Extremely stoked about this guest lecture by Yannick Jacquet (from AntiVJ collective) for the Animation Expanded courses.

Yannick started by introducing his own artistic work, and went on with refering to other major video mapping references in the field. He also dived into the more practicle stuff of choosing the right video mapping software and beamer / projection hardware. In the afternoon we had a basic introduction to the MadMapper software. Although supposed to be a 'basic' introduction, it felt like a rather elaborate one to me! I've been using the software for quite some time now, and I actually learned a whole bunch today:

• You can create complex multiscreen animations in real-time by using MadMappers generative sources as luma masks over your original content, using the Multiply blending mode.
• You can make mapping scene 'presets' and trigger them through midi, with the option of using automatic transitions between them.
• You can use MadMapper modules like 'oscillator' (LFO), Arduino 'firmata', 'weather' by location, ... as live inputs for controlling your different layer's parameters.

Also very valuable to me was to see a total overview of Yannick's trajectory so far. He started out in advertising, went on as a VJ (related to his passion for music), and then gradually shifted towards more installation / stage design related work. Those installations, being rather artistic in nature compared to the more commercial aspect of VJing (and especially ads), give Yannick the possibilty to translate his vision more accurately through his work, and therefore making the audience connect more deeply with his pieces. It eases my mind a bit to see how one can slowely but surely move all to way from making occasional corporate / advertising work in order to survive, to being a full-time independent audiovisual installation artist.

Here are some (silly) pictures taken during the video mapping workshop.