Liberation - the back story
Hi everyone and thank you for your interest in Liberation laser show software!
I'm working so hard on preparing the software for you. I want to give you a brief update and a bit of history and, as many of you don’t know me, please allow me to introduce myself.
I’ve been programming lasers for almost exactly ten years and my open source laser control library is now mature and reliable*. It’s been the basis for all of my laser projects including Laser Light City. Many other artists have used it in their laser work.
I’ve been coding for most of my life, and always for creative visuals, or music. I was a games coder for many years, I designed and coded web projects, and I was even a music composer and producer in the past. It’s been a varied experience that I continue to draw on for my work (my recent projects feature my own music).
I’m English so talking about myself is weird, and bragging even more so, but I’ve won many awards for my work, including 5 ILDA awards, the Lumen Prize, and a BAFTA (for an interactive BBC project).
A few years ago I got the idea that I could produce a modular patch style system to make laser beam effects (after a conversation with Rob and Andy) and it was an itch I had to scratch. I made a prototype - it worked surprisingly well and was really fun to play with.
Just after I made the prototype I got the chance to provide lasers for Fatboy Slim at a charity show; it was the excuse I needed to bulk out the prototype into a rudimentary version of what would become Liberation.
From the very beginning it was designed to be fun, intuitive and responsive like a musical instrument, and it was very closely mapped to the APC40 Mk2 controller that you probably know.
Since then Liberation has grown and matured, and I’ve had some amazing runs with it at The Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Hall, and the Hammersmith Apollo, with artists like OMD, Boy George, Sophie-Ellis Bextor, 10CC, and Nitin Sawhney. In its biggest outing so far, Liberation ran my New Year’s Eve laser show in Newcastle this year with 88 laser fixtures across 4 sites.
Now I’m working hard behind the scenes on a test version and give you the chance to try Liberation for yourself. Because of my unusual path into lasers, Liberation takes a very new and original approach, and it’s not quite like anything that has come before it. I’m ready to turn it into an exceptional quality commercial product and build a thriving community of laserists around it.
Liberation is the culmination of my ten year journey into laser creativity and innovation and I’m excited to share it with you all soon.
Expect more news about the release schedule and how to get on the testing program in the coming weeks.
More soon!
Seb
*ofxLaser and Liberation is built with openFrameworks