Projecting light in all directions...

OK. Life's been a bit of a blur for this pixie.

Sorry for my lapse in spewing forth any goodies here at Olla or elsewhere lately. My only excuse is that I haven't had much time online because my hands have been otherwise occupied (get your minds out of the gutter!) What I mean to say is that I've been using my hands to shred, sew, mend, and bind vast amounts of fabric into four unique (and bizarro) costumes for our upcoming Noisefest performance on October 1st, and I have the bloody remains of what used to be fingertips as proof of this madness, believe me, but I'm not going to post digital photos of that and waste precious bandwidth. Just take my word that as I type this I am going "Ouchie, ouch, ouch, ouch!" We're doing a photo session next Sunday so I will most definitely have to post the results here afterward because words fail me when I try to describe how bizarro these things are.

Anyone who's interested in updates:

Last weekend, BCO participated in an ongoing event here in Oakland CA called THE ILLUMINATED CORRIDOR where several artists took over an entire parking lot at night, opened it to the public for free and projected things onto the walls and made a lotta noise for several hours. It was a lot of fun (except for the part toward the end of the night where someone stole my $40 Pashmina cashmere shawl! Ah well, not irreplaceable, but still frakkin' pissed me off.)

I snapped some pics with my digital but still haven't quite got the hang of using no flash in low (or no) light so most of them are pretty dark -- but then it WAS pretty dark out there in that un-lit parking lot and most of the projections were fairly moody and dark themselves, but you'll get the picture if you glance through them.

Here's a nice one of the BCO set:



We set up a video camera on the spinny thing and that is what got projected onto the wall). The spiral also acted as an instrument which involved the two musicians on either end striking various objects which were contact mic'd on the edges of the spiral) while two strobe lights flashed on the entire thing. Digital cameras, so I discovered, get a little wonked out by strobe lights and it was a bit tricky getting a shot but I did manage a few interesting ones.

MORE PHOTOS HERE

The first ILLUMINATED CORRIDOR show back in July was similar but involved a few live performances that went on indoors as well. BCO did a 30 minute set featuring four women inside of a tent playing harmoniums and doing abstract vocal chants from within while our storyteller Jesse created a unique little shadowplay on the frontside of the tent with a projector and several handmade papercuts and assorted other materials, such as lace and leaves. I will have pics from that event soon but haven't gotten a chance to go through them, but there are some stunning ones.

In other news regarding projected light and outdoor environments-- ran across this great thing over at DRT today and it made my day to read about it:

Guerrilla Theater, American Style

Some folks set up a digital projector outfitted with an FM transmitter and put it inside a car. Every couple of weeks they send out an e-mail to a listserv full of fans with details on the movie that will be showing, the wall it will be projected on, the time and whatnot. You show up, tune to the designated FM station and enjoy a flick, or steam up the windows. The Mobile Movie movement started in Santa Cruz, and is now playing in Berkeley, Oakland, Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles, West Chester, PA., and Tampa City, FL.

Now I'm hoping since I live in Oakland that I'll actually get to witness one of these happenings in-person. Love the concept of spontaneous art no matter what the format. Bring it on, homeys.