Camp Vuvuzela | Visualicious Afrika Burns Fundraiser

This is how the SMS went: “Greetings people. I have arrived at the most spectacular event venue I’ve ever seen. Whatever your plans, cancel them. You’re coming to the Old Bijou Theatre in Lwr Main Rd, Obz, any time after 9pm. You know those few occasions that you actually pay R50 for a night out in your home town? This is one. I am vj-ing. See you there.”

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You gotta get to a party at the Old Bijou sometime. It’s actually called the Blacksmith Forge (opposite Gandalfs), and I’m not sure if they use it for events often, but the place looks like a surreal, eerie level out of Bioshock. You half expect some lopsided, electrically charged mutant to race at you out of the shadows any minute. Old cogs and gears cast stark shadows upon boxes of discarded, imperial-measure tools stashed carelessly in corners, away from the dim wash of red light. Striking. Mysterious.

The macabre vibe was offset by the early buzz of activity by the organisers, a group that have risen to fame as the undisputed champions of Afrika Burns. You know Afrika Burns, right? The three-day art festival in, well, a temporary dwelling known as Tankwa Town, somewhere in the Karoo, emphasising gift-giving and radical self-reliance. Check out Overtone’s pics, vids and words from last year’s festival [Afrika Burns 2007].

So the party gets going, right. And I’m already on a serious buzz: this is my first VJ performance. Flanked by media-mashup maestro AVJ Twinstar, we’ll be taking care of the imagery on the giant screen hoisted two stories up above the floor. Anything goes.

Sometime halfway through Fletcher’s set, some guy with half a cigarette hanging from his lips warns me about the mess of cables beside the forklift.

“When the drummer goes up, just keep an eye on these things.” He points at the cables.

“The engineering and artistic acumen of Camp Vuvuzela’s brains is reliably impressive.”

The plan, you understand, is to have a djembe drummer raised 30ft in the air on a forklift while the dancefloor goes nuts. In the opposite corner, we also have a giant cylinder that belches sideburn-singing flames every so often, both a visual and tactile sensation. There are a couple of woodfires burning around the venue. In fact, the engineering and artistic acumen of Camp Vuvuzela’s brains is reliably impressive.

A twenty-metre chain hangs from the ceiling with a silver-spraypainted car tyre for the more ‘mature’ partygoers to swing back and forth on, you see. A spiral staircase leads up to the balcony level. Red and white fairy lights stab at the darkness in sequence as single-colour costume folk begin arriving. Shoved in the snouts of vuvuzelas poised up above the floor are coloured LEDs that react to the aural environment. The louder the music, the brighter they shine [also known as physical computing, or ‘pcomp‘. Amazing. In fact, everywhere you look, there’s something to look at. Visualicious.

On the whole, an absolute banger of a party. You can expect to see, hear and feel more of it at Camp Vuvuzela somewhere in the desert in October. Till then, keep eyes and ears open.

Freelance post by Pravda23

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