Hurrah! I’ve completed the improvisations for the first video piece! I’m not sure yet which one will be the final one though. While I think some of the earlier ones (around the 5/6 mark) work better as standalone pieces, I do need to take into consideration the fact that I plan to mash this up with the next video piece, which will be much simpler but is likely to be layered over the top at some point. For this, I suspect that either 9 or 10 (this evening’s efforts) might be more appropriate as they generally favour combinations which would be layering-friendly.

So for now I’m going to forge ahead and work on the rest of the sections – one more video, one more audio piece, both of which I already have ideas for and both of which are likely to be quite subtle in nature – before I settle on a ‘final’ version of this bit.

However, tomorrow I am off to Cambridge/Duxford for the weekend where I will have no laptop and so no Max/MSP (save me! please!). I’ve already started reading the Thames & Hudson Video Art book I received the other day, and it’s proving really interesting and provoking a lot of thinking about what I’m doing, and also what else I might do in this medium. I now have a list of about 3 new ideas for video-based pieces that I want to work on, but aren’t allowed until I finish both Manifesto and the orchestral piece which I also need to have finished by the end of the month.

So the schedule now is:

12-14th: Reading/research/sketching plan for how to combine bits into final version. Decide whether to do video or audio next.

15-18th: New video piece OR New audio piece

19-22nd: Whichever one I didn’t do in the previous block (orchestral piece draft version for workshopping also due at this point. What was I thinking??)

23-30th: Compile bits into complete work.

So this first video piece has taken considerably longer than I had planned, but I think I’ve learned so much during the process that I feel I have a much stronger idea for the second one so that 4 days should be enough to sort it out. I’ll be glad to have a whole week to work on the compilation patch too. This bit’s going to be a real experiment as I’ve decided that the compilation will be totally automated, at least to try, rather than improvised like the sections. I really want to try to set up parameters and then devolve decision-making to the computer, but in such a way that it will produce a different version each time and I can pick and choose.

But first, two days of watching aeroplanes from a field. SO glad I have TWO books on video art to stop me from dying of boredom.