andi on oils, oils on tent

back from Symposion Lindabrunn and our first cut of Lux Ludica.  I’m attempting to upload some imagery, but failing dismally, it seems that TCP of greater that 80k is now banned across the english channel. Fixed, the problem was closer to me than I thought… now uploaded in large format only.  (I still have no way to create small images from the big ones.)

The story was that we converged — almost all the 4shroomies and some friends, extras and cameras — on Symposion Lindabrunn to try out our ideas for a weekend “event”.  Now that we have proven the basic idea, the work begins on making it somewhat more serious … next year!

Luckily we got some support from Angewandte who purchased a huge tent for such productions.  This arrived the day before us, so we got to put it up in its virginal near-white state.  As it was some 10m x 5m, it took up almost all of the floor space in the ampitheatro!  From the outside, it made for a very nice screen, and the inside was just too chill-out for words.

Also, we included a couple of friends, Dominic and his mate (name?) who brought along 25 slide projectors :-~ We like enthusiasm, but that’s a first!  It also caused lots of scrurrying around for extra power.  Luckily again, the Lindabrunn place has scads of power:  3 x 3 phase circuits, and we used them all.

crystal, colours, trick lens and lazy susan!

Which makes for a new record for 4shrooms:  4×16mm, 4xOHP, 5xDias and with the 15 of Dominic, we are up to 28 projectors.  A tough challenge.

Shroomies, get your photos up there…. Mine were not that grand as I was doing other things.

Thanks to Gurter, Johana, Kurt for hosting us.  Thanks to Pablo and Matthias for video support!  Next year, with a vengeance!

These were taken at Meran, Italy at the recent [un]defined event in parallel with Manifesta.

After much pushing and shoving, we agreed to try projecting directly on the concrete of the parade ground.

Much to our surprise, it worked! Having big meaty projectors helped a lot here, but the addiction is fatal to the budget…

In the background of this shot, the columns to the stage roof can be seen:

This was a marvel of modern engineering, it was possible to raise and lower the roof by means of 4 pully&chains and 4 motors, on each column.

No, there was no synchronisation between the motors, and one night someone futzed with it, leaving the roof tilted like a broken dollhouse. Luckily no damage done.

One projector is a Kodak Carousel to play around with and get experience.  We are more or less agreed that we will stick to Kodak Carousel types for the future, because they are heavy, high quality, as bright as it gets for slides, cheap, and getting cheaper.  We have now tried the one we purchased in real life at Meran in Italy and discovered that it still isn’t bright enough to compete with the overhead projectors.

To deal with that, two strategies:  firstly, we’ve purchased some really bright lens in the USA with bright optics:  35mm f2.5 (1st image), 220mm f2.5 (2nd).  Also, for fun, we just had to buy a really huge zoom lens: 190-330mm f3.9 (3rd).  This entire haul of lenses cost us a total of $64, which is mostly made of shipping costs in the USA. This is great buying, getting them through stores would cost us over $1000!  I’ll pick them up in November.

Secondly, we are going to look for some cheap Ektapros.  These are the professional version of the retail Carousel.  They have 1300 lumens rather than the 1000 of the Carousel.  Unfortunately, while they are expensive and valued in Europe, the US voltage ones are giveaways in the USA.  (Indeed, the 220mm lens to right came with a professional, 1300 lumens projector that only takes 110v )

If that doesn’t work, we should try the 6×6 slide projectors to see if they are brighter.  We also purchased a long lens that is compatible with the other, smaller non-Kodak projectors: 200mm, f3.5 (not shown), for playing around.  It was around 10 euros including shipping.

Koloman was the documentor for the event, and took lots of video of the 4shrooms visuals.  He has offered to do a clip, but we have to provide some soundtrack:  Watch this space for a call for the musical 4shroomies to get together and jam.

The trip there was funded by the new Verein running the space!  They paid for a bus to transport a group of Vienna artists for the week.  They also paid for a fantastic stage-roof that could be raised and lowered on demand.  Very high-tech, and incongruent amongst the other handmade projects.

Projections at Karlskirche were done by Jan, Peter and our very own Georg.  It is every night this week, and has been there for the last couple of weeks.  A band generally plays in front.  We might drop in one night and organise a 4shrooms supplement, we have this week only.

Saludos de Viena a Rafael, Morris, Aisel, Elena, Viviana, y tambien Sebastian, Antonio, Jania y Omar!  Un abrazo silencio al Alexander, Arthur, Manrico, Maria y Paul.  Y Francisco

More projections than Sigmund Freud’s waiting room! We had a lucky 13 beams in all, across both sides of the Radowan hall in Yppenplatz. Including our new, tiny €1 two-slide antique.

Soho also saw for the first time ever all 8 shroomies on performance, and for the second night, we welcomed as special guest artist Marc a.k.a Deep Fjord.

Veteran shroomie Ruth now goes on sabbatical to a Peruvian alpine village to contemplate how the Austrians projected their spoor across the planet. She will be back at the end of the year, hopefully, elsewise we have to mount a rescue operation.

Call to all shroomies, do we have photos of LifeBall?

Rumours that we made the national news are still unconfirmed, but as one wit observed, a 30 second spot still leaves us 14 and a half minutes of fame in the bank account.

Notable highlights: a wonderful stage put us in a commanding position, and our two beamers saved the show. Our longest performance ever! Projectors were on by 21:00 and the last one was turned off on the dot at 05:00 … We cleared the building in 30 minutes, and were home and cracking the vodka by 06:00.

long life, health, happiness and whatever else they wish to the castyourart podcast team of Juan-Pablo, Ewa and Wolfgang!

here it is … der STANDARD ARTICLE:

Unter sich drehenden Kuchentellern

Check it out, share the feeling Thanx to Wolfgang, Ewa and Pablo.