Hey VJ!

Jul. 21st, 2005 05:29 am
imomus: (Default)
[personal profile] imomus
Well, I'm back in Berlin, and for the next week or so I'm working on two design-related articles, one about a Japanese fashion company, the other about VJing. By "VJ" I don't mean the person who presents the videos on MTV (do they even have videos on MTV these days?) but the person who designs and "performs" graphics projected during the presentation of music in a nightclub or concert hall. And I'd like your help. Here's a little questionnaire which I'd love you to answer in the Comments section. Include an e mail address if you like, so that I can write to you.

1. You're not a VJ yourself, but you have a favorite VJ or a peak experience in a dark place involving the combination of visuals and music. Tell me about it!

2. You are a VJ yourself. Tell me about your work! Do you have a website?

3. What experience do you have of VJ hardware and software? Name names! Tell me your good and bad experiences with various packages. Have you customized your software or hardware?

4. What's your live set-up? Do you mix live feed from cameras in the club (or arena, if you're that big!) with pre-recorded graphic loops? Do you doodle on top of found Super 8? How do you work?

5. Is your work a collaboration, and if so, who does what? Do you consider the bands you work with clients or collaborators?

6. Tell me about being a designer who works in real time, there in the club, responding to unpredictable events. Is it, well, like playing an endless sax solo or something? Isn't that a tough thing to do, to "design" right there in public, in real time?

7. How would you like to see VJing develop in the future? Are there amazing new capabilities you'd like to see built into software? (Personally, I'd like to see "the scent organ" from Brave New World implemented.)

8. Question for the audience. Do you actually watch what's on the screen behind the band? Where does it take you, if anywhere? Is less more, or is more more?

9. Um, a question about Marshall McLuhan might fit here. Marshall McLuhan and lava lamps and Pink Floyd and the gesamtkunswerk and living in a gloopy web of electronic goo... Have all the arts come together? Is it a big meltdown or a big letdown? Should we all go and read a good book instead?

10. Is there anything I didn't ask you and should have? Oh, okay: "But is it art?"

(The picture is of Japanese design geniuses Delaware playing live at Club Milk, Ebisu, June 2001, which gives me another chance to link to their lovely song Graphic Designin' in the Rain.)
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(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 03:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] butterflyrobert.livejournal.com
Despite the piles of waiting work, it must feel good to be home.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 04:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
It does indeed. The air is very fresh here in Berlin. I know I'm back in the Eurozone when I see TV films set in Algeria (http://www.arte-tv.com/fr/semaine/244,broadcastingNum=464727,day=5,week=29,year=2005.html) involving naked women in hammams. Now I just need to relearn how to sleep at the locally appropriate time.

Prescription:

From: [identity profile] anglerfish96.livejournal.com - Date: 2005-07-21 06:08 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 04:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] transient-poet.livejournal.com
Best VJ Ever, Michael Lazar (http://www.okeanos.com/). He is truly amazing. The only VJ whose work I find compelling enough to stop dancing and just watch. My favorite stuff of his has been at high concept all night dance parties. Great sense of humor, both visually and in conversation. His work truly is art.

I have done a small amount of VJ work, but similar to that, work as a Lighting Designer (http://www.lucaskrech.com/). The parties I have lit requires working live in real time, as does, to a lesser extent, my theatre work. The play keeps moving forwards and you must continue to work the design as the production evolves. Working live in any medium is about playing with and reacting to the audience. If everyone in the room is not, at some level, a collaborator, the end product is not as successful. The best work comes out of a collaborative environment where everyone gives and everyone takes and the lines between mediums dissolve in a larger whole.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 04:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cerulicante.livejournal.com
Having been a Vagina Jockey in Japan, I can say that...wait.



OH.




Nevermind, then. Carry on...

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 04:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thebestweapon.livejournal.com
I'm kind of "old timey" in a way, so the best things I've seen done are typically old psych type stuff (gels and fluids convalescing psychadelically on a screen, a la everything from Jefferson Airplane to the Ghost DVD) and when I saw Subarachnoid Space on tour w/ AMT they seemed to be doing clip loops and mixes, with some old grainy footage acting as the "voice" to the mostly instrumental music. I think it's the logical step from lyrics -- words sometimes depict imagery, while images are, well, images.

q&a

Date: 2005-07-21 04:32 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
1. i'm a vj, but i still want to answer this question. my 'peak' exp. was in shikoku, japan when my friend roddy and i played at show with hypo at a planetarium (our friend tujiko noriko had mentioned it might be a good place to play in shikoku) and about half-way thru the set, the guy in charge of rotating the heavens started...rotating the heavens. of course we had our own vj, but that took the cake. he even spun the heaven backwards and added a lot of shooting stars and things like that. it was unreal, and also, since it wasn't a flat screen but a giant hemisphere, you can imagine the impact!

2. [skipping this one]

3. jitter (from the max/msp folks) is pretty damn good. NATO is still very good, if not a little cryptic...

4. [skip]

5. [skip]

6. [skip]

7. i'd like to see things develop somewhere between what scriabin (with his sound/color 'affliction') wanted and what eno describes on p.383 of his diary in 'role and game-playing' section entry #3 "you are a member of an early-21st-century 'art and language' band..."

8. [skip]

9. all the arts have all come together (in the same space) but they are ignoring each other because the level of tech. literacy required for a total gestalt vibe is way over the head of most.

10. something to add? just a twist on a line from a song...'hey, VJ! keep playing that image, all night! on and on and on...'

r.
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 05:19 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Hey, Momus. Have you seen those DVD-DJ players that let you "scratch" DVDs and then mix two of them with a regular DJ mixer? They look a lot cooler than they actually are. I think they have a lot of possibilities, but I haven't seen anyone do anything interesting with them yet. I saw Yamamoto Moog play with them but "scratching" a DVD so far is just having someone move across in the room in a very jerky motion. I get a sense that these are Japan-only items at the moment, each one being around $4000.

Marxy

don't believe the hype!

Date: 2005-07-21 05:35 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
forget about spending 4 grand on hardware like that. if you are looking to do that kind of stuff, you should get this instead, and then you can 'scratch' anything, not just a dvd, a soundfile, your back, whatever.
http://www.cycling74.com/products/mspinky.html
best,
r.

don't believe that URL!

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2005-07-21 05:38 am (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2005-07-21 09:55 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com - Date: 2005-07-21 11:04 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 05:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com
Great song...I think I'll look more in to them..

I have a question, although unrelated to the topic. I was wondering if American Patchwork had any Canadian distribution? I've been going nuts trying to find the Super Madrigal Brothers' albums over here but they seem to be available only in the U.S. If the label doesn't, would you consider Canadian Distribution?

Take Care

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-22 07:57 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I have seen "Shakestation" on websites selling music to all parts of the world, so I'd recommend either going through http://darla.com/ or googling it. You can buy the new one direct from us with paypal.

I've only seen one actually in a store tho. Ever.
best
Adam

ps. Shout out to Atari Video Music machine!!

(no subject)

From: [identity profile] anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com - Date: 2005-07-23 06:26 am (UTC) - Expand

Peak experience in the dark

Date: 2005-07-21 06:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gilmartin.livejournal.com
Peak VJ experience: 1980 at Glagow Uni QM disco: Tom and Jerry cartoon images were projected on the walls one night. What a dance-hall mood of "arms around the world", years before the arrival of ecstasy tablets! May have been the childhood resonances, but I think we all just understood that those two 2D animals loved one another, needed one another like the next breath, even though they carried out acts of shocking cruelty, one against the other.
Of course, that was Fred Quimby's Tom and jerry, not the pallid Hannah Barbera rubbish. Which reminds me of another more interactive primitive video jockey experience as a student - "The Freds". This took place at the men-only students' union, once a week at lunchtime: Mr Quimby's Tom and Jerry was projected on a large screen in the debating hall, to the delight of a packed audience. Then flashes of porn would cut in (two projectors - far out, man!) eventually taking over and running as unbroken filth. The real entertainment was the heckling: male, brutish and very, very, very funny. Momus, many of your readers are not brutish, or even entirely male, and might be uneasy with the intoxicating mob rush of giddy humour, but please don't tell me it's bad. Used to get the same sort of thing on the North Sea oil rigs, in the communal cinemas, until the insidious advent of TVs, videos, and DVD players in individual cabins. Our pleasures are solitary, furtive and crepuscular now (I know where you got that line by the way - Petersen, Mountfort and Hollom - Birds of Britain and Europe: any prizes if one of your gang tells you which species?) Must stop rambling and get to work....

vj

Date: 2005-07-21 06:33 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)

interesting, but why now, 2005?

soft wise, 'motion dive', japanese ware. it's probably the most user friendly prog, much like a non linear editor, keyboard-synth relationship. max is alright, but most max visuals tend to look alike.

vj gigs... pizzicato five 1994(?) irving plaza, cornelius s.o.b.s(?), le tigre irving plaza (2004), some scanner show at the cooler (maybe), under the brooklyn bridge dumbo (5 years ago), robert whitman installations (2003, Dia Chelsea), black dice (volume williamsburg 2003, almost forgot...godspeed you black emperor 16mm film loops (2000?) bowery ballroom

i guess some of these were not improvised live. the ken ishii type eye candy stuff forgotten. vjing seems a bit irrelavant now...why are you asking?

and to answer your last question, yes, it's a mess. i'd rather look into the clean light of a film projector.

Re: vj

Date: 2005-07-21 06:35 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)

also, forgot out morrissey/smiths... one photo does the trick

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 07:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wingedwhale.livejournal.com
Don't know how helpful this is, but I was rather impressed by the VJ work of the San Franciscan band Tarentel (http://www.tarentel.com/). Not much more, but whatever.

I remember going to one of their shows and gazing at/being entranced by their noise constructions and their video collage of bees and power structures.

Private psychedelic reel

Date: 2005-07-21 07:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dubow-org.livejournal.com
One experience I particularly enjoyed was when I went to a Chemical Brothers gig in London. The videos played somehow amplified the music and you became aware of every note and beat (a bit like what Michel Gondry did in their ‘star guitar' video). The videos, combined with the amazing lighting effects also sends you into some kind of trance (without needing any illegal substances to take you there … but I have heard they intensify the whole experience).

lulla-live

Date: 2005-07-21 08:52 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Hi Momus,

This is Shawn (from Lullatone). How are you?
We usually project visuals during our live performances. So about your questions...

1. Eric (e*rock) presents some funny visuals when he plays. www.audiodregs.com . Also, Lozi (http://homepage.mac.com/lozi/) controls his visuals with a sewing machine that he converted into a midi controller.

2. And our website is www.lullatone.com . You can see a short sample of one of our animations there. We make classic stop motion animations (not flash or any kind of abstract max msp electronica visuals). Also we sometimes make video loops by making some spools covered with a loop of images that we rotate on top a turntable and then capture with a video camera that is plugged into a monitor. (This this make sense? It is a little difficult to explain.) I like this because it is a really lo-tech and charming way to go about it.

3. To make our stop motion animations we use a program called istopmotion http://www.istopmotion.com/ . It is really simple, which means it is really good.

4. Usually we just prepare a video before the performance to fit our live set and give a DVD of it to the club or theater where we are playing. We can't control the visuals in real time because we are both so busy with the various insruments and humming and singing and dancing and so on involved in playing the melodies.

5. Yes, our work is a collaboration. Yoshimi (Lullatone's singer) cuts the characters out of origami paper and I usually direct the stories. Also, we make the melodies and the images which is really important for us so we can really drop the audience into a total environment of the aesthetic sense we want to create. I don't think we could ever work with an outside VJ (unless he or she were simply triggering images we had already produced).

6. n/a But, at every single show we have played we have got such great comments from the audience about our visuals. I think because the stories are sometimes funny and the images are really cute and simple.

7. I don't know. I hope visuals will become more interesting than screen savers

8-10. I don't have any strong ideas here, sorry.

Oh, also, one of our animations is going to be shown at a gallery there in Berlin soon. I wll let you know the details later if you are interested.

best wishes,
Shawn

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 08:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spoombung.livejournal.com
My favourite VJ is Scopac (RobFlint). He's part of Ticklish. He improvises live on the computer and is a regular on the international scene. Also a super friendly PHD character and an all round expert on digital media.

http://www.scopac.org/

vjing - personnal history

Date: 2005-07-21 10:06 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
i have been adding visuals to live events for over ten years now.
I was initially inspired after seeing some bands make their stage a more exciting place, I was later informed by club and party decor.

I started by using still slides to replace standard stage lighting for a
band i played in. The band played messy quirky synth punk.
The images used were from underground comics like R. Crumb's "zap".

I then started using super 8 films and loops.
Initially shooting my own short ambient lighting experiments,
I then moved into making my own stop motion, featuring logos etc.
I then adopted some of Len Lye's painting and scratching techniques,
which extended into my kitchen (bleach, and curry).

The loops lloked a lot better, and i could even make custom loops on the night of an event. I tried moving to 16 mm, but was getting frustrated by the unreliable nature of the vintage equipment (most found in skips/bins and recycled) which was notorious for eating the brittle films.

Since then I have worked either with dual video tape decks to vj into a digital projector, or a collection of preprepared 'compilation tapes'.

Recently I have started using 'Resolume' software for PC, which allows me to use pre made footage from my super 8, and video collection, as well as allowing for the use of live camera feed (catch people dancing to the beat - capture - loop!) and flash animation too. It also features some basic built in generative algorithms that are like twaekable/playable screen savers.

This set up is run into my friends old Sony Video mixer, for primitive synthesis effects, with extra DVD or VHS channels running into it as back-up in case the computer crashes.

I have worked with other lighting and laser artists in my time, having covered events featuring all sorts, from Keith Rowe (AMM) to Four Tet,
and I have been invited to work collaboratively with other digital vj's at a local club.

I think that as with musicians working together, depending on the attitudes brought together: collaboration can be a good or bad thing. Generally a promoter will know the act that they are plugging and choose a suitable vj.
I usually try to have a chat with the band/dj/artist before the show and ask about their preferences. (fast/slow, colour/B+W, playful/sinister)

One of the best audio-visual events i experienced was the Flaming Lips at Glastonbury 2000. It was a very fine event, from what I've heard it may have a little in common with the Cornelius AV shows.

I've read forums on the role of vj - some customers like them to stay in the background (bubblegum for the eyes?) and others want them blazing in their retinas.

I like the idea of a bit of light you can turn to, or turn away from.
A light show that works with th music can be a great thing, but sometimes it's nice to hide in dark corners of clubs (to chatter, commit sins, or sleep) without constant bulb action.

A designer friend (currently on holiday or I'd ask more) told me of a film made about a family that make visuals together, like three generations, the oldest being tye dyed survivors of the original wave of psychedelic practicioners from 60's Britain. (was it a CH4 "four-mations" special?)

Isn't there an odd three piece USA band called the 'the ______ family slide players' or something, that use slide projectors for their band?

You have a few decades worth of activities to research. I'm sure you've already been fed all the NY Plastic Exploding Inevitable stories already, what is this questionaire for? Is Momus making a vj show?

(dodgy stereo - barrys electric workshop - Belfast - N.Ireland)

Re: vjing - personnal history

From: [identity profile] sam-solea.livejournal.com - Date: 2005-07-21 08:49 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: vjing - personnal history

From: [identity profile] thetemplekeeper.livejournal.com - Date: 2005-07-21 10:33 pm (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 09:32 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
the best vj graphics i saw was from the light surgeons and tomato's underworld projections. /clerk

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 10:15 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
an unusual spin on vj-ing:

http://www.tmema.org/mis/

and more about it here:

http://hct.ece.ubc.ca/nime/2005/proc/nime2005_115.pdf

Optronica

Date: 2005-07-21 10:22 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
This may tickle your fancy

http://www.optronica.org/index2.html

Re: Optronica

Date: 2005-07-21 11:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Ah yes, I already wrote to the organiser of Optronica. I wish I could have attended, but I had to leave London yesterday.

Thanks for these brilliant responses, everyone! The article is for the Adobe website, by the way.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 11:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] langerdan.livejournal.com
I'm currently listening to Masterview by Hexstatic (http://www.hexstatic.tv/). Hopefully this is the sort of thing you're looking for. I've never seen them live but there is some video on the site of a recent live performance.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 11:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slime-slime-sly.livejournal.com
2 Hm i'd like to say my work has really elaborate methods that involve filming live chickens, frogs and snakes directly on stage as they react to the music, or dancers performing in front of the projection walls that have clothes that match my animations, but unfortunately the market for this kind of thing in berlin only allows for laptops and a strict diet of techno music. my budget being very small, too, i'm mostly reduced to doing animation with stuff i find in the internet in my idle nights.
you can see my stuff at www.totalawesomeness.tk

3 i use arkaos because it's the software that allows my humble pc laptop to make best use of RAM and doesn't slow down with any clip

5 i'd like the clubs to be more collaborative, but mostly they don't really care, unless they want to impose their vision on you, which sometimes they go great lenghts to do (having a promoter staying over all night until we had finished the flyer the way he wanted it, then having to redo it because it looked crap). bands are better, i've worked closely with a couple of bands and it was great, but it doesn't happen often due to time/budget/whatever

6 it's sometimes really difficult to match your stuff with what happens there...like if you have some psychedelic trancey stuff and you end up in a rock n roll club (like, that kind of thing happens all the time actually) and you have to go ahead and play for 6 hours even though it's absolutely impossible to make it fit together. i spent a while trying to make an archive of animations that would fit every mood & music style, but during the process i lost all coherence and my energies became dilluted.


9 i kind of want to go back to painting in caves actually.
feels more like a big letdown to me. all this doesn't add anything. It's not like the world has turned upside down and the gods come down mounting dinosaurs to cook gigantic pizzas and build the Abstract Continent in the middle of the pacific ocean. Which would be the logical evolution to me. i'm rambling now. sounding very negative today ain't i.

VJ

Date: 2005-07-21 11:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] audiodregs.livejournal.com
2. i VJ a couple times per month, but don't feature it on my website, as its' not my main thing. there are some media clips online though: http://www.audiodregs.com/erock/

3. i use custom flash interface that karl from milky elephant made for mumbleboy. it's probably too specialized for the average person, but it's made to fit our style perfectly.

4. mixing and layering hundreds of flash loops made by myself and mumbleboy. you saw a bit of this when you DJed that show with us in Berlin a couple years ago!

5. it's very interactive, in that i always respond to the music when i mix visuals. it's also a collaboration with mumbleboy in that we share flash files for mixing.

6. i don't really design in realtime as much as compose and collage with pre-made flash files. it's very elastic. kinya has been doing this really cool thing where he sets up a camera and mixes people's drawings with his VJ set. he did the other month at an AIGA after party a couple months ago when i was in NY and it went over really well.

7. i don't see many people push the medium very hard, but i'm picky.

8. it depends on the music. i saw beck play the other night and appreciated how retrained the VJ was, it added rather than distracted from the band. when i play a laptop show i want as much visual stimulus as possible to make up for the fact that i'm a boring laptop dude who sings occasionally.

9. some nights read, some nights watch a show. percentage wise there's as many bad books as bad shows i would say. or bad movies for that matter. the good ones are rare, so always nice to find ones that inspire.

10. yes dear, its as much art as you make it. i wish you could have seen the shadow puppet visuals that went on behind you the last show you played in portland. it was really fun and appropriate, and i haven't seen them do it since!

Re: VJ

Date: 2005-07-21 11:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
kinya has been doing this really cool thing where he sets up a camera and mixes people's drawings with his VJ set.

Yes, I intervied Kinya in New York and he told me about this. Thanks for your answers, Eric!

Less is more

Date: 2005-07-21 12:03 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
from a non-VJing member of the audience:

Generally, less is more for me. I would rather listen to music with no pictures, or look at a giant video installation in silence. However, this brings to mind what would be a peak VJ experience. I believe there is, on a biographical video, a John Cage/Merce Cunningham piece with projected films or television snippets behind the live chance operations. Extremely compelling in its layered black and whiteness - perhaps not as good in person and in colour?

Nothing new, but the avant-grandparent of it all!

CINEMA dub MONKS

Date: 2005-07-21 01:08 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Hi, Nick. Coincidentally I saw "VJ" several days ago.
CINEMA dub MONKS, Okinawa based musicians.
They're cool duo...or trio.

http://www.softlyrecords.com/o/index.php?page=/front_end/sections/detail.php?ID=932

Keiko T.

Re: CINEMA dub MONKS

Date: 2005-07-21 03:28 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
best VJ graphics... cornelius' of course!

Last night a VJ shaved my wife.

Date: 2005-07-21 04:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] instant-c.livejournal.com
1. You're not a VJ yourself, but you have a favorite VJ or a peak experience in a dark place involving the combination of visuals and music. Tell me about it!
A1. The Soft Pink Truth has some great gay porn visuals for his show.

2. You are a VJ yourself. Tell me about your work! Do you have a website?
A2. Like many other VJ's, I went to "art school" and became more interested in sound/music/performance. Thanks to Max/Msp and its peripheral programs( i.e Jitter) I was able to integrate and literally synthesize my interests into a physical form. Of the projects I am most proud is an "Improv Folk Song Generator" which compiles guitar samples and plays them back based on the colours you are wearing. Another Piece included four videos of various anonymous daily activity which can be looped, sped up or slowed down to provide a "video concrete" background for live instruments. Yes, I have a web site. No it is not yet functional.

3. What experience do you have of VJ hardware and software? Name names! Tell me your good and bad experiences with various packages. Have you customized your software or hardware? I use mainly Max/Msp with Jitter and Cyclops. I have used the standard design software( adobe/macromedia) programs for pre-production. I am aware that there are VJ programs with pre-made everything, but have not exploited them yet. Nato is a good program, but notorious for it's super-villain like creator's mythic confusion tactics.

4. What's your live set-up? Do you mix live feed from cameras in the club (or arena, if you're that big!) with pre-recorded graphic loops? Do you doodle on top of found Super 8? How do you work? I think one should be prepared to use all of the aspects you have listed. Since program failure is quite common, it's best if you have a few back up plans. I have often used nintendo's, flash, and live feed. No Stan Brakhage homages from me currently.

5. Is your work a collaboration, and if so, who does what? Do you consider the bands you work with clients or collaborators?
A5.Everything in the environment is a collaborator really. The audience can be the most difficult and important one.

6. Tell me about being a designer who works in real time, there in the club, responding to unpredictable events. Is it, well, like playing an endless sax solo or something? Isn't that a tough thing to do, to "design" right there in public, in real time?
A6.I see it less as a sax solo and more as a visual refrigerator. It is something that is running in the background of the event itself. Always present yet not always recognized.

7. How would you like to see VJing develop in the future? Are there amazing new capabilities you'd like to see built into software? (Personally, I'd like to see "the scent organ" from Brave New World implemented.)
A7. It would be interesting to see how close to manipulating each object in a live feed one could get, making a virtual "murakami" out of peoples faces, etc. I imagine programmers would call it Rubberbandage, or something like that.

8. Question for the audience. Do you actually watch what's on the screen behind the band? Where does it take you, if anywhere? Is less more, or is more more?
A8. I personally enjoy when the video is actually part of the plot.

9. Um, a question about Marshall McLuhan might fit here. Marshall McLuhan and lava lamps and Pink Floyd and the gesamtkunswerk and living in a gloopy web of electronic goo... Have all the arts come together? Is it a big meltdown or a big letdown? Should we all go and read a good book instead?
A9.Yes, go read a book. The arts might be melting together, however the agenda seems to be one more of arts becoming absent of itself in order to justify its importance. The Spectacle and all that jazz....

10. Is there anything I didn't ask you and should have? Oh, okay: "But is it art?"
A10. According to Gilbert and George, or according to Garp?

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 04:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fidgital.livejournal.com
1. Best VJ Experience - Coldcut in concert. Black & More simultaneously DJ and VJ and play their own music. They're set up with synths, laptops for music, laptops for video, and turntables. Their video clips are triggered and scratched using their own VJamm software, which incorporates sound and video. In their song "Timber", for example, they use video clips of axes, chainsaws, bulldozers, and other thematically appropriate subject matter. They even play a chainsaw solo just by scratching the video. Actually, I found the experience put me into a sensory overload condition, possibly because I was the only totally sober person in the room. I actually had to close my eyes, and later, to leave the room, just hearing the music without being compelled to take in the incredible visuals.

2. I've only dabbled in VJing, mostly for the purposes of showing Fidgital's VJ (Mr. David Langtry) what I want him to do for our concerts.

3. I've only used VJamm. No really good or bad things to report.

4. Our live set-up has VJing from an iMac, two CC cameras (mobile when we have transmitters), and a DVD player, with a mixer that boasts several video manipulation effects.

5. Fidgital's lead singer (who is also our graphic designer) incorporates his own ideas and mine into designs and animations which our VJ then incorporates into the material he's manipulating for the show. Our drummer also runs a video production studio so that helps for sourcing and editing our own material!

6. I know our VJ found it intimidating at first but his background is in TV and film, so he wasn't really used to the live improvisational aspect. He's since become much more enthusiastic.

7. VJing can be incredible as is, but I would like to see more projection and animation all around the audience, rather than just the "movie screen" or "stage" focal point. If people are to dance and otherwise interact, I don't believe they should be compelled to all face in the same direction. There should be choices, plus the opportunities and costs which accompany them. But I suppose, in light of my Coldcut experience, that there should also be a "safety valve", allowing people to opt out of the visual components while still enjoying the audio.

8. Yes I watch the video, although sometimes I'm more interested in the moving light which plays over the members of the band and their equipment. I would say less is more AND more and more - but what's really necessary is contrast. For our recent big show with the Herbaliser, we had prepared a special VJ experience, but were unable to use it, instead just getting the same lightshow as the Herbaliser. Upon viewing the video of the concert, I had to admit that nothing was lacking! The VJ content would have been great, but on a big stage with fantastic lighting, we didn't really need it.

9. Part of what allows us to put everything of our spare time into Fidgital is that all of the arts are coming together in this. We make and perform the music, yes, but 2D visual art, design, animation, video, prose, poetry, fashion design, dance, theatre, performance art... all of this is part of it. We haven't figured out how to incorporate sculpture yet but we'll keep you updated.

10. It's art! I always make a point to go and talk to VJs whose work I admire after seeing them perform.

Hope that helps Nick! Sorry I don't comment too much but I do read your LJ every day!

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 07:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anuisance2you.livejournal.com
Some of the best VJing I have seen is from a band called PulsePrograming, who are out of Chicago I think. For a while they were opening for seemingly every vaguely electronic band I saw, so I've had the opportunity to see them 3-4 times.

Here's the only really informative link I could dig up. http://www.aesthetics-usa.com/artists/pulseprogramming/bio.html

That site describes them as "a Multimedia Collaboration" and lists the a Film/video person amongst the band members.

The live shows included a screen front and center of the stage with the band behind and off to the sides of the stage, often obscured by the screen. The video seems to be proprietary and not "found" or stock stuff, and many of them seemed as if they were just high quality home movies or goofy videos of people dancing, riding bikes, wheeling around an office on a chair, etc. The great part of it was that the video seemed to be tied to the performance in some very physical way. The video would stutter or reverse in conjunction with the beats. I'm not sure if there was a microphone in the video rig that sensed that or if there was some sort of midi setup or what, but what at first seemed like random shifts in the video, were clearly tied to the musical performance. Like those old disco lights that were tied to the VU meters on your hi-fi.

Cornelius was also a good VJ show, interacting with the music as well as the performers. And Monster Magnet had a good show back when they were the middle band of a 3 band metal set in a 1200 person venue. It was an overhead projector with a set of colored oils being pushed around by a little electric stirrer.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-07-21 09:01 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Ambrose (ambrosewhite@yahoo.com) says: a couple of things:

- in my experience, VJs tend to do two things that leave room for improvement: rely on too small a stock of images, so that familiar loops constantly reappear without progressing the experience. secondly, they fail to provide a cioherent narrative, or sense of meaning. VJing strays dangerously into the territory of those who continously set up hours of on stage laptop and FX tweaking and fiddling, which is fun to produce but for an audience, is often entirely unsuccessful. viz The Commitments "jazz is musical wanking". The scope for VJs to produce something amazing, coherent and relevant is extremely apparent, but the reality seems to boil down to little more than 10 or so clips cycled and cut up.

- i have seen some Vjs achieve something greater than the sum of their parts, unfortunately I cant rememeber realyl any in particular.

- finally, you might like to look here: http://www.aufderlichtung.de/
some german VJs, it seems, from hamburg, who havea very natty site, and its fun to look at that even if you cant gain anything else from it. I foudn ti through betalounge, looking for a dj koze video set that is apparently hosted by aufderlichtung, but I have wasted far too much time trying to hunt for it on their site.

Hey Momus

Date: 2005-07-21 09:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vj-grasshopper.livejournal.com
I'm a VJ in Vancouver, Canada. You can find plenty of info about what I do, including my demo reel, at www.vjgrasshopper.com.

Here's some quick answers to your questions:

1. n/a

2. My website is www.vjgrasshopper.com. My work has consisted mostly of doing live visuals for DJs; however, I am leaning toward working more in performance settings, such as dance and theatre. I have written an article called "Notes toward a Kino-stage" that I will posting on my website shortly. Or, if you're interested, I could e-mail to you.

3. I work with VDMX and GRID PRO made by the good folks at Vidvox (www.vidvox.net). Their programs are fantastic, and enable me to mix video clips with a live video input. VDMX also has a feature called Fontsynth, which allows me to type in words that are instantly projected. I never thought I'd use it, but it turned out to be damn handy.

4. Recorded clips + live input + fontsynth. I've also built a kaleidascopic extension for my mini-DV camcorder that creates some wild effects. There are some examples of these on the demo reel on my website.

5. I haven't participated in any collaborations with musicians, so I suppose their all clients to me.

6. It's tricky. Sometimes I try to match the tempo and feel of the music. Sometimes I respond more to the crowd around me. Last week there were a bunch of aggro drunken guys milling around, so I started playing slow, psychedelic stuff. I'm not sure how much it helped, but the drunks did shut up.

7. My ambition is combine audio and video mixing. Become a kind of A/V-J. This desire started, somewhat unconciously, when I was back in film school making conventional 16mm films. We edited the celluloid directly on an ancient monster of a machine called a Steenbeck. This is a tedious process, and often late at night, all sleep deprived, the other editors and I would begin to toggle the film back and forth, playing it at one quarter speed forwards, then 8x speed backwards, and so on, creating all kinds of fascinating audio and visual effects. Just what we needed to break the tedium of all night editing. I started to realize that these impromtu Steenbeck mixes were often more interesting than the resulting finished films, and this started me down the path to VJ-dom. Now, I want to re-create some of these strange moments by stretching and bending not only the visual element of video, but its audio component as well. Often, conventional, silent VJ-ing results in nothing more than gooey wallpaper. So, I hope that in the future, we VJs get past that.

8. n/a

9. I hope all the arts continue to come together. When a VJ is considered a musician, then I'll be happy.

10. You know it's art! And I actually have a 'Live Visuals FAQ' on my website that includes other basic Q & A.

Where can we read your VJ article?

Re: Hey Momus

Date: 2005-07-22 12:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Thanks for your answers! The article should be online at Adobe's site somewhere in a month or so.

Re: Hey Momus

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2005-07-24 01:20 pm (UTC) - Expand
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