain that this book, as described by the publishers, “ist kein gewöhnliches Buch” (is no ordinary book) – and that Dieter’s illustrations will be ‘no ordinary illustrations’.

Seppy and Matthias kicked off the evening jam sessions and soon it was party time – again – at the Kunstwerkstatt!But it wasn’t to be all new media at the Chink Chank. Dieter got out his box of paints, set up the white paper screens that he made when we arrived at the Kunstwerkstatt and we were all ready for a group drawing session. Very soon Alistair, Dieter, Kellie, Lennie and I had every facet of the screens covered – this was lots of fun!!Then it was back to the Tagtools for the last jam session of the night.
Chink Chank 2010 was over.
What can I say – a very big thank you to everyone who made this such an interesting and exciting event!

Happy Tagtooling and roll on 2011!!!

I had planned to do a daily posting during the Chink Chank but I quickly realised that there were so many things happening all day long that I would surely miss something interesting if I sat down in a corner and wrote up my blog.  Instead I decided to take lots of photos and do the writing when I got home.

So much for theory – in practice I found that I had taken lots of photos of some things and none of others!  One example of this is the artists’ presentations.  We gave a short review of our Tagtool work during the last year and showed our little film, ‘Tales from the Attic’ and Dieter Puntigam also presented a selection of videos of his installations and Tagtool performances, including one (that I hadn’t seen before and particularly liked) where he drew in monochrome with the dancer Bea v. Schrader.  Other contributors to this part of the programme included Kellie O’Dempsey, Momo and Ange Taggart.  It is always so interesting to see other people talk about their work  – I completely forgot to document this part of the programme! But I did manage to take these photos of the moderated discussion with Markus on the development of the Tagtool community.  We took the opportunity of the beautiful spring weather to move outdoors into the sunshine with the Danube as the backdrop to our brainstorming – and this time I remembered to take my camera!

While we were outside enjoing the sunshine Gerald Pfaffl was installing his ceramics at the Kunstwerkstatt.  Suspended from the ceiling and fixed to the walls, this extra three dimensional element added an intriguing  and mysterious atmosphere to our ‘solo’ performance in the evening. The combination of black and white film footage and my Tagtool drawing was definitely enhanced by the dark spots and the inky shadows cast by the vertical hanging pieces.  I gave my camera to Joost to take photos – here is a selection.The pairs of images are from some 16mm film footage we shot two summers ago and have used in several of our Tagtool sessions.To accompany our performance we had selected a playlist of some of our favourite music but just before the session began Andreas Dzialocha and Roman Hagenbrock offered to provide a live improvisation for us. I was really delighted to have this live accompaniment for my drawing – and I hope that the next time we are in Berlin we will all be able to get together for a repeat performance.

For their Saturday night artists’ session Maki and Iink were accompanied by voice artist Christian Reiner and pianist Philip Zoubek with whom they work on their Hilti ‘Odyssey of Oddities‘ series. This delightful performance was enjoyed by a large local audience as well as the Chink Chank participants.Hilti and Capitain were joined by a succession of other ‘characters’. The rapt attention of the young boy silhouetted in the foreground of these photos is a clear indication of how much the whole audience enjoyed the performance! Iink and Maki’s skillful animation and accomplished Tagtool drawing was a very fitting beginning to the big Saturday night party. I was too busy partying to take many photos (!!) – but here are a few images from the artists jams at the start of the party.This was followed by an open session when anyone could ‘have a go’ at drawing. Needless to say, the Tagtooling and partying went on till VERY late…….