let created = `Date (2020, 9, 7) inI recently gave a talk at Bornhack
where I spoke about the ideas and the technology
behind niseq - note that this post is not a direct copy/paste of the talk.
So what is niseq? In a sentence, it's an instrument for making live visual art -
especially of the abstract kind. At the same time it's an explorative instrument,
for finding interesting relations between (single or groups of) images - which
enables one to work in an intuitive and immediate way with footage, in stark
contrast with
how one would work with ordinary video-editing applications (NLE's).
I developed niseq in my spare time throughout the past couple of years,
and have been working on the idea of it for about a decade (where I in the
meantime also worked on related projects, studied computer science and worked
as a programmer).
The idea initially stems from how I came up with manually moving the playback-cursor
around in my video-footage, while making a video-installation at the Fatamorgana
school of photography.
Since the beginning of july I quit my job as a programmer, to work on niseq
instead,
now trying to make a living on making art and art-technology.
Niseq supports effects and many other things - but the core technological
feature
of niseq is that one can access any image on disk at
60 frames per second. This enables live, free movement through time - which
is hard for me to do justice in a sentence, so I'll list some examples for how
I use it currently:
niseqI have a lot of different ideas on the drawing board for how to extend niseq to exploit this feature even more.
Just before the recent Bornhack performance,
I implemented an effects system in niseq, where each image can have
effects applied and recorded for later. For now this e.g. includes zooming and
stretching images - which is what I call 'moving in space', and
also includes fading images together.
A major focus for niseq is being an
instrument for live creation of visual art.
I use the word instrument in the same sense as when one says 'musical
instrument'. Here I mean there being a direct relation between what
the human player does with the instrument, and what can be experienced
from the output of the instrument. And this relation should be observed within
a short timeframe. When I say output in this sense, I mean the final
output - not a temporary output that is not intended for an audience.
This has consequences for
the implementation of niseq, which I'll go into detail with in
a later blogpost.
Seen from the outside, this means that niseq is designed to:
Of course, as niseq is software, I also have features that enable
automation of certain things - for example one can record a rhythm of
switching between different streams of images, and most things that one
controls directly are 'settings' that control simply automated streams of events.
Concerning the importance of extensibility: keyboard and mouse is a good approximation for a good interface for interaction, but it is not expressive in communicating what the player actually does, towards the audience. In this scope of design there are many interesting potentials I want to explore.
The idea for niseq initially came to me through
experimentation and intuition, and a feeling of there being something missing
in the language of cinematic expression of most cinematic experiences I had -
especially the mainstream cinema, which I think often has degraded to a
fast-food alternative to books.
I've found that
the ideas of the french Dada and Surrealist movements of the 1920's
correspond closely with my idea of the unlived potentials of cinema,
and I consider the art of niseq part of the related
cinéma pur
movement.
The non-narrative nature of experimental electronic music has inspired me a lot, as it leads to more direct forms of emotional, aesthetic and atmospheric experiences. This relation to music also existed for the surrealist/cinéma pur filmmaker Germaine Dulac, who wrote (1):
... The cinema can certainly tell a story, but one mustn't forget that the story is nothing. The story is a surface. The seventh art, the art of the screen, is the palpable rendering of the depth which extends beneath this surface: the musical ineffable... Visual impact is ephemeral, it's an impact you receive which suggests a thousand thoughts. An impact analogous to that provoked by musical harmonies.
I've been performing a
couple of 'silent cinema' shows
with niseq, which I want
to do more of in the future - but right now I'm looking at making
collaborations with musicians for making improvisational jam sessions,
hopefully ending up in some interesting audiovisual live concerts.
If you are interested in collaborating, write to me at rand at r7p5 dot earth.