Unitygain AV performance in Lisbon

Unitygain is a performance format proposed by New York artist David Linton. The platform allows for multiple audio and video artists to perform together and to jam. In Lisbon the Unitygain was hosted by O Século club and by curator Elsa Vieira of Rogue Waves.

Last night [March 12, 2008] the Unitygain included the following artists :
David Linton
Adriana Sa [pt]
Damian Stewart aka Frey [nz]
Fadigaz [pt]
John Klima [usa]
Magenta Interior [pt]
MonkeyFish [pt/usa]
Paulo Raposo [pt]


Frey [New Zealand audio artist Damian Stewart] and Magenta Interior [Portuguese video artist].

The live performance was a first collaboration for these two artist and it was visible that both worked consciously in regards to the performance of the other. Magenta Interior's visuals were created by an elaborate setup that did not include a computer. Her setup included a video mixer and a children's turntable that she placed objects on such a snow globes, crystal balls, bits of paper, toys and metal mesh. With a hand held camera she filmed the spinning objects and with natural movements created a beautiful and incoherent kaleidoscope. The audio that Frey created for this collaboration also wove in and out of coherence and included small melodies and tangible sounds. Frey uses Pure Data.

O Século is a cultural organization with a focus on advancing new art and audio-visual culture. The space has an elaborate video setup with projections on all walls and serves great drinks, breakfasts and deserts. It's open everyday except sunday and has events almost everynight. The cultural center is a space run by a number of local organizations, Ouve, Multi Audio Cultura and Centro Des Artes .


John Kilma and Adriana Sa regular perform together and work with the same software, a complex system that recognizes pitch for the sounds of their guitar [John] and zither[Adriana] to move them through abstract 3D environments.

The evening ended in a jam with all audio and visual artists performing together. The result was really pleasant, not too aggressive or chaotic abstract sound performance with 5 different video streams and came to a close with some very night techno beats. I could not figure out who made the beats and nobody would own up to it!


This is an image of the tool that John Klima was playing in the final jam. Each branch and node represent a different sample and he used his custom software to play with and recognize pitch and move between the different samples.