Once again we are fortunate to have an interview with one of the visualists who has been working in this field even longer than us. Ali M. Demirel originally studied nuclear engineering and architecture, lectured at GISAM (Audio-Visual Research Center) of METU, and began creating experimental videos in 1993. Since then he has worked with some of the legends of electronic music, performed at some of the worlds most impressive venues, collaborated with developers to create tools for live performances, and continues to make mind blowing work.

1. Who are you and what do you do?

Ali M. Demirel. I am an architect producing video art installations and live visual performances.

2. You've been making experimental video for over 20 years, what are some of the highlights along the way? How did you get started with live visuals?

My first live show at Timewarp 2005 with Richie Hawtin was definitely a highlight for me. I was not into any live visual performance technologies at that time and played my content thru Final Cut Pro! Although the result was quite impressive for me and Hawtin and the audience, which made me decide to take a career on this field. Another highlight is the Plastikman live show 2010-2011 where I combined stage design with visuals and technologically most advanced systems. We had the opportunity to apply this concept in Guggenheim Museum New York.

PLASTIKMAN live show 2010 Rome – Stage Setup

PLASTIKMAN live show 2010 Rome – Performance.

3. What tools (software, hardware, other...) do you use in your work? How has this changed over the two decades that you have been working with visuals?

I started with playing my own video content through video editing software in 2005. In 2007, I met Burak Arikan. He introduced me to Processing and we collaborated on my first code-generated live visual set titled Meta-Control. In 2008, I started to use Quartz Composer and discovered VDMX software to perform with those compositions and developed the CONTAKT live show with M-NUS artists. 2010, we designed the Plastikman live show with TouchDesigner software. 2013, I designed my own software 2V-P collaborating with Pascal LeSport to program it. 2V-P is based on a very specific way of performance, not covering a wide range of performance techniques like VDMX or TouchDesigner. I choose my software depending on my concept.

4. Tell us about your latest projects!

Lately, I am performing with video and photo content again, merging multiple layers of them with active framing modifications. My performances with Kazuya Nagaya, Anthony Linell, Kaan Bulak, Fennesz are some examples to this live set. I use VDMX for those shows. I am also producing a dome version of my set with Kazuya Nagaya, for which my challenge is to work with only organic content!