One of the originators of Vjing in Canada in 1995,[1] VJ Hypnotica's style has evolved markedly from its early beginnings, consisting more of scratching, B-movie, and synthetic synesthesia than psychedelic and geometric.
[2] Vaz was born and raised in Montreal, QC, where he spent much of his youth playing the guitar, listening to mostly classic hip-hop, new wave, and industrial, and watching B-movies and current Hollywood films.
Vaz was also influenced by the local punk scene and the music of touring American and Canadian bands that would play at show bars, such as Les Foufounes Electriques (translated from French: The Electric Pussycat), including Ripcordz and Nirvana.
He was exposed to music by audio sample-playback artists like Beastie Boys, Ministry, Public Image Limited, Depeche Mode, and Nitzer Ebb.
[3] 1997 saw VJ Hypnotica serve as an original advising consultant and beta tester to ArKaos for their first VJing software X<>pose and was one of its first users when it was released the following year, 1998.