Resolume Forum

trilion99 wrote:Fact is that people don`t care if VJing is live or not. Actually I think they dont care about VJing at all. People go to the club to see other people, not to watch music videos, be they improvised or not. Be it art or not.

i don't agree with that one. It all depends on the way the image is shown, or to say better: "the experience can be experienced". a single TV in the Effenaar (club in Eindhoven) made people duck and almost crowl into it. In The paard (club in The Hague), i saw this huge circle-going images above my head (it really was everywhere) So the way of presenting is guiding for the way of noticing!

Other fact is that people DO watch, and you CAN influence that very much. A small example. I was VJ-ing at Worm (club in Rotterdamn) and that night i played together with a electro-guy (david vunk) his music made me go mad, and i decided to introduce my black and white set (i was so excited...)
Next thing happened was people stopped dancing and all noticing the b/w images. So I quickly started improvising on moving b/w bodies and b/w dancing people, which made some people interact with the screen. On which, of course, i reacted with great pleasure.

In my opinion VJ-ing is not at all a music video (in the sense of video-clip) but more a delicate a the moment chosen composition which carries the parties' expressions which are sensable.

In that sense it's more culture compared to art, but the difference can be really small. doing a vj-performance as an art is maybe more deepgoing, serious or personal. The fact that most images look like each other says enough to me. I just copied some images from somebody else (just for practicing :p, but i really believe in making your own imagery, which truly is an art)

I belive it is art and I have been fortunate to touch people with the work I have produced that has provoked emotional and spiritual responses and has encouraged interactivity, this is not always possible with other art forms, being able to interpret the setting and mood and lead the audience on a journey is both performance and an artform.

I do believe it is an art form. There is a lot of traditional art that raise the same question. Is a Jackson Pollock painting art? Sure a five year old can throw some paint at a canvas, but it's the story of Pollock's life that makes it art.
Is VJing art, i do think it is, as long as the VJ has produced his own artwork or uses some artwork in his own style so that it becomes his artwork. VJing is like a performance art.

mmm. i was actually reading the thread and says about problems of gf and bf..mmm. it doesnt sound like one. anyway, just to get involved, VJ-ing is an art, indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ9sCBuVoQA

trilion99 wrote:

Fact is that people don`t care if VJing is live or not. Actually I think they don't care about VJing at all. People go to the club to see other people, not to watch music videos, be they improvised or not. Be it art or not.

Anyway the great thing about VJing is that sometimes someone mistakes for the DJ.

I've had many people think I was a Live act or such due to the midi controllers I've messed with for sets. IMHO a nice gig is one that has you visible - not jammed in some dark cold space. I would sooner have viz than those annoying flashing club lights any day.

Sometimes a venue is better to have no visuals as the deco does its job well enough - or the visuals there just don't fit the rest of it. In a perfect world, we'd all have loads of time to plan accordingly but that is usually too much to hope for.

As for art or not, I think it's all relative - much like there is no bad music, just different styles. It cannot please everyone.

I think ScamOne sums it up pretty well.

wuzzle wrote:In a perfect world, we'd all have loads of time to plan accordingly but that is usually too much to hope for.

While it would be nice, I love improvising and doing things on the fly. After a while it becomes rythmatic and smooth. Everything just flows with the music. Even the way you move between computers, MIDI instruments, and video mixers. Is this an art? I say it depends on your perspective. One comparison that comes to mind is the way a VJ flows from one move to the next just like a ballerina would.

ScamOne wrote:I definately think it can be art, but I am not sure that I have seen it achieve that level yet. Most of the live footage is see seems to all look the same. Anonymous graphics pumped in time to equally meaningless and anonymous music.

I have achieved what I would consider the level of art many times but I will agree that most VJing is mindless graphics pumped out to the beat. I personally like a combination of mind melting flashy visuals for the chorus and art for the rest.
I do wholeheartedly disagree that most live footage looks the same. I personally believe that the camera is a video instrument in itself. First, I try to capture anything that would look good with the visuals I am currently showing and second, I try to capture the vibes throughout the room and get the crowd to interact.
I have been known to capture anything from the lighting, people dancing and screaming, DJ's performing upclose, and even myself creating live visuals with the camera and cell phones or glow sticks with a few effects applied on top.

César Ustarroz has published a book in Spanish that documents some theory behind VJing. Hopefully an English version will also be published.

Teoría del VJing
Realización y representación a tiempo real. Apropiación de retórica y estética de las vanguardias artísticas del s.XX

ISBN: 978-84-7954-703-5
http://www.teoriadelvjing.com

En el contexto de los nuevos medias y la cultura del remix, ubicado en un paisaje esculpido por los procesos de participación e interactividad, intermedialidad e interdisciplinariedad, hiperrealidad y realidad ampliada, surge el VJing como dispositivo dirigido a la realización y representación audiovisual a tiempo real. Se trata de una plataforma de creación audiovisual que retoma la preocupación por hallar un lenguaje análogo al lenguaje musical en lo estrictamente visual, una tradición por “pintar la música” que persigue la creación de un objeto audiovisual que surja de un fértil diálogo entre imágenes en movimiento y banda sonora.

En esta obra se cartografía, desde enfoques teóricos, analíticos y fenomenológicos, elterritorio en el que se mueven las acciones de VJing como gestos performativos que se inician en los ochenta en el escenario de la cultura de clubes y tienen su prolongación en la contemporaneidad. Presentamos un recorrido por las distintas vanguardias artísticas con las que el VJing conecta directa o indirectamente, retomando la genealogía estética y retórica en la cual se inscribe con el objetivo de entender este fenómeno, paradigma de los procesos que determinan la realización y representación de un objeto audiovisual a tiempo real.

1St post ever & I couldn’t think of a better place for it to end up.
I’ve been a VJ since about 1997 (although back then I didn’t know that what we did even had a name yet such history & culture). I’ve been a Resolume user & pursuer of this forum since 2006. As a VJ, teacher & artist I’ve come back to this thread countless times for enlightenment, verification, conformation, encouragement. In exploring new ways of using Resolume in the classroom I’m always curious to see how students will perceive this medium pre and post their first experience. Considering the youth of today plays a big part in determining what will be embraced or rejected in the future, I find their reactions interesting & prophetic. I’ve observed students approaching the program as both a live performance ‘instrument’ & a ‘tool’ for creating larger works of art. And when I asked them if what they were doing was art or entertainment they almost all agreed that they are one in the same.

As I move more & more towards incorporating live performance elements into my VJ gigs together with an extensive library of original and appropriated content I can’t help but view what we do as equal parts entertainment, art and social commentary. Like a moving collage we construct a visual language that can speaks both literally and conceptually.

I know am a story teller when I beam and I know that not all VJs take this approach. And don’t get me wrong, flashing lights of different colors and shapes can be real cool and effective when done just right but I’ve always been drawn to do more with the medium. I think the venues that open their doors to us & the people who inhabit them deserves more than mindless eye candy and from my experience this next generation is gearing up to give it to us, like it or not.

-Looking forward to being an active member of the community. Thanks to all who put in the hard work into making Resolume a reality, it changed my life & those of many other, I’m sure. Keep up the great work.

I think that just a couple of times the vjing can be art.
There are some guys that eventually can make art from entertaiment, sure!
But Vjing itself, don't introduce any formal news to the audiovisual theory, just standarize it over premade forms (the power of the applications).
In fact, today mostly of vjing is stucked on Paik and Fischinger.
The César Ustarroz's book is a very nice work, Bart.

Make your own footage? Simply Yes and No.
That question have non sense to me.

I don't want to dig up a dead thread, but this was actually the thread that led me to want to register here a while ago when I started using Resolume as a tool for creating visuals.

Coming from a background in fine arts as a contemporary surrealist painter, I usually work in oil but I've quickly grown really fond of the comparative immediacy of this process. I feel that in the right hands, it is absolutely an art form. There are a lot of 3D mappers showing up all over Atlanta but I'm really the only VJ in the sense that I have always understood the title. That would be somebody who does with video what a DJ does with music, who speaks a visual language. In my opinion, this firmly cements that role in the realm of artistic expression. As my sets become increasingly more elaborate, and I continue to move further towards a single cohesive audiovisual performance where I produce the music and the visuals simultaneously, I really do feel like this is a viable art form in the right hands. I've begun creating 3D versions of my paintings and incorporating them into my work, and it's clear to see crowds even into the thousands responding the same way that patrons of my gallery exhibitions do.