sites/flux.vision/content/a-night-with-celeste.md

Title: A night with Celeste
Date: 2009-10-01 19:06
Category: blog
Author: Kiritan Flux
Slug: a-night-with-celeste
Tags: gonzo, vjism, english
Thumb: /library/3956320962_a31d4d3c4a.jpg

*(a personal report by Kiritan Flux, photos by Ilan Katin)*

Just having a faint idea that there was supposed to be something going
on this friday evening i checked the outsourced part of
my permanently damaged brain memory. the digital cloud reminded me of
the [Celeste prize](http://www.celesteprize.com/ "Celeste Prize 2009")
final party event and I suddenly got really excited about going there.
Looking at the menubar clock I realized I had only half an hour of time
before it would start, so I threw a post about it into the VB feed,
dropped all my other ongoing procrastination tasks, grabbed my photo
camera and left.

<!-- PELICAN_BEGIN_SUMMARY -->Sipping a nice cold bottle of czech beer I walked to the gigantic
industrial compound of the old AEG factory in Wedding, scanning the dark
area for hints about Celeste. I strayed around the red brick and rusty
metal complex, totally lost - until a naturally wary, androgynous, and
faceless security guard popped up from the shadows wanting to know my
intentions. I explained myself and the guard dutifully pointed me into
the right direction. On the way, I realized I forgot to bring the CF
card for my camera at my office...<!-- PELICAN_END_SUMMARY -->

Eventually I found the entrance and met Ilan in front, who seemed like
he'd stayed there already for a (much too) long time. We had a nice chat
and a few overpriced Becks, and stood there glancing over the crowd of
usual suspects to expect at this type of event: new-berliner americans,
hipsters, arty geeks and showoff-intellectuals sipping their white wines
and puffing weed. It was a nice relaxed atmosphere. A previously leaked
but never confirmed rumour turned out to be true: epic berlin electro
joint venture [Moderat](http://www.bpitchcontrol.de/Moderat/ "Moderat")
did a free 20min concert for the visuals of the first contestant
[Pfadfinderei](http://www.pfadfinderei.com/ "Pfadfinderei"). They
performed in the usual static in-line Kraftwerk style choreography, but
peppered with britpop fashion and Pet-Shop-Boys-hat and even some
head-nodding and hip-twisting in between.

There's not much say about
[Pfadfinderei](http://www.pfadfinderei.com/ "Pfadfinderei") that's
really new or revolutionary. The same perfect and shiny pro aestetics as
ever, clip-shooting as always and with some additional RGB lights on the
triple head installation, they did a nice show matching the sound of
[Moderat](http://moderat.fm "Moderat") quite well. But after 10 minutes
of watching we left the room to check out [the
fish](http://www.celesteprize.com/artwork/ido:30052/ "Quintetto") which
was actually much more entertaining: five real goldfish named after five
different avantgarde music composers, floating in five narrow plexiglass
tanks tracked by a camera and generating music - really cool!!

![](/library/3955534551_93b259f366.jpg)

[Moderat](http://moderat.fm "Moderat") was finished when we returned to
the main stage area, so we spent the break socialising with some other
artists who had arrived. Dr. Nojoke and Ray Beams who had participated
at the Celeste competition and some VB family members: jorgk, e, lucas +
christiane, georgina + felix, yagama, bram + anneke. Thenkfully the
entertainment factor of the event went up to a higher level, hearing
weird stories about lost wallets and smashed car windows, the latest
gossip and some rants and rumours about Celeste.

The second performance was [Solitude by
Dome](http://www.celesteprize.com/artwork/ido:27879/ "Solitude"), which
started off a bit too noizy and slightly boring but ended up as a really
amazing audiovisual performance. A guy who looked like he dropped out of
a sci-fi martial arts manga, making weird sounds with natural objects
inside and outside of a small glass terrarium and a violin bow playing
on other objects, along with beautiful black and white videos of
desolated industrial places and flocks of birds circling above and
around run down factory towers. When the performance ended it left the
audience in an intense moment of contemplation that suddenly switched to
roaring applause.

![](/library/3956318196_bcea1e4466.jpg)

[Celeste
Motus](http://www.celesteprize.com/artwork/ido:30686/ "Celeste Motus")
was the third piece by the italian artist group abstract birds - a calm
and really beautiful three parts opus of generative vvvv color bliss and
live played instruments. One of the nicest generative and sound reactive
artworks i've seen for a while.

![](/library/3956320962_a31d4d3c4a.jpg)

My absolute favorite performance was [Mutazioni by Gianluca
Beccary](http://www.celesteprize.com/artwork/ido:23901/ "Mutazioni"), a
disturbing audiovisual horror trip through a dark and mystical version
of Italy's beaches, river valleys and epic venetian theatres occupied by
naked swine men, wildly dancing fauns, occult monks with pale bird masks
and accompanied by distorted live cello music and glitchy ambient noise.
Truly amazing video footage of highly talented and well casted actors,
incredible cinematography and great music added up to a truly memorable
nightmare experience.

http://vimeo.com/4782590

The final set was [L C M [les champs magnétiques] by Otolab dies
Orgone](http://www.celesteprize.com/artwork/ido:29863/ "LCM"),
stunningly loud and all black and white, two artists apparetly hooked on
speed or ketamines making noise on steroids and running ~~a vvvv~~ *an
isadora* patch on crack. It was all high quality generative mayhem, but
in my opinion not really worth winning the top 1 celecte prize in the
live media category - but oh well - maybe everyone who voted for them
was on PCP or heroin too, so it kinda makes sense.

http://vimeo.com/5463100

After some more socializing, shooting cherry tomatos around the
exhibition room with an air pressure gun and talking with friends, I was
happy when jorgk eventually wanted to leave and gave me a ride back home
to xberg.