About Me
Dissect Ephemeral by Origamibiro & the joy of box from joy of box on Vimeo .
"ORIGAMIBIRO & THE JOY OF BOX ARE PART OF THAT NEW BREED (THAT) BRING THE BEST OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES INTO THEIR SETS AND THEIR SOUNDS, ENLISTING LOOPING RIFFS AND ELECTRONIC WONDERS AND TONIGHT THEY SHOWED MUCH OF THE BEST THAT SUCH AN APPROACH CAN BRING.
ITS NOT JUST GUITARS AND BEATS THAT FIND THEMSELVES LOOPED UP BY THE TRIO, BUT THE TEAR OF PAPER, THE FLICKED CORNER OF A BOOK AND THE RIP OF STICKY TAPE. AND AS IF THE PLETHORA OF SOUNDS WERENT ENOUGH, THEY COME PACKED WITH LASHINGS OF VISUALS ON A BIG SCREEN BEHIND THEM, THE SCOPE OF WHICH TAKES IN BOTH ARCHIVE FOOTAGE AND LIVE CLOSE-UPS OF THE BAND THEMSELVES." BBC Manchester Online
Origamibiro and The Joy of Box Live is a collaboration between video artist The Joy of Box (Jim Boxall) and musicians, performers and producers Origamibiro (Tom Hill and Andy Tytherleigh). Jim and Tom have a long history of collaboration: Tom has provided soundtracks for Jim's experimental short films and audio for Jim's live visuals work as part of av_dv. In turn, Jim has provided visuals alongside Tom for both Wauvenfold and Penfold Plum live performances.
The BiroBox project is a culmination of ideas that Tom and Jim had started to discuss in their previous projects concerning ways to perform music and visuals live. Tom wanted to find ways to produce intimate music based on live generated loops without the audience barrier of laptop screens. Jim wanted to produce visuals that could utillise a whole range of different techniques and approaches that could explore emotion, narrative and spectacle through high and low end technology and audience understanding/expectation of what was happening in front of them. In the process of developing ideas and techniques, they enlisted the help of Andy Tytherleigh, a musician also very interested in live multi instrumental looping methods and its relationship to moving image.
Origamibiro's first album 'Cracked Mirrors and Stopped Clocks' was an ideal springboard for Tom and Jim's original ideas. Whilst recording the album, Tom recorded not only the songs and melodies on his classical guitar, he also captured the creaks and groans of it, the chair he was sitting on, even his breath. Jim began to do the same thing visually-looking for ways to create visuals organically-filming dust particles, moisture from his breath and extreme close ups of objects and surfaces. Jim and Tom also began to explore narratives inspired by the new material they were generating and how they could combine these elements into an intimate, engaging and beautiful av performance.
Origamibiro & The Joy of Box Live is essentially an organic project-its content continues to change and readapt as new ideas present themselves. Ultimately, it is three people's attempt to create a multi media performance that can move, challenge and entertain its audience.
Unknown In The Walls: A live audio visual extract by Origamibiro & The Joy of Box from joy of box on Vimeo .
This is an extract from the live audio-visual set of Origamibiro & The Joy of Box.Based on the track of the same name from the album 'Cracked Mirrors & Stopped Clocks' by Origamibiro (expanding records), this is the result of a development of ideas between Biro & Box for a short horror narrative that could be edited live by The Joy of Box (me) as part of our touring audio-visual live set.
As BiroBox are based in Nottingham, it seemed only right that this sequence was shot in the real Sheriff of Nottingham's private office. It also stars fellow Nottingham musician, producer and artist Andrew 'Fear' Fearn a.k.a Infant/Pony Gear (Neo Ouija, Musik Experience) as the main protagonist- caught between his fascination of the unnatural sounds he is drawn to and the horror of the situation he finds himself in as a result. Thank you Fearny.
photo by URSULA KELLY @ FLUK Studios and Mimi Photography
JIM BOXALL: BIOG
"VIDEO ARTIST JIM BOXALL AND SAXOPHONIST JAN KOPINSKI MANIPULATE AND WEAVE AN INTRIGUING AND ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE. THE MIXTURE OF SCORED AND IMPROVISED MUSIC SET TO VIDEO PROJECTIONS IS A PERFORMANCE OF ELOQUENCE AND INTENSITY"Jazzwise:Jan 2007
Over the last 10 years or so I have produced a range of works including live visuals, av performances, over 40 short films, installations and art objects. I have worked on projects under my own name as well as av_dv, Biclops, eyelidnod and now The Joy of Box.
I have collaborated with Internationally renowned multimedia artist Raphael Lozano-Hemmer on the biggest video installation of its kind in the world. I am also proud to have collaborated since 1999 with Active Ingredient , Nottingham based pioneers and experts in new arts and technology.
In collaboration with fellow video artist and painter Jon Gille and under the name av_dv, I fell into performing live visuals back in 2001.
We performed alongside VJs such as Hexstatic, Addictive TV, Eclectic Method, D-Fuse and The Light Surgeons.
We have performed at five of the Big Chill music festivals since 2002 and upheld a long term residency with North London's Soxan club nights and Manuva Manuva (deceased) at the Nottingham Rescue Rooms.
We have provided visuals for Wauvenfold, Nitin Sawney, DJ Krush, Susumu Yokota, Mixmaster Morris, Autechre, Plaid, Co-Op, Do Make Say think, Charlie Dark and Geiom amongst others. We even played a John Peel special with The Bays live on Radio One. Work that one out.
Together and separately we have screened, performed and exhibited nationally and internationally, including the UK, USA, Greece, Finland, Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy and France.
Over the course of our av_dv adventures, Jon and I explored, exploited and exhibited various approaches to the application of visuals to music and music to visuals. These projects became increasingly more complex and involved. Man it was fun. I decided to take this further with my solo work.
In 2005 I went and studied an M.A. and got myself into three projects that demanded a much longer term and more complex approach to the art of live visuals performance. Or whatever you choose to call it.
The first of these projects was with Cipher and Steve Hubback to produce ' Elemental Forces '. This took two and a half years from the outset to the first gig. The technical setup involved bespoke surround sound software, reactive video software, live digital and analogue audio looping and live camera feeds. We also used Steve's one off sculptures, gongs and percussion instruments. Not to mention three very skilled and experienced musicians. And me. We also had extensive software and technical help from Noel Murphy aka the good looking half of Wauvenfold and his own solo stuff Bury and Disinter . He's a good man to have on your side. The first gig took place at Broadway Cinema, Nottingham in Oct 2006. I learnt a lot from this experience and have since used a lot of the techniques and some of the footage for more recent projects.
The second of these projects was with Jan Kopinski and Reflektor . 'Mirrors' took a year to develop and gave me the opportunity to work with very accomplished and extremely generous musicians as well as more than 20 years of footage shot by kopinski in Poland. Working with Jan is quite frankly an inspiration. So far we have performed twice: The first at Lakeside theatre, Nottingham in 2006 and the second at the Tramway, Glasgow in 2007. I hope to work with Jan again soon.
The third and for me the most exciting project is my new collaboration with long time friend and musician/producer Tom Hill aka the inbred half of Wauvenfold , also known as Penfold Plum and the reason for this new project- OrigamiBiro -BUY THE ALBUM NOW!!-. We have gigged together a lot over the years, both of us in various guises, and got ourselves a bunch of ideas concerning how not to do av shows. I initially decided this warranted a new name for me: eyelidnod. But no. After the release of the debut Biro album I changed my mind and have decided to call myself something which to me seems much nore appropriate:
The Joy Of Box.
..So. We set out to find means of performing the music and visuals in an intimate, generative, idiosynchratic, fallible, spasmodic, beautiful and wholly collaborative way. And I believe we found some. We've been lucky enough to enlist the extensive skills of Andy Tytherleigh: a fellow Nottingham man and also bassist for Dave Blayze and the Reservations , Brazilica , The Ben Martin Quartet , and former bassist for Schmoov (his cv is too big for this page-believe me). He can make a double bass cry and growl at the same time.
We have also enlisted the help of gifted illustator Gemma Latimer to help us redesign and remix a book which includes poetry by origamibiro as part of our live show. The book itself will continue to grow and change throughout this year. I'm hoping we can incorporate more of Gemma's work into this project as we progress.
We are playing out as much as we can in 2008 and working and refining what we do as we go. Already the live set has grown as Andy has brought his own looper to the mix as well as a plethora of new instruments: ukelele, fender rhodes and glockenspiel. Ive got a feeling it wont stop there. Of course this means that we are constantly reworking the set to adapt to these changes and we shall see how it progresses over the next few months.
Btw, for those of you who bought 'cracked mirrors', apologies for the confusing eyelidnod weblink on the Biro album inside cover but I guess it sums up what we are trying to with BiroBox- that is keep working on what we are doing and stay organic and open to new ideas. I'm hoping that it shows in the shows. If you catch my drift.
The Joy of Box
