True Fictions is the result of a year long digital performance art project, produced and directed by Christopher Thomas Allen and commissioned by EMPAC, The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre in Troy, New York.

It is a live audio visual spectacle that fuses documentary film making, music, animation and motion graphics with cutting edge digital performance tools. A stunning collage of music and live cinema which explores the themes of truth and myth through a multitude of American and Native American voices; with a original musical score created through the collaborations of 25 New York based musicians and vocal artists.

The final performance was completed and presented in September 2007 at EMPAC and has gone on to tour other media & arts festivals internationally.

For more back ground information about how this project was devloped please visit: http://www.avfolklore.blogspot.com
For more video excerpts from the project please visit: http://vimeo.com/channels/truefictions

The following audio tracks and stills are taken from various international live performances:

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True Fictions is performed by:

Christopher Allen (audio & video)
Tim Cowie (audio & video) Malcom Litson (audio & analogue operations)
Jude Greenaway (audio)
Mark McRae (live guitars & keys)
Matt Waterfield (lighting & technical support)

Touring:

The Armour, EMPAC, Troy, New York, USA, September, 2007
The Great Hall, Urban Screens Festival, Manchester, UK, October, 2007
Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milano, Italy, November, 2007
ZEMOS98 Festival, Seville, Spain, March, 2008
IMAX Cinema, onedotzero festival, BFI Southbank, London, November, 2008
Brighton Pavilion, Loop Festival, Brighton, July, 2009
Waterfront, TRANS Festival, Captalist Arts, Belfast, July, 2009
Rotuda3, HITEC, Mirowave Festival, Hong-Kong, November, 2009
The Others, Hackney Film Festival, London, September 2010
Freeform Festival, Warsaw, Poland, October, 2010

Project Produced & Directed by Christopher Thomas Allen

Cinematography: Christopher Thomas Allen & Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow
Photography:Christopher Thomas Allen, Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow & Helen Omand
Edited: Christopher Thomas Allen, James Price & Tim Cowie
Animation: Martin Banks, Tim Cowie & Blinkinlab
Audio Interviews: Christopher Thomas Allen, Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow & Jo Williamson
Assistant Producer: Annie Kwan
NYC Production Co-ordination: Sarah Pace
Research & location Production: Helen Omand
Studio Sound Recording & Initial Arrangements: Ben Allen
Music Production & Arrangements: Tim Cowie
Addition Audio Production: Malcom Litson, Mark McRae & Jude Greenaway

Special thanks to:

The Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, Salamanca
The Ronathahonni Cultural Center, Cornwall Island, Ontario
Nichols Meat Processing, Altamont, NY
David Lublin & Ray Cutler at VIDVOX
Kathleen Forde, Jason Steven Murphy and all the staff at EMPAC

An EMPAC Commission supported by The Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts NY

New York Musical Contributors:

The Art of War was an audio visual remix project commission by onedotzero festival for a live event in Singapore in June 2006. The Light Surgeons were invited to remix the new album by local musicians the Tang Quartet.

Jude Greenaway, AKA Scanone took the audio challenge on by creating a new Appleton Live set fusing the Tang’s classical sounds with his own distinctive brand of UK dub step. This became the dark and broken sound track to an audio visual wreckage by TLS’ director Chris Allen.

The resulting show collides images of the worlds stock exchanges with a range of classic cinematic audio visual fragments, exploring the distorted history of war on screen and its connections with consumption, thus making comment on how Sun Tzu’s famous book has become a new bible for business strategy and our capitalist society.

Touring:
Zouk Club, onedotzero_singapore, 2006
Climatics 06 AV Festival, Brussels, 2006

Artists: Christopher Thomas Allen & Jude Greenaway

This performance was specially created for the media mix tent at The Big Chill Festival in 2005. consisting of special medicinal blend of music and visuals punctuated with a series of spoken word samples taken from various self help audio books.

The audio and video content was mixed live using a set of Pioneer DVJ decks accompanied by a sequence of still images on slides and some additional 16mm film loops. The last few performances also featured the interaction of artist and poet The Last Mango in Paris.

Touring:
Media Mix Tent, Big Chill Festival – 2005
Rio Cinema, London – 2005
Headspace Gallery, Brighton – 2005
Mash Cinema, Cattle Market, Herefordshire – 2006
Bitfilm Festival, Hamburg – 2006
Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury – 2007
Latitude Festival, Southwold – 2007

Created and mixed by Christopher Thomas Allen with Rob Rainbow on analogue projections.

The Z-Axis is a multi-layered live audio visual performance by The Light Surgeons that fuses classic cult cinema with electronic sound scapes mixed live by DJ and audio artist Scanone. It has toured internationally to venues including: The Guggenheim Art Museum in Bilbao, San Fransico Art Institute, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and the Villette in Paris between 2003 and 2006.

The show re-mixes the cult film “The Fountain Head”, the story of an architect who struggles to maintain his individualist ideas through his modernist designs and famously explores the notion of the individual against society. The Fountainhead is based on the seminal book by Ayn Rand, Directed by King Vidor in 1949 and Star’s Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal & Raymond Massey.

This classic story is remixed and juxtaposed with many other cult cinematic moments; from Blade runner to Metropolis and beyond. The performance contains a rich and diverse collection of audio visual references and incorporates TLS’s own recent collaborations with internationally renowned architect and designer Ron Arad, as well as contributions from cutting edge experimental 3D animators Lyn Fox.

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Touring:
onedotzero7 + Full Length, ICA, London – 2003
Media Mix Tent, The Big Chill Festival – 2003
AVFEST, New Castle Upon Tyne – 2003
Motion Graphics, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao – 2004
AVIT US, San Francisco Art Institute – 2004
Numerique Festival, Villete Paris – 2004
Watermans Arts Centre, London – 2004
Sonic arts centre, Belfast – 2004
onedotzero_stockholm, Moderna Museet – 2005
Future Cinema, London Film Festival – 2005
Elektra Digital Arts Festival, Montreal – 2006
Architecture Week, Bradford – 2006

The performance was commissioned and developed by onedotzero festival and was toured internationally between 2001 and 2003.
The following excepts from the performance where recorded at the World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam, 2001.

APB: A WORLD OF EXTORTION

APB: SO YOU KNOW

APB: A PENNY IN MY POCKET

THE 9TH INNING

APB: WILD MAN OF NEW YORK

APB: THE BOOK OF CHANGES

APB: SUICIDAL MELODIES

A full documentation of this performance is availble on the “Lost Leader” DVD, Published by Gasbook in Japan. Three of the original Scanone audio tracks are available on the “Down & out” 12″ record. These tracks are featured below from our Soundcloud.

Collaborating Artists: Christopher Thomas Allen, Jude Greenaway, James Price & Robert Rainbow

Touring:

APB (All Points Between)’ onedotzero5, ICA, LONDON – 2001
World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam – 2001
onedotzero_nottingham, Nottingham, UK – 2002
Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, UK – 2002
B.TV Festival, Sheffield, UK – 2002
onedotzero_manchester / Futuresonic, Manchester, UK – 2002
Roppongi Think Zone, Tokyo, Japan – 2002
onedotzero_sfmoma, San Francisco MOMA, USA – 2002
Electrofringe, NSW, Australia – 2002
onedotzero_munich, Munich, Germany – 2002
Auto Festival, Sheffield, UK – 2002
Visonic AV Festival, Belfast, Ireland – 2003
Pixelache Festival, Helsinki, Finland – 2003

The first live AV performance created by The Light Surgeons took place at the Lux Cinema in 1998 and was commissioned by the London Film Makers Co-Op.

The show consisted of many sampled scenes and fragments from different cult sci-fi and thriller films which together formed a Frankenstein narrative. A feeling of suspense and tension was built during the show as a time code slowly counted down to 00:00.

This use of a visual time code was also key to the syncing of the music and the visuals by giving queue points for the live musicians to start tracks at specific points. All the music was performed live by the band the Herbaliser, with additional soundscapes from Dynamic Syncopation, both artists on Coldcuts Ninja Tune label.

The show formed the opening event for the Lux Cinema in Hoxton Square and was run in collaboration with the Blue Note club next door where there was a big after show party curated by The Light Surgeons with a line up of DJ’s and audio visual artists.

Sadly both venues no longer share the address.

See flyer for details:

The Performance went on to be shown at the Rotterdam Film festival in 1999.

Visual Artists: Christopher Thomas Allen, Andy Flywheel, Andy Firman & Mark Blackburn
Musical Collaborators: The Herbaliser & Dynamic Syncopation