#I improvised a lighting set up and fiddled with my camera settings a lot

[silverdawnarrow]

Madeleine got some new toys today

[dejwritesarchived]

❪ ♡ ❫ ──��� ⠀ ⠀⠀ improvise ⠀ 〳 ⠀ a.shouta (shota) ‵

❪ ♡ ❫ ─── ( synopsis ) everyone keeps questioning famous actors aizawa shota & y/n l/n about that one scene.

♡ ˙ ˖ ✧ — afab reader, her/she pronouns, female anatomy, actor au, oral (m.receing), fem petnames (babydoll), reader and aizawa formerly academic lovers at julliard, flirty actor!aizawa, italics means flashback, breath play, cum swallowing, messy head, slight ooc!aizawa, profanity, mentions of a happy trail, mentions of pubes, wc: 3.8k, sorry it's like late bby, an entry for @h-shibas actor au collab event.

THE JOURNALIST GAVE THE TWO OF YOU A SMILE. The bright lights shining on the duo of main actors in Issa Rae’s newest tv show. Aizawa Shouta and you sat side by side dressed to the tens and with the brightest smiles on your faces. The newest HBO show was a hit and managed to trend on Twitter every night, but the latest episode seemed to have everyone in a frenzy when one particular scene played on the world’s television. 

The journalist adjusted the small mic that was clipped on her cream-colored blouse before the producer motioned for her to start the interview. The interviewer started off with easy questions. How was it working with Issa Rae? What to expect for the rest of the season? Simple questions to get Aizawa and you to talk and get comfortable with her. But, the two of you should have known what was going to be the next question that was going to linger off her tongue. 

“In the most recent episode, Chanel and Jax share a quite interesting scene together that had me and many viewers so surprised.” The journalist explained.

Aizawa let out a chuckle as he rubbed at the back of his neck nervously. His publicist had seen many questions like this one coming. Especially considering that he had a segment to read the show’s fans' thirst tweets about him. His dark-colored hair was tied out of his face in a neat man bun. His white button-down shirt had a couple of buttons undone showing a bit of his tone chest with the chest hair he had. The silver dog chain necklace clashed against his chest and he just stared at the journalist with his usual deadpan look (that had many people's hearts fluttering).

“The sex scene, many people complimented how well you two acted out that scene. It seemed so real. Was it a bit awkward at all between you two when you read the script?” The journalist asked.

Aizawa and you shared a look and your cheeks instantly grew hot. The lewd flashbacks ran laps around your mind before it was Aizawa clearing his throat to answer the question.

“It wasn’t awkward at all when you get to know your castmates..a lot of the scenes you just go with the flow,” Aizawa answered.

“Yeah, just go with the flow.” You repeated as you adjusted yourself in your seat. 

You fiddled with the booklet in your lap as you sat in your designated chair that had your name on the back of it. Production was about to wrap up for the day, but your co-stars had one more scene to do, plus the director wanted to talk to you. You usually left the set early to indulge yourself with wine and a warm bath so you can have a clear mind while you memorize your lines, but tonight you were stuck here until the end. 

“That’s a wrap guys! Go home, get some rest, and enjoy your day off tomorrow! We’ll resume filming Saturday morning!”

Your thoughts were interrupted when you could hear the director clearing his throat to gain your attention. “Be here on Saturday, I’ll be here as soon as the sun rises.” You jokingly say until you looked up and saw the director with your co-star Aizawa Shouta. 

“If you don’t know, we will be introducing your character's blossoming relationship in the show soon. I need both of you to be prepared for Saturday. Schedule to meet up to read lines together tomorrow, I need it to feel like I’m watching you two fall in love in front of my fuckin’ cameras. You two understand?” The director’s eyes darted to you then at Aizawa. 

“No need to worry, we won’t disappoint.” You answered. 

“Good. Enjoy the rest of the night.” The director flashed you two a smile before walking away, her assistant not too far behind her. 

That left both you and Aizawa awkwardly staring at each other. It wasn’t because you two would be doing a quite explicit sex scene during this season of the show, but the fact that you two had history. History that got lost as time went on and you two went your separate ways after graduating. You remember vividly the late nights at Julliard practicing lines for a play. The intense pressure of not wanting to let your family down due to the fact that Juilliard was one hard-working school. With an acceptance percentage of 8%, wouldn’t you want to make sure you use your years there in the most hard-working manner? The two of you just took comfort in each other during the harshness of your professors telling you that you weren’t going to make it in the sea of desperate actors if you couldn’t cry on cue.

“So, should meet at your place or my place just to ensure privacy from the paparazzi and fans,” Aizawa suggested. He’s tugging his phone out so you can put your number into it.

Your mouth gaped open just a bit confused. Perhaps he just forgot about you. After all, after graduating he was the one that got his first big role immediately. He meets people every day. It’s no problem.

“However, I suggest we do it at your place. Paparazzi camp out in front of mine on Fridays,” Aizawa pointed out.

Your lips formed a straight line as you were attempting to take in everything he was saying. You didn’t mind him being in your space, it was sacred and you protected it. However, you just knew your little apartment wasn’t anything compared to his big mansion right next to supposedly Kylie Jenner’s house. But your body reacted to his question before your mind did, your head just started nodding like a sports bobblehead figurine. 

“Great, put your number in my phone.” Aizawa gave you his phone which you quickly put your number into before handing it back.

“I guess, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Aizawa gave you a sly smile before walking away, but he stopped before turning around. “Text me your address when you get a chance. Have a good night (Y/N).” 

You watched as he disappeared in the crowd of crew members pushing away stuff to pack up and go home. You walked towards your trailer dialing one of your friend's numbers, when you heard your friend's voice you let out the longest sigh. “Do you remember that one guy I was super close with during college?” 

“The one with the long pretty hair and he always looked dead inside, but he was one hell of an actor,” Your friend described.

“Yes, him! We’re co-stars and he doesn’t even remember me,” You said as you walked into your trailer to grab your belongings. 

“What? You two were so close though,” Your friend reminded you. “Like really close, I remember vividly because you kept me up every Friday and Saturday night. And don’t forget when the plays you two were in was a success, you guys were like horny animals.” 

“Okay, no need to go that far down memory lane with that one.” You said.

“Just speaking the truth. You two were glued to each other's hips on some days,” Your friend replied.

“Well we’re working together and I don’t think he remembers me,” You managed to sadly utter out. “But it’s no big deal. He meets new people every day.”

“Oh come on, that's bullshit. That man licked every inch of your body in college.” Your friend commented. “You should help him remember you.”

“That doesn't sound desperate to you? If he cared to remember, he would have.” You commented as you were walking towards your car after leaving your trailer. 

“I’m sure he’ll remember you when you two finally have scenes together.” Your friend commented.

You could only hum along with what they said before sharing your farewells to end the call. You unlocked your car door climbing into it. The memories of college and Aizawa swirling around your mind are like lines you needed to remember. You just had to get through one reading with him and maybe he’ll remember who you were. 

WHEN THE MORNING CAME, YOU FOUND YOURSELF CLEANING YOUR ALREADY CLEAN APARTMENT. You looked at yourself in the mirror in the bathroom checking your appearance. You weren’t dressed up too fancy, after all, you two were just reading your lines for the season. You had walked into your living room being sure to already have each episode booklet for the season of the show out. You always asked for backup copies just in case you misplaced the original. When you heard the knock on the door, you would waltz over to answer it with a quickness. 

When you saw Aizawa, you were completely breathless. It was as if seeing him in front of you took all the breath out of you. His black hair was tugged into a messy bun that looked like he did in seconds. He wore a white t-shirt and sweatpants. You couldn’t help but chuckle at the fact that you both decided to dress comfortably for today’s reading. You were so into eyeing Aizawa up and down, you didn’t even hear his sudden words until after the fact.

“You know, it took me a while to realize who you were.” He would say.

“What?” You questioned as you stepped aside to let him into your apartment. 

“Oh come on, you know what I mean,” Aizawa explained as he was eyeing the decor in your space. “We went to Julliard together,” He responded as he looked at you. “You thought I would forget the one woman who got me through that damn school,” He sighed as he would plop down on your couch. 

You were speechless as you stood staring at him. “Yes, you’re literally Hollywood’s top actors right now. Of course, I would think you forgot about me.” You shrugged as you walked towards the couch grabbing one of the booklets and soon plopping down next to him. 

Aizawa’s lips grazed at his lower lip before he’s speaking once again, “When you put it like that you make it sound like I’m a Hollywood jerk. Hollywood didn’t change me that much,” He sighed as he leaned forward going through the booklets from each episode of the show you two were on. 

You watched in curiosity as he was searching for one particular booklet. “What are you doing? We should start at episode 4, that’s when our characters meet.” You told him.

“We literally have only about five lines each in that episode, we can practice that episode literally on the day of filming,” Aizawa shrugged. 

That was true. In that episode, your character Chanel and Aizawa’s character Jax only would be introduced to each other. Slowly creeping the door open for the relationship the two would be creating as the episodes go on. You watched as he finally found the episode sixteen booklet and you were forced to swallow the large lump in your throat. “I don’t know why I’m not shocked you chose that one,” You said, shaking your head.

“Y/N, it’s our sex scene episode. We have to make sure it looks believable. This scene literally is when our sexual tension between our characters finally explodes,” Aizawa comments.

“I’m aware of that you idiot,” You rolled your eyes at him before finding the other copy of episode sixteen. “I just feel like we should work our way up and then get to episode sixteen. This gives us time to think about how we’re going to portray this. You heard the director, she wants to see us fall in love.” 

Aizawa thought about your suggestion before picking up the episode four booklet. “Fine, but only because I have a suggestion on our scene.” 

Your eyebrows raised wanting to question his statement, but you only grabbed your booklet so you can start. Within the past three hours, you two spent going over lines and practicing the scenes you were in. You stopped to order food and take a break, forcing you two to go down memory lane when it came to your college years. You still felt your cheeks radiate so much heat when Aizawa would mention how close you two were. Perhaps that’s why you were so nervous about this sex scene, the fact that you two actually had sex before. Although in sex scenes you aren’t really having sex with your co-star, it was all about making it look believable. 

“So, do you want to hear my idea for our sex scene?” Aizawa asked as he was sprawled out on your living room floor. Episode sixteen booklet laying on his broad chest as his dark eyes traveled over to you who was laying on the couch. 

“What?” You asked as you were reading over some lines.

“We should improvise it,” Aizawa suggested.

“Improvise a sex scene?” You asked, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“Why?” 

“Our sex scene doesn’t even seem like it’s that long,” You responded. 

“Okay, and?” Aizawa questioned. “Not like we didn’t have real sex before,” he bluntly admitted as he looked at you to watch as you sit up with a quickness. “As I said, I remember how close we were, Y/N,” he says. “The director said she wants it to feel like we've fallen in love on screen and I think it’s our only duty to make sure that happens.” 

You were quiet for a second before letting out a sigh, “Fine, let’s practice this damn scene. But keep your hands to yourself.” You commented as you wag your fingers at him.

He would only hold his hand up, “I can’t promise you that.” He commented as he looked at you.

For the remaining thirty minutes, you and Aizawa were practicing the lines leading up to the sex scene. However, as you were getting closer to the first action of the sex scene, you could tell how hard Aizawa was staring at you. His eyes burned holes into you, which transmitted so much heat that you fanned yourself with the booklet you were reading from. Was this how it was when you two were in college? Definitely. 

The late nights of essays about some black and white film and even later nights of practicing lines. The memory that was formerly distant in Aizawa’s head was now coming back full force and he too could feel his skin heat up instantly. The two had always had chemistry. Their professor always pointed it out but also pointed out that it was important for them to have chemistry with other people together. 

The stage action of Aizawa has to be the one to make the first move. You remember specifically reading the lines that the kiss was described to be innocent at first, but it gets heated. Very heated which leads to the sex scene. You hated to admit that you were nervous about that scene. Although the long-haired male in front of you has seen you at your most vulnerable moments and placed kisses upon your body, nervous knots still twisted in your stomach. As the last line before the kiss rolled off your tongue, you found yourself closing your eyes and inhaling sharply. You expected him to kiss you. You knew he would. 

And like some love-struck fool, you eagerly kissed back. Your hand clasping at the back of his neck to tug you closer and when you gravitated closer to his body, you could feel how hot Aizawa’s body was. You could feel his tongue trace alongside your tongue as he deepened the kiss. Your lips gasped apart letting him taste you even more. Your hands toyed with the ends of the graphic t-shirt he wore, timidly your hands climbing up his shirt feeling at his toned torso. 

When the two pulled apart completely breathless and brain filled with explicit thoughts, you started at Aizawa. 

“We’re really going to do this?” He questioned, his head tilting slightly. 

Your teeth grazed at your lower lip before nodding. “You said you wanted to improvise right?” You asked. Once again tugging at his t-shirt. 

The smug look on Aizawa’s look caused you to roll your eyes at him. You have seen that look on his face countless times in college. You stepped backward letting him bring his shirt over his head to pull it off. He let the piece of clothing drop to your living room floor. His hands are now going to undo his bottoms. In your mind, you were thinking that you should stop this. That this could complicate the future of the show you two were on.

Co-stars getting extremely personal with each other never ended well. Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev were examples of that. You could tell the chemistry dying down in each scene in The Vampire Diaries once they decided to part ways romantically behind the scenes. 

“We don’t have to do this,” Aizawa murmured. His pants hung loosely around his waist displaying the band of his Calvin Klein boxer briefs. 

“Let’s do it.” You said as you placed kisses on Aizawa's chest. Your lips clashing upon his heated skin sent a bone-chilling shiver down your spine as you only kissed lower and lower. Your tongue carelessly glided down the base of his toned abs as you plopped down to your knees as if you were about to pray your sins away. 

Your hands eagerly tugged down his bottoms. Despite the two of you only sharing a heated kiss, you still could see the print of Aizawa’s cock through his boxers. Your mouth instantly watered at the sight. It was particularly the fact that you haven’t had sex in a while, L.A was filled with many fame-hungry people. So, you thought it was best to keep to yourself. Afraid that when you finally got that big role, your past would come back to haunt you with an exclusive TMZ story. However, this was just Aizawa. You’ve seen him naked before. You’ve made out with him countless times. He had you folded up in the most pornographic way on some days. But even right now, he still left you breathless and nervous. 

The sight of Aizawa’s cock was something that was extremely memorable. If you were graced the opportunity to sit on it or even suck it, you were going to remember it for sure. On lazy days when he’s wearing just sweatpants, your eyes always traveled down to stare at the thick print that poked out through the fabric of his sweats. When it was free of any clothing and rock hard, it always slapped against his torso eagerly to be balls deep into either your throat or cunt. But the one thing you adored the most was the way his happy trail added much more attractive for you to want to let your tongue glide all over his body. 

You swallowed the lump in your throat before eventually letting your puckered lips place a kiss on his pink shaded tip. The taste of precum staining your lips like lip balm before you’re working your magic. The sound of Aizawa’s groan caused heat to rush up to your ears like an excited dog. Your hand palmed at parts that you didn’t have in your mouth yet while your tongue teased at the tip of his dick. Your tongue glides against the shaft of Aizawa's cock and you watched as he playfully rolled his eyes at you.

“Come on baby doll, stop teasing,” He huffs lowly while bucking his hips. 

You let your hand palm his cock for a bit, your hand now coated with your saliva. “Don’t call me that,” You said. “We’re not in college anymore.” You uttered before your mouth was once again full of Aizawa’s cock again. 

Aizawa’s teeth grazed against his lower lip as his hand went up to tug the hair tie out of his hair, letting his black hair fall out of the messy bun it was previously tied into. His dark eyes stared watching the way his cock disappeared in your mouth dug up old feelings, he thought the two of you buried when you graduated. The way your eyes shifted closed taking in the moment drove the actor insane. His hand is placed on your head guiding your movement before eventually bucking his head to feel even more of the pleasurable feeling of your mouth. Strings of hushed profanity words tumbled off his lip and his chest heaved as if he was running a marathon. 

You found yourself spitting more saliva on Aizawa’s cock before once again latching onto it with ease. Once again making eye contact with the actor as his face flushed of its color before he started to speak again, “Sure feels like college, huh?”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at his statement before you notice his hips were bucking forward a bit harshly. The gagging sound bounced off the ways of your apartment and before you knew it, you could feel the tip of your nose brushing against that same happy trail you kept staring at earlier. Your saliva dripping from your mouth making a mess not only on you but on the floors your knees were beginning to bruise from. Your perfectly manicured nails dug into Aizawa’s thighs as you endured the short pleasure of having your ability to breathe taken away from you. When his hand let go of the harsh grip he had on you to gag upon his cock, you pulled away breathless. Saliva and precum dripped out your mouth before you continued to do what you were doing.

Your nails dug into the palm of your hand as your hands were curled into a ball. The lewd gagging sound erupts from the back of your throat with each thrust forward of Aizawa’s hips. Through your teary eyes, you glanced up at Aizawa and you could feel your cunt pulse at the sight of him. It was an exquisite sight to watch him crumble in pure bliss. Feeling the warm ropes of liquid squirt in your mouth with ease as Aizawa’s thrusting grew slow and sloppy. 

When you swallowed the creamy substance, your throat felt like it was on fire. Your lungs still were gasping for air. The shirt you wore was soaked with your saliva and you felt so exhausted. Although you had just experienced one of the best moments of pleasuring someone, you still craved for more. The intense feeling of watching the way Aizawa combed through his disheveled hair a panting mess. You climbed off your knees slowly deciding to claw off the remaining clothes that decorated your body. 

“Let’s go improvise some more.” You bluntly admitted as you would lead him towards your bedroom. 

The interviewer would look between the two actors, obviously sensing the sexual tension. “But will we see more scenes like that between you two? Could you give us a little teaser on that?”

“Hm,” Aizawa brought his hand to his chin to think about the question. “I hope so.” His lips curled into a sly smirk before the interviewer let out a laugh. 

“He’s only saying that to stir up his fangirls.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Or stir up you.” 

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[penniesforthestorm]

Heaven’s Gate (1980)

***Disclosure: I watched the 154-minute theatrical cut, on a laptop, which feels like a disservice, but it was on Hulu and my curiosity got the better of me.

If, like me, you read a lot of film criticism, eventually, you’ll run into a discussion or a mention of Heaven’s Gate. What you glean from this context is something along these lines: this film ruined Michael Cimino’s career, bankrupted United Artists, marked the end of New Hollywood, and it’s way too long. (I’ve ranked these items in order of their relative objectivity.) For some, all of this would be a turn-off. For me, though, it only made me more curious, especially once I saw one or two mentions of it being a ‘flawed masterpiece’. I’m always intrigued by a big, wild artistic swing, even or perhaps especially if it’s close to a disaster. Lynch’s Dune, Apocalypse Now, High Plains Drifter-- I could go on. So when I decided to watch Heaven’s Gate, my main intent was to try and meet it on its own terms, using the same central questions I bring to any movie: What do I think the director is trying to do, do I think they succeed, and why or why not?

From the opening notes of the overture, I was immediately intrigued. The film’s score, composed by David Mansfield, is not the kind of triumphant, vaguely Teutonic classical theme we might associate with a John Ford Western. Nor is it a twangy fiddle-and-banjo affair. Instead, it has a distinctly Eastern European flavor, with plucked strings and minor tonalities. As it turns out, this is kind of the key to the whole film-- it’s not really a Western at all. It’s more like an epic Russian novel that just happens to take place on the American frontier. Through this lens, the massive scope of the project suddenly makes a lot more sense.

The score has a less abstract significance, as well-- Heaven’s Gate is set in 1890, when immigration to the U.S. from Eastern Europe was reaching its peak. Most of the film’s ‘population’, as it were, are Czech, Bulgarian, and Polish immigrants, who are targets of the nastiest kinds of nativist suspicion-- routinely named as ‘anarchists’ and accused of (among other things) having too many children. A private stockman’s association in Wyoming, headed by the oily Mr. Frank Canton (Sam Waterston, putting his talent for WASP-y, patrician disdain to excellent use), has effectively declared war on a particularly fractious county, alleging that its inhabitants routinely traffic in stolen cattle.

Before we get there, though, we’re treated to a dream. The film opens on an imposing stone edifice, shrouded in summer-morning mist, and pans down to reveal a young man in a fine suit, running pell-mell across the dewy courtyard. He soon meets up with a crowd of his fellows, a roistering band of black-clad youths (following behind an actual band playing the chorus of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”). It’s commencement, Harvard, 1870. Pretty girls wave from windows and giggle behind their lace gloves. The class speaker, named as W.C. Irvine (John Hurt) makes a show of astonishment on his way to the podium. Later, in the soft evening light, the graduates and their sweethearts twirl on the lawn to “The Blue Danube Waltz”. The camera twirls, too, bowing in and out from the circle of voluminous skirts. Our latecomer from the morning, who has been addressed as James (Kris Kristofferson), takes the arm of a lovely blonde, and they laugh in mutual delight. Quite suddenly, the dancing turns into a spirited brawl, with a few gallant punches thrown. Our young heroes are shown finally gathered together, noses bloody but eyes bright, facing toward a future in which they will help to civilize their vast nation. Or some such thing.

The film then flashes forward to a muddy yard outside a log cabin, where a cow has been butchered, its innards being excavated by the butcher and his family. Then the shadow of a hat creeps up along the bottom of the white sheet serving as an improvised wall. The butcher calls out, and takes a bullet to the head in response. Framed through the rip in the sheet is an elegant young man in dandyish grey (Christopher Walken). Later, we find out his name-- Nicholas Champion. He is an enforcer for the Association, referred to as a traitor by one of the men he apprehends. Meanwhile James, now Sheriff Averill, disembarks the train at the local station, and right away, we sense something is amiss. As he walks into the general store, a roughnecked man studiously avoids his eyes. Another man is examining a knife for sale, and the camera lingers on the bright flash of the blade.

This is the essence of Heaven’s Gate-- its focus is, overwhelmingly, on the visual details. The cinematographer is Vilmos Zsigmond (McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Deer Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and the color palette reminded me of the autochrome process used in some early photography-- lots of deep brown, grey, green, and purple. Smoke and mist and haze frequently drift over the scenery. Most of the film was shot on location in Glacier National Park in northern Montana, which made it deeply moving for me-- the bright turquoise hue of the lakes, the abundant wildflowers, the craggy mountain peaks. There’s another dance, introduced by a debonair young fiddler on roller skates (the film’s composer, David Mansfield)-- and then when the assembled citizens join in, we see that everyone’s on roller skates! It is kind of absurd, but in a thrilling way, at least for the majority of the runtime.

Unfortunately, however, this focus on setting the scene does lead to some neglect of the characters. It’s no fault of the actors. Kristofferson’s ramblin’-man grace is perfectly suited to the role of James Averill, Southern scion trying genuinely to be a figure of decency in the world. Walken’s striking, nervy energy animates the ambitious Nicholas Champion, who is increasingly unsure which side he wants to be on. John Hurt makes an entire three-course meal out of too little screentime-- going from W.C. Irvine, Harvard class clown, to being addressed contemptuously by Waterston as “Billy”, a sozzled, tragic cynic. Isabelle Huppert brings a fascinating steeliness to Ella Watson, the local madame who knows her business and knows it well. But (at least in this cut) those one-sentence summaries are about all the character development we get, and it’s a shame, because there are a lot of intriguing threads here.

Still, I came away from Heaven’s Gate feeling like I’d seen something important. It’s passionately made and often magnificent-- the first half is just one brilliant sequence after another. Sure, it staggers under its own weight a little bit, but it’s attempting the type of load one rarely sees. Someday I’ll have to hunt down a Director’s Cut (I know there are a few versions out there) and see it on a big screen. I know it’ll be worth it.

[firstfootingscotland]

On Islands and Improvisation

(View from the airport at Benbecula, Uist)

It looks as though we’re about to land on the beach as the small dual propeller plane wafts us over Uist. As we descend towards the runway, just a narrow strip of land from the water, I can see the island dotted with silvery lakes, the white sand turning to darker earth as you move inland, and the spine road of the island with its proprietary bulges. Later, I find myself very grateful my driver knows these passing places well as we careen towards the hall where I’ll be teaching step dance. We pull off to take in a quick view over the water, the place my hostess says has the best cell reception, and look west towards the sea, towards North America. Here, I get the sense that the island is what all are answerable to.

In the opening of her piece on gender and sexualities in traditional ballads, University of Winnipeg Women’s and Gender Studies professor Pauline Greenhill mentions both the literal and figurative transportive quality of islands:

“When I was a young woman, the Mariposa Folk Festival was an experience freedom and separation, requiring bus and subway travel from my parents' apartment in Don Mills, and then a ferry across Toronto Harbour to the Toronto Islands. To spend a sunny summer weekend away from the suburbs, surrounded by trees, water, and music was to be literally and figuratively transported to other historic and symbolic locations. It was probably at Mariposa that I first heard "transvestite," "warrior-maiden," "female-sailor," or, as I call them, cross-dressing ballads, likely sung by strong women folksong-revival performers…” (1)

For Greenhill, traveling to the Toronto Islands to hear traditional songs about warrior-maidens or cross-dressing sailors at the Mariposa Folk Festival allowed her to hear these ballads not only as conventional narratives of binary gender and heterosexuality, but also as somehow suggestive of other modes of being... Of other desires, other ways of existing outside of a presumed two-gender system; ways of life that are somehow queer, somehow beyond the limits of normative.

I’ve been thinking a lot about islands. Over the past seven months of the First Footing residency, I have had the pleasure of working on three different Scottish islands: Lismore for a weekend of music and dance workshops organized by Kae Sakurai, the Isle of Skye for a weeklong step dance course organized by Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, and South Uist for a weekend of classes for singers and dancers coordinated by Ceòlas. While each island presented its own ecological richness, I’ve been wondering broadly about the correlations of teaching, performing, and especially improvising on islands.

As long as I can remember I have made a habit of improvising in performance. In the weeks leading up to my first paid gig at the leafy Saline Celtic Festival still held annually in Michigan’s breezy early summer, I remember meticulously scribbling sequences of steps on many multicolored sticky notes. I adhered these to the dresser in my room so I could follow along as I practiced dancing. From my musician collaborators, I had received the names of the tunes that would be played, their meter (jigs, reels, hornpipes, etc.), and the number of times they were to be played. I noted all this information studiously. I so desperately wanted to be prepared.

However, when it came to rehearsing with the musicians for the show (Jeremy Kittel, Sean Gavin, and Michael Gavin), my folder of adhesive-backed paper couldn’t have seemed more arbitrary. Listening and responding felt so much more relevant, so much more useful. I abandoned my scrawled steps that day. Drawing from the footwork sequences in the moment, pulling steps from many percussive dance styles including Irish step dance, Canadian stepping, Appalachian clogging, and tap dance, I could better hear nuances of melody, timing, dynamic and phrasing than if I were actively working to recall a pre-arranged set of steps. (2) Perhaps I just didn’t rehearse my stickies enough. In any case, this way of creating dance has been at the center of my work ever since. Whether performing onstage with a band, teaching a workshop (its own kind of performance!), or presenting a solo dance show, I find myself returning to improvisation as a technique. Even when working alone in a studio in recent years, I tend to improvise, film the improvisation, and watch it back to see what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes I’ll forgo the camera and rely on mental notes as I’m dancing; mentally marking what feels interesting, what feels irrelevant, what feels pleasurable, and then trying to repeat, omit, expand upon this material on the next attempt. In performance, I’ve found this method of public extemporization allows me a tremendous amount of autonomy to respond to other bodies, to sound, to the haptic nature of my feet brushing the floor, and to the specifics of place as I perform.

I found myself improvising on all three of the Scottish islands I visited during my residency. On Lismore, Kae Sakurai and Mairi Campbell hosted a public acoustic show in the village hall with performances by weekend instructors and attendees. There, with the lights low, I found myself rising from my seat in the circle of chairs amidst islanders and students to dance with Mairi, Janet Lees, and Kath Bruce playing Kath’s stately tune, Albert’s 90th. Mine was the first dancing body to enter the circle, an act which felt imbued with its own symbolic magic. As the tune unfolded, I found myself tracing big shapes, hoping to usher in a sense of “eventfulness,” a term Irish queer theorist Michael O’Rourke once ascribed to my movement after seeing a performance. On Skye, Malin Lewis and Hamish Napier both invited to join them in the midweek concert at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. With Malin, I donned tap shoes to accompany their highland pipes for a set of gleefully acrobatic original 7/8 compositions while with Hamish, I wore a softer pair of leather shoes and used sand to meet him in the breathy, sibilant soundscape of his whistle-playing and Innes Watson’s dexterous guitar work. On Uist, I presented a 45 minute solo performance that included improvisations, songs accompanied by dancing, dances accompanied by diddling, and percussive dance that needed no accompaniment at all. All of these performance situations relied on improvisation as a compositional strategy - a mode of danced connection to islanders and islands.  

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A post shared by Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (@sabhalmorostaig) on Apr 10, 2019 at 9:18am PDT

(Hamish Napier, Innes Watson and I perform Hamish’s composition Huy Huy! at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, filmed by Sophie Stephenson)

In a recent talk at Boyer College, dancer, dance scholar, and chair of African-American studies at Duke University Thomas F. DeFrantz articulates that there is queerness to the process of improvisation itself. He examines the act of improvising through the lens of black performance, especially jazz:

“That’s how jazz works. You have to be able to imagine outside of what happened before…and it’s going to be super queer to get to the place where it’s going to be interesting as an improvisation….queerness as I’m trying to think it through at the heart of improvisation, is a willingness to resist the normativity that produced what that was. Then you’re trying to improvise outside of there. You’re trying to go to a queer space or through a queer methodology to flip the beat or change the rhythm.” (3)

Thomas’ words (as they so often do) strike a deep chord for me. When I’m dancing and improvising, I’m responding to sound, to my own body, or to a fiddle tune without the script of “what comes next.” Improvisation requires an imagination beyond what we know. It’s audacious. It’s cheeky. We dare to dream that there could be something else, something more beyond what we have just experienced. Thinking broadly, when we imagine a life outside of what the norms of heteronormativity and binary gender offer, this is where marginalities enact themselves, where space is made for diverse populations, where queering occurs.

Islands themselves also seem predisposed to this kind of queering. I met fellow queer people on Lismore, Skye, and Uist, however, I’m not so much referring here to individual identities of the island’s inhabitants but rather, as Greenhill states, islands’ “symbolic locality” as places that are set apart, imbued with beyond-ness. Indeed, islands are set apart, surrounded by an ever-changing, infinitely diverse, unquantifiable bodies of fluid (what could be more queer?!) “Island time” as it’s referred to on Uist - the convention of events occurring in their own time, on their own terms, or when folks arrive - also seems to connect to queerness, especially the interpretation of queerness suggested by Judith (Jack) Halberstam in their book In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives: “One of my central assertions has been that queer temporality disrupts the normative narratives of time that form the base of nearly every definition of the human in almost all of our modes of understanding.” (4)

(Working with singers during the Ceòlas song and dance weekend, photo by Lowenna Hosken)

On the final day of the Ceòlas Song and Dance Weekend, brilliantly curated by Dance Officer Lowenna Hosken, I found myself improvising amidst my dance students as we worked with participants who had been studying Gaelic song with Fiona MacKenzie. The song students, seated, would sing traditional puirt à beaul (literally Gaelic “tunes from the mouth”) as we listened in, standing close, attempting to find gestures that would imitate their Gaelic syllables. While I had encountered many of the specific puirt repertoire in my work with Mary Ann Kennedy and the Campbells of Greepe, the act of composing repeatable footwork for the dancers in the moment was both thrilling and daunting. It happened blindingly fast, and the speed of the workshop facilitated a kind of insouciance that helped me stave off any imposter-syndrome anxiety about my own (in)ability to understand Gaelic or the gravitas of bringing traditional song and percussive dance (back) into conversation. “What was that phrase again?” “Could you sing it slower?” “One to many beats there.” “Yes, that’s it.” I constructed a phrase, taking a moment to work with the dancers who joined in with abandon. Soon we were moving together and all were smiling. “They’ve got the Gaelic in their feet.” “You can hear the words!” Eschewing the Derridean notion of false binaries, we endeavored to enact a blurring of our ostensibly separate traditional art forms: a performative slippage, a synesthetic blending of mediums in which the dance could be heard and the song could be seen, enacting a trans-­linguistic, anatomic translocation from the island of one body, to the island of another. And as we moved and sounded together, I smiled to myself thinking about islands and about the way improvisation enables intimacy, if we dare to imagine.

(Awaiting the Oban ferry on Lismore in March 2019 with participants of the Lismore Music & Dance Weekend)

First Footing is a collaboration between dancer and dance researcher Nic Gareiss, the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, University of Edinburgh Moray House School of Education, and the School of Scottish Studies with support from Creative Scotland. For engagement opportunities check out the First Footing website.

(1)  Pauline Greenhill, "Neither a Man nor a Maid": Sexualities and Gendered Meanings in Cross-Dressing Ballads, The Journal of American Folklore, 1995, p. 156 (2) The abandonment of these charted steps was the beginning of me feeling uncomfortable with using the word “choreography” for my work. In Antje Hildebrandt’s 2013 video, “The End of Choreography,” she reminds us that choreography is literally “dance writing” in Greek. While I enjoy writing about dance, I personally feel far more connected to the words performer, dancer, or improviser to describe what I do when I’m dancing.

(3) Thomas F. DeFrantz, Dance Studies Colloquium, Temple University, Boyer College, February 19, 2019, Uploaded April 25, 2019

(4) Judith (Jack) Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives, 2005, p. 152

[xenocorp-devblog-blog]

The Formidable Tale of Xenophever, Part 2

Yaaay the first day of production at last.

I was genuinely excited by the whole process of working for a year on my very own videogame concept with very nice working conditions and a team of people I really enjoyed. Genuinely terrified too. I was the coding spirit of the team, and that's a lot of responsibilities I wasn't sure I could handle on my own.

We had our own room shared with another working group, and now was the time to develop Xenophever for real.

(yeeeeee)

Our first challenge as a team was to prove our vision for Xenophever was not only interesting but also technically viable. The summer prototype I had built on Game Maker helped communication with our teachers, but one issue remained ; we saw the game camera as isometric, and some of the teachers were still doubtful. Nothing in Game Maker makes the process easy, so improvisation was key. Now I know there is a lot of clever math tricks to be done to convert distance into things and whatnot, but I had not taken a math class for years and never had the best time with this discipline. So my very un-spanish self ended up following a spanish tutorial so I could make the magic happen in the engine while the artists were learning to twist characters and settings to an isometric grid Game Maker did not technically took into account. Despite our various problems, we created the first version of the Bartender, built blocs and props, developed two different moving systems (arrow keys and point&click since we were not that sure) and finally got an approval on the camera matters.

(thanks spanish person, you probably saved Xenophever)

The next major difficulty to come in code was the actual AI. I had pulled together a solid first draft with the summer prototype, but the pathfinding system was to become more difficult given the sets of rule we had went for in the level design. Again, almost no math notion here. I had very difficult days plucking off my hair trying to find a solution.

In the animation department, Florian was leading raging battles against various solutions to cover the massive amount of animations we had planned for the game. Eventually he ended up settling for Spine -and that's the beginning of a beautiful tale I would never dare to explore on my own name, because he will probably touch the subject himself soon enough.

During this time Louis, fellow game designer and overall mastermind, scheduled what was to come for us for the whole year according to the deadlines the school demanded us to consider. Valentine, head artist, worked on designing the first aliens while we were implementing the animation system of the first species that covered the entire set of clients in this early stage.

Maxim, our environment and UI artist, was busy conceptualizing and implementing our first Structure, the Bar. Once in the engine, I could fiddle around with depth and integration. The production was starting nicely despite the technical problems we faced.

(my early desk, before it completely drowned under post-its)

So we started to feel homey, but something had yet to be build. I think the first time we actually worked as a team boils down to the concept and execution of the main menu. Not a single person had been left out of the process, and I think even today, the main menu is one of the prototype's strengths when it comes to its universe and hooking the player into the game. Then we decided to rent a photography studio for promotion -and fun-, and we ended up blasting off funk, retrowave and 90's tubes as we tried to get somewhat useable pictures of the crew. We had good fun together, it blew off steam from our personal issues with the project. Many things happened during this event, including (but not limited to) :

(if this doesn’t convince you we’re qualified to work on anything, I don’t know what will)

Afterward, it was all back to those problems with a fresh eye. I ended up getting some help from my mom that probably saved me from being stuck in a bug forever (thanks mooom), and Maxim faced his most resilient problem in the production ; the restroom. We weren't exactly sure how explicit we wanted to tackle certain subjects and how badly we were willing to get PEGI-ed, so Maxim's first designs were slightly tame. Not only he had to design toilets that were supposed to work with a great deal of anatomies (we were not certain about every alien design, but even then we knew it would be no fun if everybody used them the same way), but it had to fit in the octagonal space the level design allowed. After many attempts, Maxim settled for a living plant-monster thing feeding off organic decays, and lovingly named it "Dawyjozon". Flo and I then worked on the animation routine of the two aliens we had, and then I tried to figure out for WAY TOO LONG WHY EXACTLY THE CLIENTS KEPT THE TOILETS WITH THEM OUTSIDE OF THE RESTROOM AND- well. I figured it out eventually, but this bug was the regular thing to expect at each new animation update. I'd say I stopped finding it hilarious reasonably fast, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the team disagrees.

(Fate thou have forsaken me (again))

When we reached our first serious milestone in January, things accelerated fast. At this point artists were not late, we already had 3 of the 4 aliens planned in the final game, 4 of the 6 structures, only one mini game of the 3 we ended up having and... And a serious design problem. In the state it was, the game was not really fun nor challenging. The systems worked but loosing was extremely hard. No tactics nor strategy were required, the world felt a bit flat, and we fell into a lot of lecture and interface issues. The playtests results we gathered that day helped us focus on the big picture a bit more efficiently.

(ultimately we remained excessively purple)

After that day, things get blurry for me. We were close to the deadline our teachers had set that forbade us to include any more design tweaks. I had until then to bend the system from an alien-observer simulator to an actual game. Louis worked hard on this with me, crafting two systems next to the first one. We brought the drinks into the game with various effects -they were a huge game-changer-, the last species made its way into the prototype and Maxim, now finished with most of the level design, slaved over the interface until we had something viable to show. My whole life became a programming battlefield night and day, but eventually, during the beta session our school had planned on an E-sport bar, we were somewhat ready. (okay the game crashed twice) (at least no unexpected toilet showed up) (so there's that)

(thanks to the people who tried the game and gave us feedback!)

Things were still not over. Not only we were entering the dreaded stage of debugging and tweaking, pixel-perfect territory and other annoyingly precise tasks, but Louis and I started tackling the dialogue bits of the game. Good bits. I had fun. It still was a very hard week of work. Over 800 possible dialogues were written for each species and nature.

About that time I also needed to tackle everything in the sound department. Originally I had great plans for a very complex soundtrack and tons of spatially localized VFX to bring the nightclub to life, and of course I had to cut my expectations drastically. I focused mostly on the feedback and the bare minimum for the aliens to be distinct from each other. And as for the original soundtrack, I had been working on finding the right type of ambiance for the game since the past year, but nothing truly satisfied me and time was running low. I settled for the main theme from "Messing With The Wrong Tentacle" and a few other themes to build around, and ended up with a decent amount of music that covered the game from intro sequence to the various types of game over the player could tumble upon. The code had been hard, but I'd say music had been one of my greatest enemies during the production. Yet I am still satisfied with the work I've put into the soundtrack with the limitations I had (Logic 5.5 on PC for the dinosaurs that have any idea of which version I'm talking about). And the deadline don't wait for your changes of heart.

(f you’re french you might get a song stuck in the head forever by staring too long at this GIF)

We also had to come to term with some of our mistakes. In design, the very limited moveset of the Bartender was thrown away to allow the player more reactivity and freedom, and we had to admit the hybrid tablet/PC thing we were going for simply did not work that well on PC, that ended up being our only platform. It's not as smooth an experience to drag and drop things with a mouse than with a finger. Many overcomplicated layers of User Interface were left in, as it was a bit too late to refine now. Visual feedback was clearly not as strong as what it should have been, the NPC/NPC dialogue system was a bit off and glitchy, and the dynamic light system never ended up in the final prototype. Still, we had a pretty solid game. So solid, in fact, the engine had troubles handling it. I had many concerns as to potential memory leaks or infinite loops, and as an honest confession I never properly learned how to code, so I could have been making critical mistakes without even knowing. As it turned out, and despite all the flaws in my code, our integration method that saved countless time on my part was actually destroying the engine's capacity. The direct consequence of that implied an utter inability for the game to load and run on various PC configurations. We rattled our brains to disarm the disaster, but despite a week of hard work re-cutting every sprite and reworking the texture packs until they ended up into somewhat acceptable range, the game could not run properly on many configurations regardless of any identifiable pattern. In the end, we gave up. I don't think Game Maker is the best engine to for an artstyle such as ours and the visual ambition we had (and despite all the blood, sweat, tears and overall blast I had working with it -it actually gave us plenty of other advantages that I'm really grateful for). In the end, what mattered was bringing this prototype to our end of the year reception and making it run. We tried the installer on the local computers. It ran. We had to accept the situation, at least for a time.

We packed the final prototype a Friday. But technically they were not checked until next Monday. Which was good given I found out one last bug the Saturday that made me run under a raging storm with clearly not enough clothing to re-upload the corrected version in the school.

Never piss off the Deadline Gods.

And at last. The first version of Xenophever was completed.

Then we had a month.

During this month, several things happened. First off we had to prepare the game presentation in front of professional guests, we finished the trailer properly, and then the dreaded question of "and what next ?" started peering from our empty taskboards.

We have been questioning the possibility of pursuing the game for several months now, but June was the deciding time in which the team agreed on its future.

In the end, Maxim and Valentine wanted to pursue their path on their own, and the rest of the team wishes them the best of luck in this decision and many great and inspiring projects to work on. For the rest of us, well... It seemed like we were going to be stuck together for a bit longer. The final day came at last. We were back in the Final Spot again, same place in which we had our open betas. During the morning, professionals played our games and exchanged feedbacks (and we are forever grateful for those, they're incredibly useful in our current refont -but more on that later). Then we finally presented our postmortem in front of a compact crowd alongside our classmates and their projects Bloom, Rio 2050  and Arashi. The burning afternoon passed by with a glass of custom Xenophever cocktail the adorable staff prepared for the occasion, and we ended the journey the evening on a french beach and even more alcohol. That's a life I can get behind.

(and since this day, Louis became a table and lived very happily ever after)

So yep. Our first attempt at Xenophever was packed and done. I honestly could have hardly dreamed of better production conditions and a better team. Many thanks to ArtFX and our teachers for making this happen, many thanks to our classmates for running the race alongside us -especially to the Bloom team who bared with us daily through our various debates on insect reproduction, politics, toilet and strip tease reunions or animation reference research (Florian probably wishes he could unsee a thing or two), many thanks to our families, friends, and everybody that followed us on social medias at the time. And at last, thanks to the team. Valentine and Maxim have been formidable companions and will always have a special place in the heart of Xenocorp. Here's a link to their respective Artstation platforms in case you want to show them some love anyway, because these guys deserve it : Valentine : https://www.artstation.com/ardal Max : https://www.artstation.com/tortosambrosini And then... Then we took July off. I was exhausted beyond anything possible, and if we were to take the hazardous road of indie development... We'd need some strengths.

Tomorrow, I'll uncover the last part of our journey ; the aftermath, and what the hell we've been doing with all that. Thanks for the read. Wow. This post is really long.

See you tomorrow ! Raquel (and Xenocorp as a whole), out.

[felinevomitus]

The Problem With Laptops: Forrest & Dunning Interviewed

Michael Forrest, photo by Mat Smith.

Michael Forrest is a London-based musician working in the fringes of popular music. Forrest’s background in physics and early exposure to computers led to a career in app development, but also fed into his comprehensive understanding of music technology. His practice involves writing electronic music with a popular appeal, which nevertheless compounds in complexity, as it is often reliant on Forrest learning new tools, and “usually comes across as ‘experimental’ sounding to most people”. His methodical approach to making music is also reflected in his visual art and video works.

Graham Dunning is a sound artist, musician and educator whose work primarily focuses on the tactile qualities of carrier formats. In Dunning’s hands vinyl records become materials for collage, techno is composed by mechanical means and memories are given license to haunt the artist’s archive. Dunning has performed and exhibited work in the UK, Europe, USA and New Zealand and is currently artist in residence at Galerie Paradise, Nantes.

Recently, Forrest and Dunning have collaborated together on a music video, Computer Screen – Mechanical Techno Remix, that meticulously reveals the process behind Dunning’s Mechanical Techno project. This approach is hardly surprising as both artists are vehemently against using laptops in their own live performances. In fact, back in May, Forrest released the first episode of his Leaving The Laptop web series, which explores the culture behind live electronic music performance. You can watch both videos below, but not before you read our interview with the artists.

IKLECTIK: Who came up with the idea of illustrating Graham’s process?

Graham Dunning: Michael asked me to do a remix of one of his tunes, Computer Screen, and we thought it’d be good to do a ‘making of’ type video, as the mechanical techno setup is so visual. I had originally thought it would be a fairly straightforward documentation type thing, but it quickly grew into a much bigger project once we started bouncing ideas around.

Was there a reason for going down the DIY cut-and-paste route?

GD: We spent a day working in the studio together with me making the music and Michael orchestrating the filming. The process for me relies on improvisation. It’s important for me that the mixdown is done live and without any edits or overdubs, it’s a physical remix in the strict tradition of a dub version. We recorded several takes of the remix and settled on this version as the best one. Unfortunately, it was over nine minutes long, which meant Michael had a big challenge to make a video to hold people’s attention for that long.

Michael Forrest: Graham’s studio was a little confined, so we couldn’t get any good wide shots! Without an establishing shot it was hard to get any context for all the close-up macro shots, so I had to resort to these diagrams.

Graham Dunning, photo by Julien Kerduff.

GD: We discussed various ways of visualising the setup of the gear, and went through different iterations of how it would look: the DIY corkboard thing seemed to make sense with the overall feel of the project. Michel did all the work animating and filming the cutaways.

MF: I experimented with computer graphics but that wasn’t really in the spirit of Graham’s work, so I printed things on paper and shot everything on a cork board in my studio. It was about mid-way through editing that I realised I had to start on the diagrams to make the pacing work. It really wasn’t planned that way from the start, other than wanting to make it a bit Wes Anderson, with everything being neat and orthogonal, which is definitely not what we ended up with!

How long did it take to make? GD: Michael worked on it full time for about three weeks. I occasionally hung around making annoying comments and fiddling with things on his shelves.

Can you talk us through the production process and all those trippy visuals that segue between scenes?

MF: First we shot the remix itself on a few different cameras. We had an iPhone and a GoPro suspended above Graham’s rig. I followed the action on my DSLR, with a macro lens, as Graham performed the track. We did a few takes but most of the footage is from the real performance.

I did an initial edit the first week and brought it back to Graham’s studio. Once there, we took some pictures of each object in isolation, without being necessarily clear on how that would be used.

GD: The trippy visuals are from a 90s vision mixer. It has several quite cheesy effects, but you can also force it to feedback which gives all kinds of odd rainbow patterns. We did a few takes with us both live tweaking, playing the original footage into one channel with feedback on the other channel. It’s something I use in some of my own videos and, to some extent, the same approach I use for live visuals, so it made sense for the video. Kind of a visual equivalent to the audio mixing process.

Have you thought or talked about collaborating in a live AV setting, with Graham on machines and Michael on visuals?

MF: Not really. I’m too fixated on my own music! I don’t really think Graham’s setup needs to be augmented with abstract visuals though. He’s doing nicely pointing CCTV cameras at the rig, which seems more than enough to me. Just letting people get a look at what’s going on is all that’s needed, in my opinion. It all speaks for itself.

GD: I think each of us is a kind of one-man band. We’re both happy to try and do everything all at once!

Michael, regarding your Problem With Laptops video, I get the overbearing sense that you’re being a touch ironic. Am I correct?

MF: Of course, I would be completely lost without my laptop in most situations. It’s the lynchpin of just about everything I do. I’m reacting to the fact that I’ve felt confined to a laptop screen for years and years to do anything, but now technology has reached the point where I’ve been able to free myself from the laptop when playing live music.

I made the video to set the stage for a series which shares some of my experiences using alternatives over the last few years, but it’s not particularly easy yet, so I wanted to release a ‘manifesto’ first and I may have over-egged it a little.

What has the reaction to the laptop video been like so far? The discussions I’ve seen have been overwhelmingly positive and constructive. A lot of people take issue with my hardline, but I think they can understand why. It’s sparked a lot of debate. Earlier cuts were a lot more adversarial, but I’m glad the final cut had enough humour and empathy that nobody took it too personally.

Have the YouTube trolls managed to sway your opinions regarding laptops in electronic music?

MF: Honestly, I haven’t had any real trolling at all on this so far! The worst I’ve seen is a dismissive attitude from one or two people. I am not really swayed at all. I’ve been laptop-free in my live sets for at least five years, so my attitude is deeply rooted. Before that, I had spent a lot of energy and programming skills trying to get a laptop to behave the way I wanted it to. I’m in no hurry to return to that. I’ve been focused on the needs of my own particular music though so maybe the people who say “I can’t play my music without a laptop” will turn out to be right, but I take that as a challenge more than a reason to retreat.

What’s next in your series on live electronic music?

MF: I just need to get into the nitty gritty of the alternatives. I’m going to be talking about iPads, Volcas, OctaTracks, modular synths, PO-12s, DJ hardware and things like that, as well as some custom Arduino ideas. I have a little Arduino setup, which makes my OctaTrack control the stage lighting.

I also want to get a series on live streaming started. I was going to do that before anything else, but the response to this video has been so strong that my subscribers might be disappointed if I make them wait too long!

Michael Forrest’s ‘Computer Screen’ single is out now via Bandcamp. Keep up to date with his activities here. Graham Dunning is exhibiting at Global Forrest 2017, in Sankt Georgen im Schwarzwald, Germany until December. You can find out more about Dunning from his website.

Ilia Rogatchevski Originally published by IKLECTIK, 14 July 2017