Resolume Forum

aestheticcataclysm wrote:I don't want to dig up a dead thread, but this was actually the thread that led me to want to register here

I'm not even a VJ and have no formal experience with any visual arts, so this is a outsiders point of view.
I believe a "VJ" is or at least can be an artist. It's just there are a limited number of tools and the mediums of enjoying it right now. I believe limiting yourself to being called a VJ instead of an artist is incorrect. VJ is a job title, but art spans all mediums, even if ever so slightly.


Most of my experience with visual arts comes from the music industry and the live performances of various artist. So for me I see the music and visuals as one and the same. Any performance can be as prepackaged/artistically presented as the creator demands. We only see this separation between these two mediums because of (# 1) our senses and more importantly (# 2) our ability/tools too intake/create them. Excluding dreams and psychoactive hallucinogens; we can only change are ability to intake and create.

The act of creating art is not only in the hands of the artist, but in the hands of the observer. I've only recently stumbled onto the VJ scene and programs like Resolume, but even so I do feel something coming. Visual arts is approaching (if not into) what music industry was in the late 90's. It's going from tapes to MP3's and it is indeed changing everything of what visual a performance once was. What the iPod did for music still hasn't hit the visual community. It may sound absurd now, but I believe it's coming. I don't think everyone will being watching your VJ performance on their iPhone 7s, but as visual technology rapidly expands and becomes cheaper we will see a huge shift in visual arts. I believe the video medium will become what the still image medium is today.


The problem with asking, "What is a VJ?" in today's age is this. Video artist have been confined to cathode ray tubes and projectors since the traditional "VJ's" inception, but the lines are beginning to blur now! Live performances and digital mediums are allowing great change and a new age of 'visuals' is coming. Like I said, I believe a VJ has to be understood as a job title in the same way a Video Editor, Director, or Producer is. In fact I believe the traditional VJ's are likely to go the way of the DJ. Only some will be left and even fewer will be 'on top'.

But even so I have high hopes for the VJ community.
I hope they can conform too the markets that they can lead in the future.
I hope VJ's can except other forms as art and incorporate them too create new mediums.
I hope to be deeply rooted in this in the coming years and I wish all of you the best of luck.

And I hope I do not come off too strong, but this is a outsiders point of view.

Is it Art?

What is Art?

[mass noun] the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power:

To me if a visual makes people stop and think then its art.

http://www.spectrumdisco-dj.co.uk

Hahahahahaha

I also have a background in painting, though not a degree, I have been a practicing painter for about 10 years and have been working with live visuals and animation for the last 2. Working across the board really, sometimes as a motion graphics/animation artist, sometimes as a VJ, sometimes just helping others with mapping, and although I don't have any interest in making 'video art' on my own right now, as in stuff that is finished and set and stuck in a gallery space, I am finding more and more collaborative opportunities emerging in the art world. Have a look at people like Nonotak and AntiVJ if you want to get an impression of where some artists are exploring the methodology and technology of live AV performance and installation in an exciting way (exciting for my tastes at least). Regardless of the platform being an 'artist' or not, for me, comes down to the approach, are you exploring things? Working to your own ideas? And so on. I'm at a point now where I don't know what to call my profession or career, but I work in a visual world, and make my own content all the time.

ScamOne wrote:I have a degree in painting from the School of Visual Arts in New York so I have a background in traditional art in the historical sense... I have been VJing for about 6 months now, and have just started to do it professionally. 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.

If you are creating material, or are at least using film footage and cutting it up and effecting it -then I think you can take it to the level of an art form. If you're just mixing graphics in time to beats, then you are not. Its really dificult to say.

This goes with all facets of art though. Much of contemporary painting I wouldn't call art either. Standards have fallen across the board I think. I look at the work from all the top vjs in the world and though I really haven't seen as much as I need to, I don't think its there yet.

I believe improvising is something very special though. You act without thinking and are drawing an intelligence from sources that science cannot study.

I think the discussion on whether or not VJing is an art form or simply a production is similar to that of photography. When I think of friends I have that are photographers, I realize that many of them got into because their love of the aesthetics they experienced in photography at a younger age. After getting into it in high school and maybe even studying it in college, they realize they have to make a buck somehow, which might not exactly fulfill their creative thirst (ex: wedding gigs, corportate gigs etc).

When I think about VJing, I remember one of the 1st experiences I had watching live videos behind music was at a metal show when I was in high school. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever, and then when I got into VJing it was to be an artist. But like photographers, you have to make a buck somehow.

Final thought is that I think all VJs are artists, despite the fact that every gig isn't exactly an artful experience. As long as you keep up with your creative side that is.