Week 11 Lecture

Our week 11 lecture was about VJ Culture. Vjing is a live visual performance, it involves the creation and adaptation of images in real-time through the use of technology, and it is synchronized to music.  VJ usually takes place at events such as concerts, nightclubs and music festivals.  One of the key elements of VJing is the real-time mix of content from a library of media, this library can include, VHS tapes, DVD's, still image and videos files stored on computer hard drives.  It can also include live camera footage; this can be very useful in a live situation.  Vjing is a very postmodern space, it's all about style and there are very little rules, although one important thing is that it is nearly always collaborative, it just works better when two or more people are involved.  Vjing brings together sound, technology and art, and is a very good example of 21^st century art.

Vjing properly started back in the 70's, and the first bands to really explore and use this art form, were bands like Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead.  The setup for an analog workflow of a VJ is below.  This will involve VHS Deck, DVD Player. Video camera, Game station and Webcam, running into an analog mixer, then runs form that to a projector and monitor.  The setup for a digital workflow of a VJ is below.  Digital Video Clips, Webcam, Video camera, Video game, DVD Player, running into a midi controller, computer with VJ Software then running into a digital mixer then into a projector.                     

Then we were introduced to Lemur.  Lemur is a touch technology controller which is fed into a monitor then to a projector for the visuals to be displayed on a screen.  It allows you’re to carry out various tasks via faders and buttons.  The software used is Abelton.  This led us on to discussing Max/msp.  Max/msp is a visual programming language, designed for music and multimedia, it’s used extensively by composers, performers and artists for creating new original recordings and performances.  To finish the lecture we were given a talk by one of Creative Technologies 3^rd year students.  He talked about his ideas for a business venture, from what I could gather he was looking to provide unique and personalized music videos to each bar or club.  These videos would draw form a library of files and pull out relevant footage for each video.  In essence its sounds like a great idea, and I couldn’t help think it’d be a great idea for small bands starting out, if they had some type of software like this with them at gigs.   Overall I think it’s a great idea, and the lecture in generally really sparked an interest for me in Vjing, as it’s something I didn’t really know about before, but is something I’d love to get involved in.