Hey VJ!

[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.)

Comments

[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

[(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

[sam-solea.livejournal.com]

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

Isn't it something like 'Trachtenberg'?

Re: vjing - personnal history

[thetemplekeeper.livejournal.com]

Yes.