VJing
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 1970s.
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.
"[6] Between 1919 and 1927, Mary Hallock-Greenewalt, a piano soloist, created a new technological art form called Nourathar, which means "essence of light" in Arabic.
"[7] 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.
Test Department initially worked with "Bert" Turnball as their resident visual artist, creating slideshows and film for live performances.
Groups like Cabaret Voltaire started to use low cost video editing equipment to create their own time-based collages for their sound works.
"[citation needed] The film collages made by and for groups such as the Test Dept, Throbbing Gristle and San Francisco's Tuxedomoon became part of their live shows.
Many of the outcomes debuted at the nightclub Hurrah which quickly became a new alternative for video artists who could not get their avant garde productions aired on regular broadcast outlets.
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."
It was the "Heathkit" 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.
Thanks to a grant from the Experimental Television Center, her blend of video and 16 mm film bore the influential mark of the unique Rutt Etra and Paik synthesizers.
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.
In the UK groups such as The Light Surgeonsand Eikon were transforming clubs and rave events by combining the old techniques of liquid lightshows with layers of slide, film and video projections.
In Bristol, Children of Technology emerged, pioneering interactive immersive environments stemming from co-founder Mike Godfrey's architectural thesis whilst at university during the 1980s.
Their "Ambient Theatre Lightshow" first emerged at Glastonbury 93 and they also provided VJ visuals for the Shamen, who had just released their no 1. hit "Ebeneezer Goode" at the festival.
These conditions also facilitated a sudden emergence of a less visible (but nonetheless strong) movement of artists who were creating algorithmic, generative visuals.
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.
[20] The first known software for VJs was Vujak - created in 1992 and written for the Mac by artist Brian Kane for use by the video art group he was part of - Emergency Broadcast Network, though it was not used in live performances.EBN used the EBN VideoSampler v2.3, developed by Mark Marinello and Greg Deocampo.
In the UK, Bristol's Children of Technology developed a dedicated immersive video lightshow using the Virtual Light Machine (VLM) called AVLS or Audio-Visual-Live-System during 1992 and 1993.
The VLM was a custom built PC by video engineer Dave Japp using super-rare transputer chips and modified motherboards, programmed by Jeff Minter (Llamasoft & Virtual Light Co.).
In the mid-90s, Audio reactive pure synthesis (as opposed to clip-based) software such as Cthugha 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, as well as video clip players such as FLxER, created by Gianluca Del Gobbo, and VJamm.
[21] AVIT, clear in its inception as the online community of VJCentral.com self-organising a physical presence, had its first festival in Leeds (2002),[22] followed by Chicago (2003), Brighton (2003), San Francisco (2004), and Birmingham (2005), 320x240 in Croatia (2003), Contact Europe in Berlin (2003).
In 2003, the Finnish media arts festival PixelAche was dedicated to the topic of VJing, while in 2003, Berlin's Chaos Computer Club started a collaboration with AVIT organisers that featured VJ Camps and Congress strands.
LPM since has become one of the leading international meetings dedicated to artists, professionals and enthusiasts of VJing, visual and live video performance, counting its 20th edition in 2019.
Also around this time (in 2005 and 2007), UK artists Addictive TV teamed up with the British Film Institute to produce Optronica, a crossover event showcasing audiovisual performances at the London IMAX cinema and BFI Southbank.
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.
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.
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.
