Zebbler
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Zebbler (Peter Zebbler Berdovsky) is a
visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...
,
video jockey A video jockey (abbreviated VJ or sometimes veejay) is an announcer or host who introduces music videos and live performances on commercial music television channels such as MTV, VH1, Much (TV channel), MuchMusic and Channel V. Origins The term " ...
and the founder of Zebbler Studios, who is known for his work with
Shpongle Shpongle is a psychedelic music, psychedelic electronic music project from England that formed in 1996. The group includes Hallucinogen (musician), Simon Posford and Raja Ram (musician), Raja Ram (one of three in The Infinity Project). The duo ...
,
EOTO EOTO ( ) was an electronic band consisting of Michael Travis and Jason Hann. On July 22, 2021 the band announced via social media that they would no longer be performing, due to irreconcilable creative differences. The post indicated that the de ...
, and Zebbler Encanti Experience. Zebbler first gained worldwide fame for the
2007 Boston Mooninite panic On the morning of January 31, 2007, the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards depicting the Mooninites, characters from the Adult Swim animated television series ''Aqua Tee ...
on January 31, 2007, and subsequent news conference. His first "Shpongletron" design earned him recognition as one of the first VJs to incorporate 3-D video mapping into his set designs.


Early life

Originally from Grodno,
Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...
, Berdovsky graduated from Arlington High School in
Arlington, Massachusetts Arlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is six miles (10 km) northwest of Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, and its population was 46,308 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Europe ...
in 1999 before completing a degree at
Massachusetts College of Art and Design Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation's oldest art schools, and the only publicly funded independent art sch ...
in 2006. Growing up, young Zebbler Peter Berdovsky always had music in his house thanks to his mother who was a music teacher. He quickly got used to being surrounded by balalaikas, drums, cymbals, shakers, pianos, accordions, and bayans as well as the sounds of Abba and the best of 1980s Russian pop blasting on his mum's vinyl record player. His artistic persona is not only a way to honor his roots but also the result of a revelation involving the actor
Sean Connery Sir Thomas Sean Connery (25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to Portrayal of James Bond in film, portray the fictional British secret agent James Bond (literary character), James Bond in motion pic ...
. "When I was 13, I decided that I needed a pseudonym. While daydreaming, a visualization of a dragon with the distinct voice of Connery appeared in front of me and said, with a thick Scottish accent, ‘Frae noo oan, son, yer nam shaa be knoon as Zebbler!’ So I took up my foreign-sounding name and embraced it as my own," he recalls.


Boston Mooninite panic

The Boston bomb scare, AKA "The Mooninite Incident" occurred on January 31, 2007. During this incident, also dubbed "Boston Mission 1" and "Boston Mission 2", Zebbler and Sean Stevens put up close to 40
battery Battery or batterie most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source * Battery indicator, a device whic ...
powered
LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...
Ignignokt This is a list of characters featured in the Adult Swim animated television series ''Aqua Teen Hunger Force''. Main characters Master Shake Voiced by Dana Snyder, Master Shake (or simply Shake) is a mean-spirited, narcissistic, obnoxious, lazy, ...
shaped signs around the city of Boston as "
subvertising Subvertising (a portmanteau of ''subversion (political), subvert'' and ''advertising'') is the practice of making spoofs or parody, parodies of corporation, corporate and politics, political advertising, advertisements. The cultural critic Mark ...
" for the upcoming
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters ''Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters'' is a 2007 American adult animated surreal black comedy film based on the Adult Swim animated series ''Aqua Teen Hunger Force''. The film was produced, written and directed by series creat ...
. However,
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...
found the signs to have similar characteristics to
improvised explosive devices An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional warfare, conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached t ...
. These characteristics included a circuit board, power source, exposed wiring, and electrical tape. The police responded by sending in a large amount of emergency vehicles, including the Boston Police Department bomb squad. The event cost the parent company,
Turner Broadcasting System Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. was an American television and media conglomerate founded by Ted Turner in 1965. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, it merged with Time Warner (later WarnerMedia) on October 10, 1996. As of April 2022, all of its asse ...
, along with Interference Inc., $2 million. One million went to the Boston police department, while the other million went to
Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...
. As a result, the head of
Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...
resigned.


Shpongletron

The Shpongletron, designed by Zebbler for Shpongle's 2011 US Tour, consists of a DJ booth for Shpongle, surrounded by custom screens and surfaces that have video mapped images projected onto them. On the bottom of the audiovisual installation, also dubbed "The Shpongletron Experience", are three white painted scaffolding cubes that are covered by translucent screen. The six foot Shpongle Mask is also a 3-D projection surface, along with wings and an eye that are both covered in projection material. The custom welded eye also has an embedded
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...
. In 2014, Zebbler designed the critically acclaimed Shpongletron 3, which embedded the new touring structure with pixel mapped
LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...
s and
infinity mirror The infinity mirror (also sometimes called an infinite mirror) is a configuration of two or more Parallel (geometry), parallel or angled mirrors, which are arranged to create a series of further and further reflections that appear to recede to inf ...
s.


EOTO

Zebbler began touring with EOTO in 2011 during which he used custom
Fourier analysis In mathematics, Fourier analysis () is the study of the way general functions may be represented or approximated by sums of simpler trigonometric functions. Fourier analysis grew from the study of Fourier series, and is named after Joseph Fo ...
of EOTO's live sounds to trigger pre-made visual events. Closed circuit cameras, along with user submitted visuals, were also used. The same custom-made software (Zebblertron) was used during this tour as was used with the Shongletron Experience. Zebbler rejoined touring with EOTO for their 2012 Base Invaders Tour, where he debuted a 3-D video mapped lotus flower surrounding the stage.


Zebbler Encanti Experience

Z.E.E. is a collaboration between Zebbler and electronic music producer Encanti. The duo provide a multi-media experience, with Zebbler performing live visuals to Encanti's glitchy, bass heavy beats and interspersed vocals. Using the custom software "Zebblertron", the duo perform live with light and sound through triggered events and improvisation. Z.E.E. accompanied EOTO on their 2012 Time Illusion Tour. In January 2014, Z.E.E. released "Altered Projections", which featured tracks that had been remixed from their previous album "Psychic Projections." Z.E.E. released their third album, "Freakquency", in July the same year that was well received by critics followed by a national tour that promoted the release of their album The album featured vocals from two artists, one of which was Indian vocalist Ganavya, who joined the group in select concerts. Z.E.E.'s 2015 summer boat festival was listed by WBUR as one of the top 10 Boston area music festivals. In 2017, the group wa
featured by Bullet Music
with an in depth interview moving through themes about objective reality, machine intelligence, emotion, imagination and creative freedom . In 2019, Z.E.E. released a new four track EP on the independent label Wakaan and released thei
music video "Trance End"
just a few months later.


First Night Boston

In 2013, 6 years after the Mooninite incident, the city of Boston's New Year's Eve celebration, First Night Boston, hired Zebbler to create an electric light show as the centerpiece of the event in Copley Square. “We’re a forgiving city,” Mayor Menino told ''The Boston Herald''. “That’s 2007. This is 2013.”


Berklee College of Music

The electronic production division of Berklee College of Music invited Zebbler to teach in January 2018. Leading his approach with a hands-on active classroom, Zebbler encourages his students to learn through experimentation and believes that the "best way to learn something is to both hear ''how'' something works and ''try'' to do it yourself. It is through this repetition of doing that artistic styles and perfection of craft appear." Positioned between the worlds of music and visual arts, his diverse and comprehensive experiences offers his students his enthusiasm to these cultural worlds and the rigorous world of VJ performance. Founding director, Stephen Webber, of Berklee's Music Production, Technology, and Innovation program sought to introduce modern multimedia performance to the students and in 2017, Zebber joined as an instructor in their campus in Valencia, Spain, teaching video production and VJ/video mapping classes, where students experiment with software and hardware like Adobe Premiere, After Effects, SketchUp, Resolume Arena, Photoshop, Ableton Live, DSLR cameras, video projectors, and MIDI network sync and a/v performance strategies.


Aston Martin x Tom Brady

Zebbler Studios provided an interactive ten-channel surround video display for an Aston Martin ad which unveiled a $360,000 signature edition Vanquish S Volante Tom Brady convertible. Featuring New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Aston Martin’s design chief Marek Reichman, the ad incorporated thematic live video projections accompanied by live text, echoing key phrases from the conversation between Marek and Tom.


Envision Festival

Working with festivals to design visuals and lighting installations led naturally to the production of massive stage builds for Envision Festival's Sol Stage in Uvita, Costa Rica. Beginning in 2016, and consecutively until 2019, Zebbler Studios, LLC, has created experiential pieces on stages that host multi sensory performances for festival guests on a remote coastline between the Costa Rican jungle and the ocean. Spanning over 100 feet in length, the stage sets are entirely video mapped with 3D-animated content, live video inputs, and live effects, providing a rich and saturated visual counterpart to a variety of live bands and electronic musicians.


Notable performances

Zebbler has displayed his custom mapped video installations and live image "mashups" at multiple art museums/spaces, festivals, and conventions: *ReMixer Zebbler Performance, Berkeley Museum of Art, Berkeley, California (custom HD Video-surround sound performance), October 26, 2007 *Official VJ for RedBull North America, 2007–2008 *Global Groove,
Lawrence Hall of Science The Lawrence Hall of Science is a public science center in Berkeley, California that offers hands-on science exhibits, designs curriculum, aids professional development, and offers after school science resources to students of all ages. The Lawr ...
, Berkeley, California (custom 3 screen a/v performance), May 9, 2008 * COSM New Year's Eve celebration (
Alex Grey Alex Grey (born November 29, 1953) is an American visual artist, author, teacher, and Vajrayana practitioner known for creating spiritual and psychedelic artwork such as his 21-painting ''Sacred Mirrors'' series. He works in multiple forms includi ...
's Art Sanctuary), New York – custom HD VJ installation, a/v performance with Z.E.E., December 31, 2009 *
Ultra Music Festival Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is an annual outdoor electronic music Music festival, festival that takes place in March in Miami, Florida. The festival was founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes. It was first held on Miami Beach, but bes ...
, Miami, Florida (Featured VJ performer), March 27–28, 2009 *Anime Convention 2009, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts (ZEE a/v performance), May 23, 2009 *Hansel and Gretel RE:Imagined (official VJ showcase of the Together festival), Pozen Center, Boston, Massachusetts – event curator/promoter, custom HD video installation and a/v performance with Z.E.E. and Clever Girl, February 13, 2010 *
DEF CON DEF CON (also written as DEFCON, Defcon, or DC) is a Computer security conference, hacker convention held annually in Las Vegas Valley, Las Vegas, Nevada. The first DEF CON took place in June 1993 and today many attendees at DEF CON include comp ...
, Las Vegas, Nevada (custom video mapped dragon installation, deco work), 2011–present *


Awards and distinctions

*Best Boston Artist of 2007 –
The Improper Bostonian ''The Improper Bostonian'' was a glossy lifestyle magazine first published in August 1991 "highlighting the people and places that make Boston a world-class city." After 28 years, publisher Wendy Semonian Eppich announced that the magazine cease ...
* #12 VJ in the World – 2007
DJ Magazine ''DJ Magazine'' (also known as ''DJ Mag'') is a British monthly magazine dedicated to electronic dance music and DJs. Founded in 1991, the magazine is adapted for distribution in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, France, Italy, Lati ...
*Best Local Visual Artist of 2009 –
The Boston Phoenix ''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the now defunct ''Boston Phoenix'', '' ...


References


External links


OFFICIAL WEBSITEFive Year Anniversary of the Moonite IncidentItalian Magazine on ZebblerZebbler in the growing world of VJing
{{authority control 21st-century American artists Arlington High School (Massachusetts) alumni Belarusian emigrants to the United States Living people Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni Year of birth missing (living people)