#academyoflivetechnology — Public Fediverse posts

Never Mind The Molochs

https://heathenstorm.com/2026/06/08/never-mind-the-molochs/

The Day the (SFX) Circus Came

Lancashire-based live effects wizards BPM SFX recently brought the heat to campus. With an incendiary portfolio including work with Sleep Token, Sum 41, and Oasis, they filled Studio 001 with stage-tech toys of varying lethality.

The session gave (sensibly supervised) students a chance to play with professional kit that ran the gamut from innocuous confetti and bubble machines through to lasers, flamers, pyrotechnics, and sparklers – although it was the hand-held flamethrower that demanded the most interaction.

Loving the smell of accelerants in the afternoon, I rolled up to try my hand at conflagration and take some photos and video in the process. With only my phone camera to hand, I noted a lot of shots with the default app were over-exposed, supersaturated and unusable. Switching to the Blackmagic Camera app for greater control, I was able to adjust ISO and increase shutter speed to better capture the experience – and thankfully record in landscape despite holding the phone vertically. The end result being a short little video to commemorate the day, even if YouTube’s compression fails to preserve the HDR intricacy of the original laser spread.

The soundtrack forms an early work-in-progress teaser of future Trismegistus Hex material. A cheeky, if not outright blatant homage to horror movie maestro John Carpenter, but likely to change substantially in the final cut.

We don’t normally get access to such gear during the course of our studies, so it was great to get hands-on and, for some students, spark new career possibilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib6JsZ28_c8

This is probably the first, last, and only time I’ll ever mention the former “Bad Boy” of “Pop”.

A common motif scattered around the Academy campus is the visage of Robbie Williams. Site-based stage innovators TAIT have built scenery for his prior productions, with the larger than life result donated afterwards to make an effective fire assembly point. In wintry weather I observe it’s not the first time he’s had snow on his nose.

On a smaller scale, a 3D-fabricated sculpture of his face provided a challenging projection mapped surface as my Visuals module heads toward end-of-term assessment. Indulging a desire to integrate facial projection into future projects, this was the ideal static subject to try things out over a few hours of experimental studio time.

Despite any knowledge of his career purely culled by cultural osmosis (really!), I was able to piece together a collage of clips to represent the journey. With a simian base layer invoking the Better Man biopic, I swiftly incorporated his more recent cartoon appearance on a certain cat food commercial. Going back to the KISS-inspired makeup from “Let Me Entertain You”, the montage was topped off with the skin-stripping coda to the “Rock DJ” video. Looping that segment through the projector’s tinny speaker was sufficient to get everyone’s toes tapping – whether they wanted to or not.

Sourcing the elements in short notice was a challenge within itself, necessitating some quick thinking across many resources and creating new ones on the fly. But for a dabble it did the job nicely – despite a few imperfect keystone masks and off-centre aspects.

Although my studies and assessment focus on mastering Green Hippo media servers, I took the opportunity to try something different. Cracking open the case for the first time on our prized Troikatronix Isadora server, I soon found myself a quick learner.

Green Hippo has a warm, organic user interface that sometimes seems counter-intuitive despite its obvious power. Isadora presents a more familiar building-block style of boxes and properties, allowing links to be dragged between outputs and inputs to visualise how everything is hooked up.

My familiarity with node-based workflows such as DaVinci Resolve Fusion, combined with my coding background, made getting to grips with Isadora a cinch. Although I can understand how the blank starting screen can seem intimidating to non-techies.

Although there are likely far more efficient ways to structure my little throw-together, I was able to coax the effect I wanted by combining smaller known sub-processes. This combination of nodes and lines offered mathematical means to make it work where I may have floundered with an artier interface…

… so I guess I’m loving angles instead.

This is probably the first, last, and only time I’ll ever mention the former “Bad Boy” of “Pop”.

A common motif scattered around the Academy campus is the visage of Robbie Williams. Site-based stage innovators TAIT have built scenery for his prior productions, with the larger than life result donated afterwards to make an effective fire assembly point. In wintry weather I observe it’s not the first time he’s had snow on his nose.

On a smaller scale, a 3D-fabricated sculpture of his face provided a challenging projection surface as my Visuals module heads toward end-of-term assessment. Indulging a desire to integrate facial projection into future projects, this was the ideal static subject to try things out over a few hours of experimental studio time.

Despite any knowledge of his career purely culled by cultural osmosis (really!), I was able to piece together a collage of clips to represent the journey. With a simian base layer invoking the Better Man biopic, I swiftly incorporated his more recent cartoon appearance on a certain cat food commercial. Going back to the KISS-inspired makeup from “Let Me Entertain You”, the montage was topped off with the skin-stripping coda to the “Rock DJ” video. Looping that segment through the projector’s tinny speaker was sufficient to get everyone’s toes tapping – whether they wanted to or not.

Sourcing the elements in short notice was a challenge within itself, necessitating some quick thinking across many resources and creating new ones on the fly. But for a dabble it did the job nicely – despite a few imperfect keystone masks and off-centre aspects.

Although my studies and assessment focus on mastering Green Hippo media servers, I took the opportunity to try something different. Cracking open the case for the first time on our prized Troikatronix Isadora server, I soon found myself a quick learner.

Green Hippo has a warm, organic user interface that sometimes seems counter-intuitive despite its obvious power. Isadora presents a more familiar building-block style of boxes and properties, allowing links to be dragged between outputs and inputs to visualise how everything is hooked up.

My familiarity with node-based workflows such as DaVinci Resolve Fusion, combined with my coding background, made getting to grips with Isadora a cinch. Although I can understand how the blank starting screen can seem intimidating to non-techies.

Although there are likely far more efficient ways to structure my little throw-together, I was able to coax the effect I wanted by combining smaller known sub-processes. This combination of nodes and lines offered mathematical means to make it work where I may have floundered with an artier interface…

… so I guess I’m loving angles instead.

On the surface, the back end of 2025 appears a curiously quiet coda to an explosive summer, with nary any evidence nor scandal to show for it. Yet the last few months have become some of the most fulfilling of my life.

Returning to the Academy for the second year of my Foundation degree, I realise how much I have changed since I first started my studies. Doubtful uncertainty has been supplanted by self-assured belonging, and I have become a familiar, welcome presence on campus. Often dropping by on the off days to see how the new cohort is settling in.

This year’s Freshers have been eager to learn and especially keen to socialise, already embracing opportunities brought by the many international crews passing through our studios. Through my twin roles as Mentor and Wellbeing Executive, I offer what support and guidance I may to help keep their heads above the craziness – sharing advice, wisdom and empathy in every act. Although Daryl’s Daily Affirmations are delivered with tongue wedged firmly in cheek, they are no less sincere in their intent to embolden the best.

For my studies, I can honestly state I have never felt as supported, encouraged, and especially challenged before. All with a will to push my academic potential further, towards deeper understanding and ability to express my intent. A credible credit to the wonderful lecturers I have engaged with so far.

Things will knuckle down to more practical endeavours as January continues, when I return to the studios to hone my skills in Live Audio mixing and Visual Production design. Subjects I’m already exploring in the time between terms, a routine I find ever-easier to sustain as I indulge my ongoing will to learn.

My course comes to an end in June, but mechanisms are in motion towards Postgraduate progression. Having already submitted a draft Masters proposal, I seek to embrace the potency of Creative Technology to explore the narrative of who we have become. How society has evolved through mass interconnection, and how best we can tell immersive stories reflective of the age.

This is an opportunity to combine my many disparate interests into an area of formal research. Looking back to my tech career, combining it with what I currently study in the live space, and sprinkling more than a little mojo from my esoteric escapades. All of which demands advance reading across multiple disciplines, if not planning how to finance it all!

This focus has taken necessary toll on my travels and external interests. Save a handful of shows, I have barely socialised off-campus this year, increasingly distant from the music and culture that sustains me. Time and money are both at a premium and I must ration my excesses carefully, with the money stashed by prior to this already funding my future. Saying that, I’ll still ring in the New Year with a sneaky trip to Hamburg and The Ruins of Beverast before term resumes.

Despite this paucity of travel, I have been no less prone to injury. From fracturing my toe in September to undergoing unrelated surgery in November, my body has sustained its fair share of scrapes and slashes amid the stress of study. Recovery continues, and although further attention may be needed in the weeks ahead, I’m at least back on my feet again – attending to an inadvertently burgeoned waistline with every step forward.

As I look ahead to 2026, I know it will be a profoundly cumulative year of great achievement and higher ambition, as lifelong plans finally fall into place. Yet I cannot help but frame the months to come within the greater concerns of the moment.

Despite a necessary detachment from most online distractions, the shrill, escalating calls to war and treachery resound, echoing in the uncertainty of my peers and the futures they strive to forge for themselves.

Lies, betrayal, and abject mockery cast down from elected officials through controlled media present little more than provocation – the final recourse of those without principle. Further amplified by pundits, embodied and programmed, in the cultivation of despair. In this Age of Illusion, perception is truth and gaslighting blatant, with no solution offered beyond futile, simmering strife.

There is no counter but to sustain authentic, human connections, and continue my work on campus and beyond. Helping others grow into themselves through compassion and integrity, building bridges between the like-minded, and nurturing alternative means of communication beyond such divisive, manufactured polemic.

And that is my challenge for the year(s) to come.