D-Fuse: Cold Fusion
Organically Digital
Live performances are inherently organic. They’re unpredictable, fueled by emotion and fed by creative camaraderie. VJ sets aren’t any different, despite the fact that they’re composed using predictable digital tools. To get a natural feel, D-Fuse uses an extensive library of custom clips. “Our work is very graphic, but at the same time very organic,” says Faulkner. “We’re interested in shapes and textures. We might film something, rush past it running a fast shutter speed, then slow it down. We might film everyday textures or movement, like an escalator, then push the levels a little bit, give the frames a little treatment to enhance them. People can see that — they know the footage isn’t computer generated.”
D-Fuse has been performing live VJ shows for close to a decade. They broke into the scene in the late ’90s through a few connections they made while designing record sleeves. Since then, they’ve honed their shows, exploiting technology and talent. Today their VJ setup bares little resemblance to the 16mm film projectors and slides they used at the onset of their career. The team employs an amalgam of cutting-edge software and hardware. “We refer to it almost as a pizza,” says Faulkner. The D-Fuse setup has many toppings. “We use Modul8 to mix our Final Cut clips live on our Mac laptops and we also use Pioneer DVJ1000 decks. We use DVD templates of our clips that we make using DVD Studio Pro.”
The team is known to use up to eight video and audio sources at once, spitting visuals out onto several screens. They mix the video streams in real time, fusing them with original Matthias Kispert tracks. Kispert is the de-facto D-Fuse musician and sound designer. He weaves audio into any project that needs it. “Logic is my main composition and sound design software,” says Kispert. “And I work on a G5 and a MacBook Pro for live work.” The sound designer uses Ableton Live during shows, melding tracks created in Logic Pro on the fly.
International Fusion
When Kispert can’t make it, D-Fuse can still perform to a DJ spinning tracks, a live band — or even a symphony orchestra. The team was recently commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra to create a choreographed video set for Steve Reich’s “The Desert Music.” “We worked with the orchestra to create a really stunning show,” says Faulkner.
VJing with a symphony is certainly innovative, but it’s only the one cut on the D-Fuse LP. In 2006, the crew collaborated with artists in China to create yet another artistic hit called “Undercurrent.” The project was a kind of international artist exchange program. Chinese photographers, filmmakers, and artists visited three cities in the U.K. (London, Liverpool, and Sunderland) while D-Fuse visited three metropolises in China (Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai).
“We created a pool of field recordings — audio, video, and photographic material from the cities,” says Elmsly. “We asked all the artists to reinterpret the material in response to questions of economic and social change, to examine our personal relationship to this urban space that surrounds us.”
Artists on both sides of the world used Macs to turn their interpretations into artwork. Then, after some collaboration and intra-planetary file transmissions through a million miles of fiber optic cable and tricky Chinese firewalls, “Undercurrent” was born. “It was a real bloody challenge,” says Elmsly. “A lot of the time we’d send stuff by post on disk and it wouldn’t get there. We’d try to send stuff over the Internet and the Chinese firewalls would block it.”
Still, the struggle was worth it. D-Fuse and contributing artists generated a multimedia extravaganza that will live on in galleries, on the web, and in print. “The output embraces a lot of formats, so we’ve done an installation, a performance, and prints,” says Elmsly. The project was displayed at the Lighthouse gallery in Brighton. “The project showed how we like to work across various platforms. There was a multi-screen installation with surround sound, a gallery of stills, and there will eventually be a book.”
D-Fuse has always seen itself as an artistic collaborative. The studio often works with artists and musicians across the globe. With Undercurrent, however, the crew broke new ground. “These artists didn’t just bring their vision to the project — they also challenged our conceptions and perceptions of space,” says Elmsly. The team hopes to work with more international artist in the future, further blurring the lines between live performance and art.
