VJing is a practice that mix visuals in a live/performance environment. It is understood inclusively beyond the club and the party context. Live cinema, on the other hand, is performed under mode specific contexts such as “a museum or theatre”. Instead of linear storytelling, the form of live cinema is preferably close to poetry or free-flowing abstractions, creating possibilities for a dialogue between the creator and the audience. If we take a look into one of the works of Katie Mitchell (a live cinema creator), The Forbidden Zone, we would easily recognize the emphasis on narrative and storytelling of live cinema, giving the audience an immersive experience of being engaged into a journey of filmmaking.
For some artists like Mia Makela, VJs are more like commercial directors for hire while live cinema creators create works that “appear to be more personal aesthetic”, which I believe has a lot to do with the difference in settings and sources as VJs oftentimes have to work in clubs and deal with second-hand materials, reduced to a secondary role. Personally, I don’t necessarily agree with Makela’s statement, as I believe that VJ and live cinema are two genres that adopt similar strategies while express different artistic pursuits. For the practice of VJing, it is less about the outcome or a specific concept, but more about immediate experiences at the moment, which may not make the audience think in a deep way, but feel the moment.
Live audiovisual performance does not comprise a specific style, technique, or medium. What it highlights is improvisation and intermediality. Live audiovisual works are thought to be “works which fall conceptually between media. In my sense, live audiovisual performance is more of a broader concept that can be applied to a series of artistic performances that manipulate sound and visuals in real time.