CMU School of Drama


Saturday, September 13, 2008

NIN Dazzles With Lasers, LEDs and Stealth Screens

Wired.com: "A vast wall of swirling static dances on a giant screen as Trent Reznor and his band launch into their song, 'Only.' Initially obscured by this sea of visual white noise, the Nine Inch Nails front man intermittently appears to push through the particles of snow with his hands and body, popping in and out of view and opening up random tunnels in the chaos."

4 comments:

Ethan Weil said...

This seems like a very interesting idea, linking the visual more closely to the musical performance, whereas a lot of concerts lately seem to have nearly identical video each show even thought the music is live and different night to night.

Sam Thompson said...

It seems that NIN has come up with a very innovative way to engage their audience and make shows fresh and exciting. The show is different every night, and the band controls the visuals on stage! How cool is that? Their keyboardist does the programming! It's really cool that, as Reznor says, the band is using the visuals as an instrument.

Anonymous said...

I've heard and read other articles about this NIN tour. I've been to a few NIN shows and they always seem to be pushing the standards in some way. The fact that this is all interactive and done on the fly a lot more to the performance as well as a reaction from the crowd.

Anonymous said...

Wired makes my CS/technophile heart happy. The fact that they render images and visuals on the fly is particularly amazing. It reminds me of the huge impact the iTunes visualizer made when it first came out. My friends and I would spend hours just watching the lines and colors change to the pulse of music. I'm glad artists are taking that innovation and controlling it themselves. It seems like an amazing audio-visual experience.