WORD ON THE STREET
by Holiday Dmitri
The Booster - Wicker Park
June 12, 2002

What's a Party Without Someone Remapping Visual Landscapes? By Holiday Dmitri

While, prior to this column coming to print, I will be back in Chicago, right now, I lie adrift with indolent comfort on the outer edges of Long Island, in a seashore cottage set in the Hamptons.

In case you just don't know or haven't seen Barbara Kopple's recent ABC documentary or Women Entertainment's reality-based series on the Hamptons (and really why would you?), it's the sybaritic East Coast playground a-burst with New York's parvenu and celebrity domiciles.

I am here because a friend's parents have a summer home in this beachtown resort. And while I may have brought my freelance work with me, I still entertain the notion that I am here on vacation. Fun is the foremost thought on my mind, and inherently, the reason I opted to write about Brien Rullman -- Mr. Fun -- the grand wizard of concocting a good time.

As one of the three directors of OVT Visuals, along with partners Brian Dressel and Vello Virkhaus, what Rullman and his crew do is get paid to accentuate the party atmosphere.

The 30-something-year-old Rullman calls himself an "audio visualizer," a VJ to the DJ, an "interpreter of sound," re-mapping the visual landscapes at galleries, festivals and nightclub environments with video, film and lighting.

OVT -- short for Optical Video Technicians -- was founded in 1992 by Rullman, after he graduated from Columbia College Chicago with special emphasis in computer graphics, video and photography.

Rullman grew up in a family of artists (his mother paints, his father makes furniture). While his company has worked with corporate hedgehogs such as Sony, Motorola, Intel, Coca-Cola, MTV and Apple Computers, Rullman does not consider himself a businessman -- not at all. He is an artist whose tool is his computer, whose palette includes his interactive live video mixing and whose canvases range from intimate house parties to full-scale raves and concerts with crowds pushing the 50,000 mark.

OVT's resume includes tours with arena-rockers, such as Korn, Ministry, James Brown and Perry Farrell, and visual installation at late-night parties in a rain forest in New Zealand, a ski resort in Colorado and at the Ice Village in Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics athletes.

But what Rullman admits to enjoying the most is working with the community -- be it the rave scene that nurtured him or with friends in the neighborhood, such as Ed Marszewski, who New City dubbed unofficial "mayor of Wicker Park."

"Ed and I were neighbors in Wicker Park and I knew him through his work heading Lumpen," Rullman says. "As instantly as we became friends, we started working on projects together."

Marszewski and Rullman have been friends and collaborators for four years. Currently their biggest project, Rullman tells me, is planning next year's installation of Version, a festival exploring current events and issues in art and political activism. The first Version festival, held this past April, brought almost 1,000 attendees to the 3-day event at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art.

Rullman's work with the MCA started in 1994 as an installations consultant. Then in 1999, he directed his first Summer Solstice party together with MCA curators Peter Taub and Yolanda Cursach. Rullman's debut was the first Solstice I attended. I remember because it took place the night of my college graduation, which is the same reason, I don't remember much of it at all.

"It's such an intense 24-hour affair for the museum," Rullman says. "We turn it into a crossover of nightclub meets gallery. It is the one time in the year many kids embrace the museum."

This year's Summer Solstice, hailed "eRetro" for its modern take on electro music and '80s synth pop, marks Rullman's fourth time presenting the event...

And while I lay in the sanctity of the warm sand of the East Hampton Main Beach, I know it is high time to come back to the sweltering Chicago summer and to welcome it all in with the opening day reception -- the Summer Solstice.

Side Note: Mark your calendars, the Museum of Contemporary Art's Summer Solstice starts at 6 pm Friday, June 21, and runs until 5 pm on Saturday, June 22. For more information on OVT Visuals, go to http://www.ovtvisuals.com.

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