Jaap Blonk bubble performance

Gord says: Are you familiar with Dutch musician and performance artist, Jaap Blonk? My wife and I happened over some of his YouTube stuff. Wild and entertaining stuff.

[#1 posted by macisaguy , January 8, 2008 12:44 PM]

meh.

[#2 posted by evn , January 8, 2008 12:50 PM]

This is only one performance of many from 'Messa Di Voce' -- "an audiovisual performance in which the speech, shouts and songs produced by two abstract vocalists are radically augmented in real-time by custom interactive visualization software." Much credit should also be given to Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, who realized these wonderous interactions in software and hardware, and do much other interesting work. One of my personal favorites is the Manual Input Sessions.

[#3 posted by Dave X , January 8, 2008 1:09 PM]

And don't miss the videos that include Joan La Barbara. She's a treasure.

Anyhow, if you enjoy this, you'll definitely dig "Five Men Singing," with Jaap Blonk, Phil Minton, Koichi Makigami, Paul Dutton, and David Moss.

http://www.actuellecd.com/en/cat/victo_092/

[#4 posted by igpajo , January 8, 2008 1:11 PM]

I would love to have one of those screens installed in my rec room. My kids would probably spend more time playing with that than the Wii we got for Christmas!! Hell, integrate a screen like that with the Wii and imagine the fun you could have.

Check out this video that shows some more "modules" being interacted with by kids. Every children's museum needs to have one of these permanently instaled.

[#5 posted by Jeff , January 8, 2008 1:20 PM]

I found the interaction with the graphics interesting. But what did the art say to me? As art it was visually ingaging, but I found the noise grated on my nerves. I try to put up with most noise, but some of it's too horrible. It spoke to the infantile animal in me.

[#6 posted by Foxhearstherabbit , January 8, 2008 2:06 PM]

I soundtracked an entire short film to Jaap Blonk. Hes fantastic. I guess if there is interest i could upload it to YouTube.

[#7 posted by Dustin Driver , January 8, 2008 2:22 PM]

Wait, he gets paid for this?

The end is neigh.

[#8 posted by theotherjohn , January 8, 2008 2:33 PM]

Whilst it's very pleasing to see videos of Jaap Blonk on here, his work would not be congratulated without that of Henri Chopin (1922-2008), one of the great pioneers and supporters of sound poetry who sadly passed away less than a week ago at the age of 85. While not as well-known as, say, the late Karlheinz Stockhausen, Chopin was still an incredibly prolific figure in avant-garde music, art and poetry, and his recent death has saddened the community he helped promote and influence. RIP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Chopin

[#9 posted by Cowicide , January 8, 2008 3:10 PM]

From looks and the sounds of it, I couldn't tell which orifice the bubbles were emitting from.

[#10 posted by wangleberry , January 8, 2008 4:14 PM]

reminds me of eyetoy games for ps2

[#11 posted by geobarefoot , January 8, 2008 5:20 PM]

I betcha some clever person could do something similar using Processing. I'm just now learning Processing and I'm amazed at the potential.

[#12 posted by Foxhearstherabbit , January 8, 2008 7:18 PM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkXmpLp5bs4

^a short film about my nose that i soundtracked almost entirely with blonk

[#13 posted by Dave X , January 8, 2008 8:36 PM]

Ironically, though, you all seem highly interested in people frying cell phones or blending iPods...

[#14 posted by Jody , January 9, 2008 2:15 AM]

This reminds me very much of 'Text Rain' by Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv from 1999.

http://www.camilleutterback.com/textrain.html

[#15 posted by tastybit , January 9, 2008 2:33 PM]

I was lucky enough to see Jaap Blonk speak at UC Davis when I was there studying for my undergrad. He is an incredible performer and amazingly thoughtful and articulate.

If you like his stuff, you should check out some of the more obscure things on UBUWEB: http://www.ubu.com/

[#16 posted by PNutts , January 9, 2008 5:32 PM]

#1 - agree. #9 - Thank you!

Sorry, it is in the eye of the beholder. I only made it through the first 60 seconds and had no sound turned on. I'm not familiar with him or his work and was underwhelmed. I suppose performance art is a very aquired taste... I don't care for Yoko, either.

Performance != Talent