yesterday was the episcopal diocese conference in grace cathedral. this is a self portrait in the centre of the grace cathedral labyrinth. our (mine and gareth) contribution to the day was a double workshop on alternative worship – this went really well – hope we helped spark a few peoples imagination at least… and then we took part in the morning and afternoon worship services. the worship had been planned via e-mail with people from a range of different perspectives so i don’t think any of us were quite sure how it would turn out. but amazingly it came together really well! our contribution was to open up each service with some reflective stuff to help people center on god and then to provide music/tunes and visuals throughout. it was a real treat to be able to VJ and DJ in such a neat space.

bob had sorted a couple of large screens either side of the holy table at the front which we projected onto. a few people asked about the visual and musical stuff and where it came from. so i’ll try and at least summarise and remember a few bits. so visual first:

we were using a VJ programme called arkaos. this runs on mac or PC. the way it works is that you assign images or videos or effects to keys on your keyboard so that when you press them it triggers the image, loop or effect. you can also layer the images/loops in ways that can look stunning with the right combinations. to give a couple of examples we used, we wanted to connect the worship with the city we were in so had taken a few photos and videos while we were here. they were taken on a small digital camera that also takes short movies. they are actually only at 320 x 240 size so it’s nothing spectacular. our favourite loop was of the approach to san fransisco over the bay bridge – one in the morning (QT movie approx 1mb) and one in the evening (QT movie approx 1mb) (feel free to copy and use these loops – but not to publish them without permission). these loops were taken out of rah’s car window.

so at one point we had spinning turntables animated by tlb with the word grace on (appropriate for grace cathedral) with the cityscape coming through the turntable. or we had taken an image of a quote from the martin luther king memorial in the city and put that over the cityscape during the prayers. or we put an effect and the words christ is risen over a loop in the point in the liturgy where those words were spoken – it was stunning! the key to this stuff is getting creative, shooting anything in sight and playing around! it’s not about slickness. it does help to have some stock image as well and some that we used were:
. still images of christ from cultures round the world – these are from the christ we share which is a resource available from cms which i blogged about as worship trick 24
. several still images and video loops from the CD ROM that comes free with alternative worship
. a couple of video loops from highway
. deadly media – rewind by hexstatic

gareth and i had great fun putting it together and gareth was a star in doing the VJing. i have added some shots of the VJing to the usa pics photo album. check the photo of gareth on nob hill!

i haven’t got the music tracks to hand but ones i remember we used were –
azzolini and the branch brothers meet being – two lone swordsmen from the album ‘swimming not skimming’
space and time, table of christ – baker/birch from the album ‘spirit of the new’ available from proost
i will receive you now, hush (instrumental) – gay, baker/birch from the album ‘eucharist’ free with the book of uncommon prayer
everything in its right place – radiohead
god is a dj – faithless
space time continuum – insanity sect
14:31 – global communication
breathe – telepopmusik
pollo de paulo – fila brazillia
prayer for england – massive attack
new world – attaboy

it was great moment after the dismissal when the unmistakeable opening chords of radiohead’s everything in its right place fired up and there was a video of lizzie everards blessing loop overlaying the cityscape. as someone said – radiohead in church – cool!

(when i get round to it i’ll record a couple of the video effects out of arkaos and upload them so you can see the effect of the combinations)