VJ (video performance artist)
Encyclopedia
VJing is a broad designation for realtime visual performance. Characteristics of VJing are the creation or manipulation of imagery in realtime through technological mediation and for an audience, in synchronization to music. VJing often takes place at events such as concerts, nightclubs, music festivals and sometimes in combination with other performative arts. This results in a live multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...

 performance that can include music, actors and dancers. The term VJing became popular in its association with MTV's Video Jockey but its origins date back to the New York club scene of the 70s. In both situations VJing is the manipulation or selection of visuals, the same way DJing is a selection and manipulation of audio.

One of the key elements in the practice of VJing is the realtime mix of content from a "library of media", on storage media such as VHS tapes or DVDs, video and still image files on computer hard drives, live camera input, or from a computer generated visuals. In addition to the selection of media, VJing mostly implies realtime processing of the visual material. The term is also used to describe the performative use of generative software, although the word "becomes dubious (...) since no video is being mixed".

Antecedents

Historically, VJing gets its references from art forms that deal with the synesthetic experience
Synesthesia in art
The phrase synesthesia in art has historically referred to a wide variety of artistic experiments that have explored the co-operation of the senses The phrase synesthesia in art has historically referred to a wide variety of artistic experiments that have explored the co-operation of the senses The...

 of vision and sound. These historical references are shared with other live audiovisual art forms, such as Live Cinema, to include the camera obscura, the panorama and diorama, the magic lantern
Magic lantern
The magic lantern or Laterna Magica is an early type of image projector developed in the 17th century.-Operation:The magic lantern has a concave mirror in front of a light source that gathers light and projects it through a slide with an image scanned onto it. The light rays cross an aperture , and...

, color organ
Color organ
The term color organ refers to a tradition of mechanical , then electromechanical, devices built to represent sound or to accompany music in a visual medium—by any number of means. In the early 20th century, a silent color organ tradition developed...

, and liquid light shows
Liquid light shows
Liquid light shows or psychedelic light shows surfaced in the mid 1960s and early 1970s in America and Europe.Leading names were Glen McKay’s Headlights The Joshua Light Show/Joe's Lights/Sensefex located in NY), Tony Martin Liquid light shows or psychedelic light shows surfaced in the mid 1960s...

.
The color organ is a mechanism to make colors correspond to sound through mechanical and electromechanic means. Bainbridge Bishop, who contributed to the development of the color organ, was "dominated with the idea of painting music". In a book from 1893 that documents his work, Bishop states: "I procured an organ, and experimented by building an attachment to the keys, which would play with different colored lights to correspond with the music of the instrument."

Between 1919 and 1927, Mary Hallock-Greenewalt
Mary Hallock-Greenewalt
Mary Elizabeth Hallock-Greenewalt was an inventor and pianist who performed with the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh symphonies as a soloist...

, a piano soloist, created a new technological art form called Nourathar, which means "essence of light" in Arabic. Her light music consisted of environmental color fields that produced a scale of light intensities and color. "In place of a keyboard, the Sarabet had a console with graduated sliders and other controls, more like a modern mixing board. Lights could be adjusted directly via the sliders, through the use of a pedal, and with toggle switches that worked like individual keys."
In clubs and private events in the 1960s "people used liquid-slides, disco balls and light projections on smoke to give the audience new sensations. Some of these experiments were linked to the music, but most of the time they functioned as decorations." These came to be known as liquid light shows.
From 1965 to 1966 in San Francisco, the visual shows by artist collectives such as The Joshua Light Show
The Joshua Light Show
The Joshua Light Show, created by Joshua White, was one of the trailblazing liquid light shows renowned for its psychedelic art lighting a backdrop behind many live band performances at the Fillmore East in the East Village area of New York City, USA, during the late sixties and early seventies.-...

 and the Brotherhood of Light accompanied The Grateful Dead concerts, which were inspired by the Beat generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

–in particular the Merry Pranksters
Merry Pranksters
The Merry Pranksters were a group of people who formed around American author Ken Kesey in 1964 and sometimes lived communally at his homes in California and Oregon...

–and fueled by the "expansion of consciousness" from the Acid Tests
Acid Tests
The Acid Tests were a series of parties held by Ken Kesey in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid 1960s, centered entirely around the use of, experimentation with, and advocacy of, the psychedelic drug LSD, also known as "acid."...

.

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable
Exploding Plastic Inevitable
The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, sometimes simply called Plastic Inevitable or EPI, was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol between 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico, screenings of Warhol's films, and dancing and performances by...

, between 1966 and 1967, organized by Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 contributed to the fusion of music and visuals in a party context. "The Exploding Party project examined the history of the party as an experimental artistic format, focusing in particular on music visualization - also in live contexts"

Important events

During late 1970s video and music performance became more tightly integrated. At concerts, a few bands started to have regular film/video along with their music. Experimental film maker Tony Potts was considered an unofficial member of The Monochrome Set
The Monochrome Set
The Monochrome Set are an English post-punk band originally formed in 1978 from the remnants of a college group called The B-Sides...

 for his work on lighting design and film making for projections for live shows. Test Department initially worked with "Bert" Turnball as their resident visual artist, creating slideshows and film for live performances. The organization, Ministry of Power included collaborations with performance groups, traditional choirs and various political activists.
Industrial bands
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...

 would perform in art contexts, as well as in concert halls, and often with video projections. Groups like Cabaret Voltaire
Cabaret Voltaire (band)
Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...

 started to use low cost video editing equipment to create their own time-based collages for their sound works. In their words, "before [the use of video], you had to do collages on paper, but now you present them in rhythm—living time—in video." The film collages made by and for groups such as the Test Dept
Test Dept
Test Dept were an industrial music group from London, one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by a strong commitment to radical socialist politics.-History:...

, Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle were an English industrial, avant-garde music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions...

 and San Francisco's Tuxedomoon
Tuxedomoon
Tuxedomoon is an experimental post-punk/New Wave group formed in San Francisco, California, consisting of core members Blaine L. Reininger, Steven Brown and Peter Principle....

 became part of their live shows.

An example of mixing film with live performance is that of Public Image Ltd. at the Ritz Riot in 1981. This club, located on the East 9th St in New York, had a state of the art video projection system. It was used to show a combination of prerecorded and live video on the club's screen. PiL played behind this screen with lights rear projecting their shadows on to the screen. Expecting a more traditional rock show, the audience reacted by pelting the projection screen with beer bottles and eventually pulling down the screen.

Technological developments

With the advent of the first audio synthesizers built by Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

 in the '70s, image synthesizing was not far behind. An artist retreat in Owego New York called Experimental Television Center
Experimental Television Center
The Experimental Television Center is a one of a kind video art production studio in Owego, New York. Since its foundation in 1971, the center has been instrumental to the field of video art by providing artists with the tools of video art production through artist residencies and grants...

, founded in 1971, made contributions to the development of many artists by gathering the experimental hardware created by video art pioneers: Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....

, Steve Rutt and Bill Etra
Bill Etra
Bill Etra is a live video pioneer and the co-inventor of the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer. Bill is a founding member of The Kitchen. He is currently developing a video synthesizer plug-in that emulates the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer.Mr...

, and made the equipment available to artists in an inviting setting for free experimentation. Many of the outcomes debuted at the nightclub Hurrah
Hurrah (nightclub)
Hurrah was a nightclub located at 32 West 62nd Street in New York City from 1976 until 1980. Under the management of Jim Fouratt it became known as the first rock disco in New York, and pioneered the use of music videos in nightclubs, placing video monitors around the club, over a year before the...

 which quickly became a new alternative for video artists who could not get their avant garde productions aired on regular broadcast outlets. Similarly, music video development was happening in other major cities around the world, providing an alternative to mainstream television.

A notable image processor is the Sandin Image Processor
Sandin Image Processor
The Sandin Image Processor is a video synthesizer, usually introduced as the "video equivalent of a Moog audio synthesizer," invented by Dan Sandin. That is, it accepted basic video signals and mixed and modified them in a fashion similar to what a Moog synthesizer did with audio...

 (1971), primarily as it describes what is now commonly referred to as open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

.


The Dan Sandin Image Processor, or "IP," is an analog video processor with video signals sent through processing modules that route to an output color encoder. The IP's most unique attribute is its non-commercial philosophy, emphasizing a public access to processing methods and the machines that assist in generating the images. The IP was Sandin's electronic expression for a culture that would "learn to use High-Tech machines for personal, aesthetic, religious, intuitive, comprehensive, and exploratory growth." This educational goal was supplemented with a "distribution religion" that enabled video artists, and not-for-profit groups, to "roll-your-own" video synthesizer for only the cost of parts and the sweat and labor it took to build it. It was the "Heathkit
Heathkit
Heathkits were products of the Heath Company, Benton Harbor, Michigan. Their products included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and...

" of video art tools, with a full building plan spelled out, including electronic schematics and mechanical assembly information. Tips on soldering, procuring electronic parts and Printed Circuit boards, were also included in the documentation, increasing the chances of successfully building a working version of the video synthesizer.

Important events

The rise of electronic music (especially in house and techno genres) and DJ club culture provided more opportunities for artists to create live visuals at events. The popularity of MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 lead to greater and better production of music videos for both broadcast and VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

, and many clubs began to show music videos as part of entertainment and atmosphere.

Joe Shannahan (owner of Metro in 1989-1990) was paying artists for video content on VHS. Part of the evening they would play MTV music videos and part of the evening they would run mixes from local artists Shanahan had commissioned.

Medusa's (an all-ages bar in Chicago) incorporated visuals as part of their nightly art performances throughout the early to mid 80s (1983–85). Also in Chicago during the mid-80s was Smart Bar, where Metro held "Video Metro" every Saturday night.

Technological developments

In the 1980s the development of relatively cheap transistor and integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...

 technology allowed the development of digital video effects hardware at a price within reach of individual VJs and nightclub owners.

One of the first commercially distributed video synthesizers available in 1981 was the CEL Electronics Chromascope sold for use in the developing nightclub scene. The Fairlight Computer Video Instrument (CVI), first produced in 1983, was revolutionary in this area, allowing complex digital effects to be applied in real time to video sources. The CVI became popular amongst television and music video producers and features in a number of music videos from the period. The Commodore Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

 introduced in 1985 made a breakthrough in accessibility for home computers and developed the first computer animation programs for 2D and 3D animation that could produce broadcast results on a desktop computer.

Important events

A number of recorded works begin to be published in the 1990s to further distribute the work of VJs, such as the Xmix compilations (beginning in 1993), Future Sound of London's "Lifeforms"(VHS, 1994), Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network is the name of a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post and Brian Kane . Kane left EBN in 1992...

's "Telecommunication Breakdown" (VHS, 1995), Coldcut
Coldcut
Coldcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...

 and Hexstatic
Hexstatic
Hexstatic is a UK music duo, consisting of Stuart Warren Hill and Robin Brunson, that specializes in creating "quirky audio visual electro." Formed in 1997 after Hill and Brunson met while producing visuals at the Channel Five launch party, they decided to take over for the original members of the...

's "Timber" (VHS, 1997 and then later on CDRom including a copy of VJamm VJ software), the "Mego Videos" compilation of works from 1996-1998 (VHS/PAL, 1999) and Addictive TV
Addictive TV
Addictive TV was formed in 1992. The UK DJ/producers and audiovisual artists are the team who ran Optronica - the visual music and VJ event held at the NFT and British Film Institute IMAX in London, UK....

's 1998 television series "Transambient" for the UK's Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 (and DVD release).

Also of note is the CD release of Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...

 "Odyssey Through O2
Odyssey Through O2
Odyssey Through O2 is an album by various artists, released in 1998. It contains remixes of tracks from Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygène 7–13 album, as well as the "Rendez-Vous 98" single. It also contains a computer program, JArKaos, a scaled down version of the ArKaos software used by Jarre to produce...

" that came with a copy of the ArKaos
ArKaos
ArKaos is an application for live visual performance, conceived as a visual sampler for video loops that can be triggered from the computer, or through a hardware interface...

 software (1998).

In the United States, the emergence of the rave
Rave
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...

 scene is perhaps to be credited for the shift of the VJ scene from nightclubs into underground parties. From around 1991 until 1994, Mark Zero would do film loops at Chicago raves and house parties. One of the earliest large-scale Chicago raves was "Massive New Years Eve Revolution" in 1993, produced by Milwaukee's Drop Bass Network. It was a notable event as it featured the Optique Vid Tek (OVT) VJs on the bill. This event was followed by Psychosis, held on 3 April 1993, and headlined by Psychic TV
Psychic TV
Psychic TV or PTV, is a video art and music group that primarily performs psychedelic, punk, electronic and experimental music...

, with visuals by OVT Visuals. In San Francisco Dimension 7 were a VJ collective working the early West Coast rave scene beginning in 1993. Between 1996 and 1998, Dimension 7 took projectors and lasers to the Burningman festival, creating immersive video installations on the Black Rock desert.

In the UK groups such as The Light Surgeons  and Eikon were transforming clubs and rave events by combining the old techniques of liquid lightshows with layers of slide, film and video projections. Another collective, "Hex
Hex (VJ group)
Hex, or Hex Media, were a London-based multimedia group founded in the early 1990s by artist Robert Pepperell, coder Miles Visman and the DJs Coldcut...

" were working across a wide range of media - from computer games to art exhibitions - the group pioneered many new media hybrids, including live audiovisual jamming, computer-generated audio performances, and interactive collaborative instruments. This was the start of a trend which continues today with many VJs working beyond the club and dance party scene in areas such as installation art.

The Japanese book "VJ2000" (Daizaburo Harada, 1999) marked one of the earliest publications dedicated to discussing the practices of VJs.

Technological developments

The combination of the emerging rave scene, along with slightly more affordable video technology for home-entertainment systems, brought consumer products to become more widely used in artistic production. However, costs for these new types of video equipment were still high enough to be prohibitive for many artists.

There are four main factors that lead to the proliferation of the VJ scene in the 2000s:
  1. affordable and faster laptops;
  2. the release of the Edirol V4 four-channel video mixer in 2001; and
  3. drop in prices of video projectors (especially after the dot-com bust where companies were loading off their goods on craigslist)
  4. the emergence of strong rave scenes and the growth of club culture internationally


As a result of these, the VJ scene saw an explosion of new artists and styles. These conditions also facilitated a sudden emergence of a less visible (but nonetheless strong) movement of artists who were creating algorithmic, generative visuals.
This decade saw video technology shift from being strictly for professional film and television studios to being accessible for the prosumer
Prosumer
Prosumer is a portmanteau formed by contracting either the word professional or less often, producer with the word consumer. For example, a prosumer grade digital camera is a "cross" between consumer grade and professional grade...

 market (e.g. the wedding industry, church presentations, low-budget films, and community television productions). These mixers were quickly adopted by VJs as the core component of their performance setups. This is similar to the release of the Technics 1200 turntables, which were marketed towards homeowners desiring a more advanced home entertainment system, but were then appropriated by musicians and music enthusiasts for experimentation. Initially, video mixers were used to mix pre-prepared video material from VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

players and live camera sources, and later to add the new computer software outputs into their mix. The 90s saw the development of a number of digital video mixers such as Panasonic's WJ-MX50, WJ-MX12, and the Videonics MX-1.

In 1998, Roland
Roland Corporation
is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ¥33 million in capital. In 2005 Roland's headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. Today it has factories in Japan,...

 / Edirol released the V5 Video Canvas, which was a hybrid device featuring solid state storage of still images combined with a basic video mixer. The V5 marked an important transition point, where large music corporations saw an emerging market for video performance hardware. The products that followed the V5 have become the mainstay of VJ hardware setups.

Early desktop editing systems such as the NewTek Video Toaster
Video Toaster
The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of standard-definition and high-definition video in NTSC, PAL, and resolution independent formats on Commodore Amiga computers and subsequently on computers running the Windows operating system...

 for the Amiga computer were quickly put to use by VJs seeking to create visuals for the emerging rave
Rave
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...

 scene, whilst software developers began to develop systems specifically designed for live visuals such as O'Wonder's "Bitbopper".

The first known software for VJs was Vujak
Vujak
VuJak was the world's first video sampler, a VJ remix and mashup tool created in 1992 by Brian Kane, Lisa Eisenpresser, and Jay Haynes. The original name of the project was Mideo, but it was later changed to VuJak....

 - created in 1992 and written for the Mac
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

 by EBN artist Brian Kane for use by the video art group he was part of - Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network
Emergency Broadcast Network is the name of a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post and Brian Kane . Kane left EBN in 1992...

. In the mid-90s, Audio reactive pure synthesis (as opposed to clip-based) software such as Cthugha
Cthugha (software)
Cthugha is a music visualization computer program. It was written in the mid-90's by Kevin "Zaph" Burfitt, originally for the PC, and was later ported to other platforms. It was freely distributed.-History:...

 and Bomb were influential. By the late 90s there were several PC based VJing software available, including generative visuals programs such as MooNSTER, Aestesis, and Advanced Visualization Studio
Advanced Visualization Studio
Advanced Visualization Studio , is a music visualization plugin for Winamp. It was designed by Winamp's creator, Justin Frankel. AVS has a customizable design which allows users to create their own visualization effects, or "presets". AVS was made open source software in May 2005, released under a...

, as well as video clip players such as Motion Dive, ArKaos
ArKaos
ArKaos is an application for live visual performance, conceived as a visual sampler for video loops that can be triggered from the computer, or through a hardware interface...

, and VJamm.

Programming environments such as Max/MSP, Macromedia Director
Adobe Director
Adobe Director is a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia—now part of Adobe Systems. It allows users to build applications built on a movie metaphor, with the user as the "director" of the movie...

 and later Quartz Composer
Quartz Composer
Quartz Composer is a node-based visual programming language provided as part of the Xcode development environment in Mac OS X for processing and rendering graphical data....

 started to become used by themselves and also to create VJing programs like VDMX or pixmix. These new software products and the dramatic increases in computer processing power over the decade meant that VJs were now regularly taking computers to gigs.

Important events

The new century has brought new dynamics to the practice of visual performance. To be a VJ previously had largely meant a process of self-invention in isolation from others: the term was not widely known. Then through the rise of internet adoption, having access to other practitioners very became the norm, and virtual communities quickly formed. The sense of collective then translated from the virtual world onto physical spaces. This becomes apparent through the numerous festivals that emerge all over Europe with strong focus on VJing.

The VideA festival in Barcelona ran from 2000 - 2005., AVIT, clear in its inception as the online community of VJCentral.com self-organising a physical presence, had its first festival in Leeds (2002), followed by Chicago (2003), Brighton (2003), San Francisco (2004), and Birmingham (2005), 320x240 in Croatia (2003), Contact Europe in Berlin (2003). Also the Cimatics festival in Brussels should be credited as a pioneering event, with a first festival edition in 2002 completely dedicated to VJing. In 2003, the Finnish media arts festival PixelAche was dedicated to the topic of VJing, while in 2003, Berlin's Chaos Computer Club
Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club is an organization of hackers. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries.The CCC describes itself as "a galactic community of life forms, independent of age, sex, race or societal orientation, which strives across borders for freedom of...

 started a collaboration with AVIT organisers that featured VJ Camps and Congress
Chaos Communication Congress
The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual meeting of the international hacker scene, organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues....

 strands. LPM - Live Performers Meeting live video performers, visual artists and vj meeting was born in Rome in 2004 with the aim to answer to the need for creating a space-temporal referential field where to meet, know each other and share vjing related experiences, with an edition in Mexico in 2008, LPM is now an international meeting dedicated to artists, professionals and passionates of veejaying, visual and live video performance. The MUTEK
Mutek
Founded in 2000, MUTEK is an international festival organization dedicated to the promotion of electronic music and the digital arts. Its central platform is an annual five-day event in Montreal that takes place in late May and early June...

 festival (2000–present) in Montréal regularly featured VJs alongside experimental sound art performances, and later the Elektra Festival
Elektra Festival
Presented every year in May by , Festival is an internationally renowned digital arts festival established in Montreal since 1999.Renowned internationally as a cutting-edge festival, Elektra offers diverse experiences:...

 (2008–present) also emerged in Montréal and featured many VJ performances. In Perth, Australia, the Byte Me! festival (2007) showed the work of many VJs from the Pacific Rim area alongside new media theorists and design practitioners. Two festivals entirely dedicated to VJing, Mapping Festival
Mapping Festival
Mapping Festival is an international festival dedicated to live visuals, installation art and VJing. Held annually in Geneva, Switzerland, it features audiovisual and VJ performances in nightclubs and installations in gallery spaces...

 in Geneva and Vision'R in Paris, held their first edition in 2005. As these festivals emerged that prominently featured VJs as headline acts (or the entire focus of the festival), the rave festival scene also began to regularly include VJs in their main stage lineups with varying degrees of prominence.

With lesser funding, the US scene has been host to more workshops and salons than festivals. Between 2000-2006, Grant Davis (VJ Culture) and Jon Schwark of Dimension 7 produced "Video Salon", a regular monthly gathering significant in helping establish and educate a strong VJ community in San Francisco, and attended by VJs across California and the United States. In addition, they produced an annual "Video RIOT!" (2003–2005) as a political statement following the R.A.V.E. Act (Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act
Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act
The Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act, commonly known as the RAVE Act, was a bill proposed in the United States Senate during the 107th Congress...

) of 2003; a display of dissatisfaction by the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004; and in defiance of a San Francisco city ordinance limiting public gatherings in 2005.

Several VJ battles and competitions began to emerge during this time period, such as Video Salon's "SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...

 VJ Battle" in San Diego (2003), Videocake's "AV Deathmatch" series in Toronto (2006) and the "VJ Contests" at the Mapping Festival in Geneva (2009). These worked much like a traditional DJ battle where VJs would be given a set amount of time to show off their best mixes and were judged according to several criteria by a panel of judges.

Also around this time (in 2005 and 2007) UK artists Addictive TV
Addictive TV
Addictive TV was formed in 1992. The UK DJ/producers and audiovisual artists are the team who ran Optronica - the visual music and VJ event held at the NFT and British Film Institute IMAX in London, UK....

 teamed up with the British Film Institute to produce Optronica, a crossover event showcasing audiovisual performances at the London IMAX
London IMAX
The London IMAX is an IMAX cinema in the South Bank district of London, England, just north of Waterloo Station. It is operated by the British Film Institute.The cinema is located in the centre of a roundabout on Waterloo Road...

 cinema and BFI Southbank
BFI Southbank
BFI Southbank is the leading repertory cinema in the UK specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films and is operated by the British Film Institute.-History:...

.

Databases of visual content and promotional documentation became available on DVD formats and online through personal websites and through large databases, such as the "Prelinger Archives
Prelinger Archives
The Prelinger Archives is a collection of films relating to U.S. cultural history, the evolution of the American landscape, everyday life and social history...

" on Archive.org. Many VJs began releasing digital video loop sets on various websites under Public Domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

 or Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...

 licensing for other VJs to use in their mixes, such as Tom Bassford's "Design of Signage" collection (2006), Analog Recycling's "79 VJ Loops" (2006), VJzoo's "Vintage Fairlight Clips" (2007) and Mo Selle's "57 V.2" (2007).

Promotional and content based DVDs began to emerge, such as the works from the UK's ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...

 television series Mixmasters
Mixmasters
Mixmasters was a late-night music show, and later a DVD series, of audio-visual and DJ:VJ mixes produced by AV artists Addictive TV . The series ran from 2000 to 2005 and aired in the UK on ITV. It has since been screened in a number of countries worldwide...

 (2000–2005) produced by Addictive TV
Addictive TV
Addictive TV was formed in 1992. The UK DJ/producers and audiovisual artists are the team who ran Optronica - the visual music and VJ event held at the NFT and British Film Institute IMAX in London, UK....

, Lightrhythm Visuals (2003), Visomat Inc. (2002), and Pixdisc, all of which focused on the visual creators, VJ styles and techniques. These were then later followed by NOTV, Atmospherix, and other labels. Mia Makela curated a DVD for Mediateca of Caixa Forum called "LIVE CINEMA" in 2007, focusing on the emerging sister practice of "live cinema". Individual VJs and collectives also published DVDs and CD-ROMs of their work, including Eclectic Method's bootleg video mix (2002) and Eclectic Method's "We're Not VJs" (2005), as well as eyewash's "DVD2" (2004) and their "DVD3" (2008).

Books reflecting on the history, technical aspects, and theoretical issues began to appear, such as "The VJ Book: Inspirations and Practical Advice for Live Visuals Performance" (Paul Spinrad, 2005), "VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture" (Michael Faulkner and D-Fuse
D-Fuse AV
D-Fuse are a London-based audiovisual artist collective, who use emerging creative technologies to explore social and environmental issues. Founded in the mid 90’s by Michael Faulkner, the group’s diverse creative backgrounds combine in a cross-disciplinary practice, including live multi-screen...

, 2006), "vE-jA: Art + Technology of Live Audio-Video" (Xárene Eskandar [ed], 2006), and "VJ: Live Cinema Unraveled" (Tim Jaeger, 2006). The subject of VJ-DJ collaboration also started to become a subject of interest for those studying in the field of academic human–computer interaction
Human–computer interaction
Human–computer Interaction is the study, planning, and design of the interaction between people and computers. It is often regarded as the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design and several other fields of study...

 (HCI).

Technological developments

The availability and affordability of new consumer-level technology allowed many more people to get involved into VJing. The dramatic increase in computer processing power that became available facilitated more compact, yet often more complex setups, sometimes allowing VJs to bypass using a video mixer, using powerful computers running VJ software to control their mixing instead. However, many VJs continue to use video mixers with multiple sources, which allows flexibility for a wide range of input devices and a level of security against computer crashes or slowdowns in video playback due to overloading the CPU of computers due to the demanding nature of realtime video processing.

In 2001, Roland / Edirol released the V-4 Video mixer, a popular video mixer designed specifically for VJing. It features MIDI control to enable integration with digital music equipment, and quickly became adopted as a standard VJ mixer. Other companies (Korg
Korg
is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners...

 and Pioneer, for example), following the success of the V-4, launched visual mixers as well. The Edirol V-8 came out in 2008.
Today's VJs have a wide choice of off the shelf hardware products, covering every aspect of visuals performance, including video sample playback (Korg Kaptivator), real-time video effects (Korg Entrancer) and 3D visual generation (Edirol CG8).

The widespread use of DVDs gave initiative for scratchable DVD players (Pioneer DVJ-X1
Pioneer DVJ-X1
The DVJ-X1 is a DVD quasi-turntable that allows VJ's to scratch and mix video like a vinyl record. Released in 2004 and designed for professional use in clubs, it features real-time digital video scratching, looping and instant hot cueing. It has capability to sync video and audio streams even...

 and Pioneer DVJ-1000
Pioneer DVJ-X1
The DVJ-X1 is a DVD quasi-turntable that allows VJ's to scratch and mix video like a vinyl record. Released in 2004 and designed for professional use in clubs, it features real-time digital video scratching, looping and instant hot cueing. It has capability to sync video and audio streams even...

).

Many new models of MIDI controllers became available during the 2000s, which allow VJs to use controllers based on physical knobs, dials, and sliders, rather than interact primarily with the mouse/keyboard computer interface.

There are also many VJs working with experimental approaches to working with live video. Open source graphical programming environments (such as Pure Data
Pure Data
Pure Data is a visual programming language developed by Miller Puckette in the 1990s for creating interactive computer music and multimedia works. While Puckette is the main author of the program, Pd is an open source project with a large developer base working on new extensions to it. It is...

) are often used to create custom software interfaces for performances, or to connect experimental devices to their computer for processing live data (for example, the IBVA EEG
EEG
EEG commonly refers to electroencephalography, a measurement of the electrical activity of the brain.EEG may also refer to:* Emperor Entertainment Group, a Hong Kong-based entertainment company...

-reading brainwave unit, the Arduino
Arduino
Arduino is an open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible. The hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the Arduino board with an Atmel AVR...

 microprocessor, or circuit bending
Circuit bending
Circuit bending is the creative customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as low voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children's toys and small digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators....

 children's toys).

The second half of this decade also saw a dramatic increase in display configurations being deployed, including widescreen canvases, multiple projections and video mapped onto the architectural form. This shift has been underlined by the transition from broadcast based technology - fixed until this decade firmly in the 4x3 aspect ratio specifications NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...

 and PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

 - to computer industry technology, where the varied needs of office presentation, immersive gaming and corporate video presentation have led to diversity and abundance in methods of output. Compared to the ~640x480i fixed format of NTSC/PAL, a contemporary laptop using DVI can output a great variety of resolutions up to ~2500px wide, and in conjunction with the Matrox TripleHead2Go can feed three different displays with an image coordinated across them all.

Vjs have now started experimenting with different objects and playing different visuals on the object. The technique involves creating a mask of that object and then using a software to play visuals on it. The software like VVVV have an extra edge because of their capabilities to do 3d visual mapping. Recently, Puma in India launched their creative factory shoes using this technique.

Common technical setups

A significant aspect of VJing is the use of technology, be it the re-appropriation of existing technologies meant for other fields, or the creation of new and specific ones for the purpose of live performance. The advent of video is a defining moment for the formation of the VJ (video jockey).

Often using a video mixer, VJs blend and superimpose various video sources into a live motion composition. In recent years, electronic musical instrument makers have begun to make specialty equipment for VJing.
VJing developed initially by performers using video hardware such as videocameras, video decks and monitors to transmit improvised performances with live input from cameras and even broadcast TV mixed with pre-recorded elements. This tradition lives on with many VJs using a wide range of hardware and software available commercially or custom made for and by the VJs.

VJ hardware can be split into categories -
  • Source hardware generates a video picture which can be manipulated by the VJ, e.g. video camera
    Video camera
    A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...

    s and Video Synthesizer
    Video synthesizer
    A Video Synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video signal.A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators, as seen in the stillframes of motion sequences shown above. It can also accept...

    s.
  • Playback hardware plays back an existing video stream from disk or tape based storage mediums, e.g. VHS
    VHS
    The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

     tape players and DVD players.
  • Mixing hardware allows the combining of multiple streams of video e.g. a Video Mixer or a computer utilizing VJ software.
  • Effects hardware allows the adding of special effects to the video stream, e.g. Colour Correction units
  • Output hardware is for displaying the video signal, e.g. Video projector
    Video projector
    A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. All video projectors use a very bright light to project the image, and most modern ones can correct any curves, blurriness, and other...

    , LED display
    LED display
    An LED display is a flat panel display, which uses light-emitting diodes as a video display. An LED panel is a small display, or a component of a larger display. They are typically used outdoors in store signs and billboards, and in recent years have also become commonly used in destination signs...

    , or Plasma Screen.


There are many types of software a VJ may use in their work, traditional NLE production tools such as Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Apple's Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors...

 are used to create content for VJ shows. Specialist performance software is used by VJs to playback and manipulate video in realtime.

VJ performance software is highly diverse, many applications are developed by VJs themselves specifically to suit their own performance style. Graphical programming environments such as Max/MSP/Jitter, vvvv
Vvvv
vvvv is a general purpose toolkit with a special focus on real time video synthesis and programming large media environments with physical interfaces, real-time motion graphics, audio and video...

, Isadora
Isadora (software)
Isadora is a proprietary graphic programming environment for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, with emphasis on real-time manipulation of digital video. It has support for Open Sound Control. Isadora was designed by Mark Coniglio.-External links:* * * *...

 and Pure Data
Pure Data
Pure Data is a visual programming language developed by Miller Puckette in the 1990s for creating interactive computer music and multimedia works. While Puckette is the main author of the program, Pd is an open source project with a large developer base working on new extensions to it. It is...

 have developed to facilitate rapid development of such custom software without needing years of coding experience.

Small companies producing dedicated VJ software such as Modul8
Modul8
Modul8 is a software for live visual performance developed by GarageCube, a company established in 2005 by Yves Schmid and Boris Edelstein, based in Geneva, Switzerland...

, Resolume, VJamm, FLxER, VDMX, Livid CellDNA, CoGe, Grand VJ/ArKaos and CL Studio Live give VJs a sophisticated interface for realtime processing of multiple layers of video clips combined with live camera inputs, giving VJs a complete off the shelf solution so they can simply load in the content and perform.

An opensource video effects plugin architecture called Freeframe has been developed to allow sharing of realtime video effects plugins between VJ software.

Sample workflows

There are many types of configurations of hardware and software that a VJ may use to perform.

Research and reflective thinking

Several research projects have been dedicated to the documentation and study of VJing from the reflective and theoretical point of view. In the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo / Time Based Arts, Annet Dekker organized a research on the subject called VJ Cultuur – a state of flux. Dekker wrote widely on the history of VJing and its contextualization within the club culture. In the same year, 2005, VJ Theory began publishing texts written by practitioners and academics, and organizing collective discussions online and offline around subjects related to VJing and audiovisual performative practices.
Between 2005 and 2006 several books were published with interviews, showcasing works and related artists, providing an overview of the current practice.

Round tables, talks, presentations and discussions are part of festivals and conferences related to new media art, such as ISEA
Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts
ISEA, or Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts is "an international non-profit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organizations and individuals working with art, science and emerging technologies." ISEA was founded in the Netherlands...

 and Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival. Herbert W. Franke is one of its founders. It became its own festival and a yearly event in 1986. Its director until 1995...

 for example, as well as specifically related to VJing, as is the case of the Mapping Festival. Exchange of ideas through dialogue contributed to the shift of the discussion from issues related to the practicalities of production to more complex ideas and to the process and the concept. Subjects related to VJing are, but not exclusively: identity and persona (individual and collective), the moment as art, audience participation, authorship, networks, collaboration and narrative.
Through collaborative projects, visual live performance shift to a field of interdisciplinary practices.

Periodical publications, online and printed, launched special issues on VJing. This is the case of AMinima printed magazine, with a special issue on Live Cinema (which features works by VJs), and Vague Terrain (an online new media journal), with the issue The Rise of the VJ.

See also

  • Video art
    Video art
    Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...

  • Music visualization
    Music visualization
    Music visualization, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of music...

  • Video scratching
    Video scratching
    Video scratching is a video editing technique used within the music industry. It is a variation of the audio editing technique scratching.It is typically used in either music videos or live performances, with one or more individuals manipulating a video sample to make it follow the rhythm of...

  • New Media art festivals
    New Media art festivals
    -Hong Kong-=Austria:-Czech Republic:-Iceland:-Italy:=The Netherlands:...

  • Live event visual amplification
    Live event visual amplification
    Live performance events including theater, music, dance, opera, use production equipment and services like: staging, scenery, mechanicals, sound, lighting, video, special effects, transport, packaging, communications, costume and makeup to convince live audience members that there is no better...

  • Video synthesizer
    Video synthesizer
    A Video Synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video signal.A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators, as seen in the stillframes of motion sequences shown above. It can also accept...

  • DVJ
    DVJ
    DVJ, derived from the term "DJ" and its sister "VJ", is a term used to describe a combination of the two—in other words, a DJ who performs live using an audio-visual music player instead of an audio-only setup consisting of CD turntable players or vinyl-record turntables...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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