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

Last night a VJ shaved my wife.

[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?