Each week we chat about the tools of the trade with one outstanding creative to find out exactly how they do what they do. The questions are always the same, the answers, not so much. This week: Andrew SchneiderThe Creators Project: Who are you and what do you do?
Andrew Schneider: I am a performer and interactive-electronics artist based in Brooklyn, New York. I’m a company member with The Wooster Group, where I perform and design video. I tour with the band Fischerspooner and AVAN LAVA. I also make my own performance pieces about quantum physics, relationships and what it feels like to be alive.What kind of hardware to you use?
I try to use anything I can get my hands on, from tri-Axis accelerometers to broken lamps I find on the street in SoHo. I use XBees for wireless sensor transmission from what inevitably is a sensor strapped to a body, and a lot of bare-boned LCD video screens, again usually strapped to the body. I’m beginning to do more projection mapping, so I’m getting into projectors. I also use lots of 8-foot fluorescent lights, LED tape, Matrox triple-heads, automotive relays for computer-controlled AC switching, FSRs (force-sensing resistors), lots of conductive fabric and conductive thread, some LillyPad stuff and lots and lots of Arduinos.
What kind of software do you use?
I do so much stuff in Final Cut. I’ll track out an entire performance piece with five channels of video entirely in Final Cut. The timeline really helps make the show sometimes. Then I’ll put everything into Isadora for live cueing and manipulation. Camera tracking and sensor data also gets shipped into Isadora, usually from Max/MSP Jitter. There may be a better way to do it, but I tend to handle all the serial data from the XBees and the camera tracking stuff in Max, then send it over to Isadora where I can prototype much more rapidly.What piece of equipment can you simply not live without?
My smartphone. The ubiquity of the smartphone screen and its functions is incredible: GPS tracking, HD video recording, sound recording, documentation. I run shows remotely with my phone to control lights, video, sound, everything. I even prototype with my phone. Before I make a specialty pair of sneakers with accelerometers in them, I’ll gaff-tape my phone to my shoe and start up TouchOSC just to see what kind of ballpark results I might get. It’s the perfect prototyping tool for most things.If money were no object, how would you change your current set up?
Specialized road cases that open up and BAM—there’s my setup. No more schlepping suitcases full of Radioshack equipment all over the world only to realize I forgot the power supply to that last scan converter. Set up and take down takes so much time, time that I could be rehearsing or making or showing. That, and I’d go HD with every single piece of video equipment I own… projectors, mixers, switchers, cameras, storage… everything.Is there any piece of technology that inspired you to take the path you did?
I’d say the VCR. Growing up, this is how we’d make edits of our little home movies by switching between the VCR and the camcorder onto another VCR. While I was making performance stuff in college I realized what a bad manager I was. I couldn’t organize enough people to make a show, so I ended up doing just tons of solo stuff. Then, when I needed outside people, I’d just put them on video. Then that morphed into a way of dealing with time, splitting time, flattening time, dilating it, or splitting myself into multiple performers, which made me much more interested in the possibilities of using video as a integral structural element in the pieces I was making. The video wasn’t an add-on anymore, it was essential. It still is in some of my pieces.What is your favorite piece of technology from your childhood?
My parents’ RCA VHS Camcorder. All summer, every summer, from as far back as I can remember, me and my friends would make short films with this monster of a video camera. One of its only features, aside from basic recording, was a fade button. Most of our videos ended with a pretty sweet dramatic fade. It actually really taught me how to do a lot of in-camera editing and in-camera composing of shots. I feel like I still think through that frame today… how to do stuff in-camera.What fantasy piece of technology would you like to see invented?
I feel like anything I can think of we may be able to approach doing in our lifetimes. Jetpack—someone’s on it. Back to the Future sneakers—they actually made them. Remote spooning devices that allow you to cuddle with your partner when you’re on the road—not that difficult. In general, I’d like to think that technology should take us away from distraction and towards humanity, towards relationships and human-to-human interaction. But at the end of the day, you really don’t need tech for that. I guess that’s what I try to explore in my work as well, technology critiquing technology. I suppose what I’d really like to see is a technology that can make oil obsolete.
Andrew Schneider: I am a performer and interactive-electronics artist based in Brooklyn, New York. I’m a company member with The Wooster Group, where I perform and design video. I tour with the band Fischerspooner and AVAN LAVA. I also make my own performance pieces about quantum physics, relationships and what it feels like to be alive.
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I try to use anything I can get my hands on, from tri-Axis accelerometers to broken lamps I find on the street in SoHo. I use XBees for wireless sensor transmission from what inevitably is a sensor strapped to a body, and a lot of bare-boned LCD video screens, again usually strapped to the body. I’m beginning to do more projection mapping, so I’m getting into projectors. I also use lots of 8-foot fluorescent lights, LED tape, Matrox triple-heads, automotive relays for computer-controlled AC switching, FSRs (force-sensing resistors), lots of conductive fabric and conductive thread, some LillyPad stuff and lots and lots of Arduinos.
I do so much stuff in Final Cut. I’ll track out an entire performance piece with five channels of video entirely in Final Cut. The timeline really helps make the show sometimes. Then I’ll put everything into Isadora for live cueing and manipulation. Camera tracking and sensor data also gets shipped into Isadora, usually from Max/MSP Jitter. There may be a better way to do it, but I tend to handle all the serial data from the XBees and the camera tracking stuff in Max, then send it over to Isadora where I can prototype much more rapidly.What piece of equipment can you simply not live without?
My smartphone. The ubiquity of the smartphone screen and its functions is incredible: GPS tracking, HD video recording, sound recording, documentation. I run shows remotely with my phone to control lights, video, sound, everything. I even prototype with my phone. Before I make a specialty pair of sneakers with accelerometers in them, I’ll gaff-tape my phone to my shoe and start up TouchOSC just to see what kind of ballpark results I might get. It’s the perfect prototyping tool for most things.If money were no object, how would you change your current set up?
Specialized road cases that open up and BAM—there’s my setup. No more schlepping suitcases full of Radioshack equipment all over the world only to realize I forgot the power supply to that last scan converter. Set up and take down takes so much time, time that I could be rehearsing or making or showing. That, and I’d go HD with every single piece of video equipment I own… projectors, mixers, switchers, cameras, storage… everything.Is there any piece of technology that inspired you to take the path you did?
I’d say the VCR. Growing up, this is how we’d make edits of our little home movies by switching between the VCR and the camcorder onto another VCR. While I was making performance stuff in college I realized what a bad manager I was. I couldn’t organize enough people to make a show, so I ended up doing just tons of solo stuff. Then, when I needed outside people, I’d just put them on video. Then that morphed into a way of dealing with time, splitting time, flattening time, dilating it, or splitting myself into multiple performers, which made me much more interested in the possibilities of using video as a integral structural element in the pieces I was making. The video wasn’t an add-on anymore, it was essential. It still is in some of my pieces.What is your favorite piece of technology from your childhood?
My parents’ RCA VHS Camcorder. All summer, every summer, from as far back as I can remember, me and my friends would make short films with this monster of a video camera. One of its only features, aside from basic recording, was a fade button. Most of our videos ended with a pretty sweet dramatic fade. It actually really taught me how to do a lot of in-camera editing and in-camera composing of shots. I feel like I still think through that frame today… how to do stuff in-camera.What fantasy piece of technology would you like to see invented?
I feel like anything I can think of we may be able to approach doing in our lifetimes. Jetpack—someone’s on it. Back to the Future sneakers—they actually made them. Remote spooning devices that allow you to cuddle with your partner when you’re on the road—not that difficult. In general, I’d like to think that technology should take us away from distraction and towards humanity, towards relationships and human-to-human interaction. But at the end of the day, you really don’t need tech for that. I guess that’s what I try to explore in my work as well, technology critiquing technology. I suppose what I’d really like to see is a technology that can make oil obsolete.