Jurassic Lounge is returning this August, and we have some exciting news for this season: eightfilters will be curating several spaces!
We’re looking for installation artists, projectionistas, video mixers, laptop musicians and filmmakers who are interested in performing.
We have 2 rooms for projection and musical works, with screens, projectors and PA systems, and we have a massive widescreen projection space for pre-prepared works and short films.
Email us at eightfilters@gmail.com with a brief summary of your work and what you’re interested in doing, and we’ll get back to you asap.
Lots of Max Headroom, Akira and old B-grade sci-fi. I’ve been watching lots of cyberpunk movies and reading Grant Morrison comics for a writing project I’ve been working on, and it’s starting to come out in my video work.
I’ve been using AV Mixer but I’m looking at moving to Modul8 – the resolution in AV Mixer just isn’t high enough.
In my previous careers in journalism, editing and academia, I fell in love with a little program called Scrivener. Scrivener is a writing program, as opposed to a word-processing or typesetting program. I found it after I wrote my Honours thesis, a beast of a document that made my laptop la-a-a-a-a-a-g every time I tried to scroll. Scrivener’s non-linear approach, light footprint and research / organisation capabilities drew me in, and I’ve been writing articles and papers in it ever since.
Since starting work as a UX Architect, I spend a lot of time in Omnigraffle and Visio. I create wireframes, I develop IAs, user journeys, workflows and business logic, all of which are easily handled in Omnigraffle.
That said, it’s always worthwhile to spend some time working on developing personas before diving into wireframes and IAs. Knowing who will be using your site and how will determine how you structure the site and its information, and determine the approach you take to the documentation process. I’d been using Omnigraffle for this process, without remembering that I have a piece of valuable software that I’ve been using for years to maintain research, develop stories and create character sheets. So when I saw a blog post about using Scrivener to write user scenarios, I had a small epiphany.
If you’re involved in UX, or user research, check out Scrivener.
In the 50s and 60s, there are five people at the centre working very hard, miserably trying to write a book and around them there are 95 people more or less having fun,” Greif explains. “In the hipster culture the people at that centre aren’t necessarily producing art, they’re actually working in advertising, marketing and product placement. These were once embarrassing jobs. Now it’s meaningful in this world to say that you sell sneakers, at a high level.
I’ve just finished Zero History and I’m still coming to terms with how I feel about it. Being about advertising and fashion, it is of course a commentary about the need for capitalism to co-opt every new thing. The brilliance of Zero History is not in its storyline, which feels a little formulaic, or in its characters, which feel bland. It’s in its identification of the changing relationship between subcultures, consumption, fashion and advertising, and its refusal to fall into a simplistic sell-out / stay true dichotomy.
Other commentators have noted the difficulty to create a subculture in the age of the internet – subcultures get co-opted incredibly rapidly. Or, increasingly, collaborate in their co-optation from the beginning. I suspect the backlash against hipsters was not really a response to it being an empty, meaningless subculture. Most subcultures at their core are more about shared tastes and boundary policing than any deep meaning, and they all have their base in shared consumption. That consumption may be ritualised (buy nothing day, retro fashion), fetishised (fairtrade, veganism, freeganism) or politicised (DIY) or ironic (take your pick), but a subculture can’t exist without shared consumption patterns. Rather, the backlash against hipsters is likely motivated by the fact it is/was a global subculture taking place in public view, arousing all of the usual passions and responses against things that are run by young people.
As a new generation comes of age, it’s likely that their subcultures will figure out ways to resist co-optation even while interacting online. 4chan may be viewed as an exercise in protecting a subculture that exists online. By forcing participants to understand a complex set of acceptable behaviours (call and response, memes), initiations (raids, DDOS) and repelling outsiders (porn, gore), 4chan have, for the time being, created an online subculture that’s resisted being sold out and dissipated.
The central plot point of Zero History is about how subcultures may avoid selling out in a post-geographical world. The designer of the Gabriel Hounds clothing is a closely guarded secret — clothes are sold in small batches and they are sold at pop-up events that are invitation only. This creates scarcity in a post-scarcity world (or at least, exclusivity in a post-exclusivity world). This, naturally, drives the master-coolhunter Bigend insane, driving him to employ someone closer to subculture status to find the designer. Hollis Henry – cult musician, music shop owner, journalist – epitomises obscurity cool. Her band was a cult band, her music shop sold records and her magazine was never actually published. She forms the bridge between the advertising world and the new subculture, and she is thoroughly conflicted about this role. It’s a conflict many creatives in advertising feel, with a foot in both worlds.
By the time Hollis Henry finds the creator of the Gabriel Hounds, the creator has already decided it’s time to go public. Once advertisers have found you, there’s a limited time for you to cash in before it gets done for you – so she does it on her own terms. As hipsters and the generations that follow become more comfortable with this, the more we’ll see niche market producers and subcultural figures selling out on their own terms.
Eightfilters are playing the final Jurassic Lounge tomorrow night at the Australian Museum. We’ll be setting up installations in a couple of different space, and hopefully sourcing a number of projectors for a big installation.
Our compatriots at Punk Monk will be doing some liquid light displays as well, come check out their psychedelic stylings.
People who think losing weight is as simple as ‘eating less’ will often be able to explain why stopping gun violence isn’t as simple as ‘banning guns’. The reverse is also true.
You’ve been living under a rock if you’ve never heard of a disk-jockey before, sorry Gen Y, a DJ. But during silent disco last Tuesday when stunning random floated across the floor and asked me “Did I like the VJ?”, I wasn’t sure where to take it. We were after all standing next to a Tyrannosaurus Rex, drinking Canadian Clubs and it was only a breath before that a drag queen walked by. Despite the obvious innuendo and the need to take every obscurity of the english language straight to the gutter, beautiful stranger told me all about Video-Jockeying and Eightfilters, the VJ duo down the hall. And what a beautiful discovery indeed!
Video-Jockeying (VJ-ing) is a dynamic artspace. It is the augmentation of images and video files and linking these visuals to respond with and be manipulated by sound.
This week we’re doing another set. Next week we’re going to bring a couple of extra toys and set up some reactive stuff, which should be a lot of fun!
