A look behind the scenes of my live cinema production process, and a brief discussion of why I love the object-oriented programming environment Max/MSP/Jitter.

My second evening length collaboration with Negativland, this immersive audio-visual performance was commissioned by the Music and Gaming Fest in DC in January 2022 and performed at National Harbor with support from a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council.

We Can Really Feel Like We’re Here is a collage of the last century’s technology with the futuristic visions made possible only by the gaming community. Metaverse meets Nintendo 64 meets everything else in between.

In today’s media climate, it’s harder than ever to resist a voice designed to make you think it’s your own.

Live cinema visual artist SUE-C and legendary sound collage group Negativland collaborate in a live audio-visual performance about our minds, the world we live in, and the evolving forms of media and technology that orchestrate our perceptions.

Created 100% in real-time using Max/MSP/Jitter, custom video algorithms, live cameras, LED lighting and hundreds of objects manipulated meticulously under a UHD Sony camera. Each show was recorded in Max and combined with documentary footage shot and edited by Ryan Worsley.

The film is compiled from 14 live performances in the US in 2021, including at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, Grey Area in San Francisco, Holocene in Portland, Meow Wolf in Santa Fe and Guild Cinema in Albuquerque.

A new collaborative work from artists SUE-C, Paul DeMarinis, and Laetitia Sonami. Loosely based on Italo Calvino's "Cosmicomics,” the film plays on the dispersion and reception of signals, self-preservation and fabricated realities.

Commissioned by ESS for the Quarantine Concerts Series, July, 2020.

A live film commissioned by the 59th Ann Arbor Film Festival in collaboration with Negativland. This features SUE-C & Co. (Co = Kevin Slagle) and the integration of found footage into my work. It streamed on YouTube on March 23rd, 2021 and is still there for you to enjoy.

After beginning our collaboration with a November 2019 E.U. tour in support of their record True False, we booked additional U.S. tours that were pandemic-postponed. Join my mailing list to keep informed on our upcoming public presentations, streaming and live.

Running Time 1h 28m

The main movie from the 2006 DVD "Mini Movies" by AGF + SUE-C. This short experimental film follows a girl piecing together her own life memories from found photographs and mental imagery. The score is a composition by AGF that also serves as the storyline — and the source material for an audio CD. The movie contains 40,320 images — stills, drawings, live animations, video and many things in between.

It is mostly made using live animation techniques I developed with Max/MSP/Jitter, and a lot of other tricks and hacks I invented in the studio around that time. Some are not reproducible because the technology has changed too much, some I still use today.

Running Time: 27m 49s

Watch on Vimeo here or scroll down to see the embed.

Screenings: Oberhausen Short Film Festival / ATA, San Francisco / La Casa Encendida, Madrid / The Dallas Contemporary

As part of a long term collaboration with Morton Subotnick from 2004-2008, I was commissioned to produce a live video performance for touring his (then) new piece, “Until Spring (Revisited).” We also performed “Silver Apples of the Moon” live once, at SFMoMa. There is one recording as a DVD on Mode Records, but otherwise I was not able to record and perform at the same time, so there are only stills.

The video was all handmade live on stage, using software I coded in Max/MSP/Jitter. Photographs, drawings, papers, shiny objects and changing light sources create an ethereal world of color and light that speaks its own musical language through abstraction.

(Note: My name is almost never mentioned in press for these concerts, as I did not know then, that women had to yell to be heard in electronic music. But I am mentioned on Morton’s website many times.)

Presentations: Library of Congress, Washington DC / Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London / REDCAT, Los Angeles (the whole concert is. missing from this search) / San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (I’m in this one, thanks to Gina Basso I am sure) / Le Poisson Rouge, NYC / Recombinant Media Labs “Cine Chamber”, SF (curated by the ever-wonderful Naut Humon) / University of Illinois / Arizona State / NewSound Festival, ETHOS, Fredonia University

Inspired by Haruki Murakami's "The Wild Sheep Chase" and "Dance, Dance, Dance," this film is brought to life in real time through the manipulation and projection of photographs, drawings, slides, videos, shadows and three dimensional objects—along with the processing and amplification of electronic music, nostalgic songs and field recordings.

A suitcase-sized animation booth, miniature televisions, a train-propelled camera, motors, sensors, flash bulbs and talking lamps all work together to blur the boundaries of the real world and the cinematic world. It is left up to the audience to determine where dreams end and reality begins.

Sheepwoman is the second live cinema collaboration with Laetitia Sonami.

Sheepwoman premiered at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) as part of the Resonant Forms Festival, April 2009. Made possible by The Multi-Arts Production Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

PRESENTATIONS: Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions / San Francisco Museum of Modern Art / EMPAC / Transito Festival, Mexico City / 01SJ Biennial / CSU San Marcos

A live film shot and scored from two suitcases, a bowl of water and a piece of ice; in collaboration with Laetitia Sonami.

I.C.You is a live film by Sue Costabile and Laetitia Sonami, based on a script by poet Tom Sleigh. I.C.You follows the road-based travels of a truck driver delivering ice for the Universe Company. His job is to keep America cold. Sonami and Costabile open windows into his existence through a suitcase-sized foley stage, photographs, drawings, videos, shadow theater, and miniature lighting rigs.

PRESENTATIONS:

San Francisco International Film Festival / Roulette, NYC / DANM Festival, UC Santa Cruz / ISEA, San Jose, CA / The Game is Up! Festival @ Vooruit, Brussels / Activating the Medium @ SFAI / Binary Cities (supported by a NEXMAP grant), San Francisco, CA / EMPAC, Troy, NY / OPENPORT Festival, Chicago / UC Irvine / Vancouver New Music

An installation and live performance based on the fictional filmography of James O. Incandenza as described in the 8-page Endnote #24 of David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest.

From the press release for the April 2012 performance at EMPAC (Experimental Media + Performing Arts Center): “Infinite Jest lives both as an installation and as a live handmade film inspired by the complex and remarkable novel of the same name by the late author David Foster Wallace. The evening begins with the audience experiencing the performance space as an installation centered around a half-size tennis court augmented by dual video projections and a text-based soundtrack. The ten short films projected at either end of the tennis court are all inspired by (and titled from) the filmography of James Orin Incandenza — one of the novel’s lead characters. The audience is invited to play tennis or a game of Pong during this time.

For the second half of the evening the artists will present a re-creation of what is known colloquially as “the deadly entertainment.” Set in a slightly futuristic world, the film is an attempt to create and re-create what character James Orin Incandenza, optics expert and filmmaker, considered his life’s major work. After many unseen failures, his “film” Infinite Jest is eventually released, and proves to be fatally seductive — ensuring the demise of the entire United States of America if released into the wrong hands.

With this as a jumping off point, long time audiovisual collaborators SUE-C and AGF explore the expression of seduction in sound and image. The film is brought to life through the lens of a live camera that follows the manipulation of photographs, textures, diskettes, and various reflective or translucent objects by visual artist and performer SUE-C, along with the live lush electronic soundtrack and vocals by AGF. “

Curator: Kathleen Forde

PRESENTATIONS: Marco Museum / La Boral / EMPAC

A touring live film performed with AGF, 2004-2007. Also a DVD/CD release on Asphodel Records.

A snake folded into space and time. Also the name of the first concert I went to.

Running Time 31s. Silent.

Made from hundreds of photos of women working in their music studios. Part of a campaign in conjunction with AGF and other members of fe:male pressure to bring awareness and solidarity to women working in electronic music and video. Music composed by AGF. Photos, with permission, from the artists in them.

This is a place for memorabilia and photos from the hundreds of shows I have been involved in, links to artists I have shared the stage with and/or admired from afar, and whatever else ends up here.

Made from at least 99 photos of East German garage doors from the town of Halle Neustadt. Score by AGF.

This uses the same technique as Naturestille — you can read more there.

Made from hundreds of still photos, with score by AGF.

This is from 2005, when video quality was still pretty low for the average user. I made many things from high res digital stills, using something I coded in Max that allowed me to play back each frame using keys on the keyboard. It is essentially a stop-frame movie with a variable frame rate, that to me, makes it more musical. It was my way of making hi-res semi-animated abstracted films.

A very early piece, featured in the video show "Air Portugal" at Pond Gallery in March, 2002, in San Francisco. It is made from a handful of original photography prints and animated using a Max/MSP/Jitter patch that would eventually become the inspiration for the animation instrument I use now.

Score by AGF.

From the 2006 DVD "Mini Movies" by AGF and SUE-C. This video was made using a custom video playback program created in Max/MSP/Jitter that allows the sound to control the video playback. It is a mix of video and digital stills.

I grew up very close to this place and part of our collaboration included visiting each others’ hometowns. As a child I spent every summer day and many spring, summer and winter days at this beach. AGF made the soundtrack after the video was complete.

A video show I curated in 2006 at the former Ego Park Gallery on 23rd and Telegraph. A founding gallery member of the Art Murmur and First Friday scene, there were many excellent shows there.

The viewing boxes — “mini theaters” — allowed for semi-private and mostly sound-isolated viewing of the video works.