The practice of Vjing is the realtime mix of content from a “library of media”, but VJ is not just playing the videos and music, it needs the VJ to play to the score. According to Tordino, “Improvisation is the basis of VJing performances” (108). VJing is And because of the environment, the conditions vary from time to time, there doesn’t exist two same VJing performances. This is the liveness, uniqueness, and the improvisation of VJing, it is not reproducible. It is the same with the drama and the musicals, every time the actors give us a slightly different performance, the songs, the positions, the emotions are very unique. Liveness is very important in attracting audiences. This summer I went to see an imersive light performace by cocolab, the light was gorgious, and it is really beautiful and impressive. But all the sound as well as the light performace were recorded and played by machine, so when I saw the second time, I felt a little bored and wanted to leave. On the contrary, I am willing to pay to watch the same musicals several times because I can expect different performaces each time.
VJing is the way of describing the performative use of generative software. It concretes the music and other formats of art, immersing people in the performances. The “visual wallpaper” reminds me of the experience of seeing when I went to the club last time. I did remember the VJing performance I saw, but the problem was that I could not recall what the performance exactly was. My attention was attracted by the dancer on the stage as well as the glaring light above me, the VJing performance just served as a “visual wallpaper”. Too many things to distract my attention, therefore, I can not focus on what is going on on the screen.
One thing interesting is that I remembered in the video, almost all VJs have emphasized the significance of having the “knob”. Artists need the process of adjusting the knobs rather than just clicking on the computer keyboard. At first, I thought there is no big difference between using the MIDMIX and just clicking on the keyboard, but the fact is that the knob is like a distinct line drawn between VJing art and simply playing the video.