Long-term flora&faunavisions clients Tiefschwarz are about to unleash a brand new album, flanked by an exclusive international club tour. For their live show premiere and release party at Berlin’s Lido club on May 27th, 2010 – and the remaining live gigs all over the world – the seminal Berlin DJ duo asked their friend and studio partner Philipp Maier, aka Santé, to join them on stage.

Tasked with developing and implementing a visual choreography that would live up to the intense onstage mayhem and tour stress, flora&faunavisions not only devised the show’s entire lighting concept and programmed the necessary open source software from scratch, but also threw in a range of self-contained visual themes for all of the set’s 14 tracks (and encore). During the gig, this pre-produced content is interspersed and mixed with graphics generated from the live performance.

Dripping with goodness – just like Tiefschwarz’s new album, Chocolate – this fully automated set-up returns all visual control to those in the limelight: as everything is tied to the music (via Midi values), the musicians run the visual show!

Deceptively simple, yet oh so effective, the resulting concept allows the masters of musical – and optical – illusions to transport themselves and their audience to a different sphere. A statement look for a statement act, the stage design is a multi-layered affair that plays with perception and (visual) deception: sandwiched between two distinct projection surfaces – transparent black gauze up front & black projection foil behind the performers – the concept’s clever use of light and video allows the artists to pop up and disappear or even conjure up holographic effects.

Upping the ante on the projection front, the semi-transparent gauze screen consists of three separate panels that may be lifted or lowered by remote control. So, according to the shows dramaturgy, the video will shift from screen to backdrop or encompass both.

Naturally, ffv also ensured that everything ran smoothly and directed the first live performance. Now it is up to the boys themselves to make the most of this cool visual tool!

Photos by Malte Ludwigs