The concepts of VJ-ing, Live Cinema, and Live Audiovisual Performance are connected with each other in certain ways. They are all performed in real-time; they all need a good combination of audio and video. However, they still tend to show some differences in the way of performance and the content of a performance. Live Audiovisual Performance, firstly, is the broadest idea among them, which can be the summary of the other two. It can be audiovisual performance in any kind of scene, including clubs, museums, and exhibitions. VJ-ing, for me, represents random and free. It seldom relies on narration and careful preparation, as the performance is strongly related to the audience. The atmosphere it presents is reflected by the performance of not only the VJ but also the audience, which furtherly restricts its site to nightclubs or live houses where the audience tends to get more involved in the performance. If VJ-ing is shown in a cinema or museum setting, it would become a Live cinema. Live cinema is more like a combination of VJ-ing and cinema, as Menotti mentioned in Live Cinema“, it “encompasses forms of audiovisual performance that actively engage with traditional cinema to graphic conventions” (85). Based on the concept of VJ-ing which includes liveness and performance, Live Cinema shows a narration through its process of performance, which makes it more personal and artistic, as it is no longer random and can be remembered by its audience. Therefore, Live Cinema artists tent to have a kind of priority to VJs to some extent. According to Makela, a Live Cinema artist introduced by Menotti in his book Live Cinema, “Live Cinema creators feel the need to separate themselves from the VJ scene together, in order to establish their own artistic goals, which would rarely find an appreciative audience in a club environment” (93). Admittedly, the status of their audience are different, as the audience of VJ-ing has more interaction with the performer, while the audience of Live Cinema is quieter and sitting in a cinema scene. However, one can not easily separate them or even show a hierarchy between them, as they are both performed in real-time, they share some same methods, and most importantly, they both reflect and express the artist himself. They are art, but just with different content.
Here is a sample of Live Cinema from the 2018 Live Cinema Festival:
It is easy to tell the narration in the video, as it gradually passed from the blossom of a flower to the connection between the flower and the person, which evolves step by step.
The following is an example of VJ-ing from Pfadfinderei, a Berlin-based interactive media artist:
For VJ-ing, it is more about to create a kind of atmosphere that can bring the audience closer to the whole performance, instead of telling a certain story or idea. Comparing with the Live Cinema shown before, the Pfadfinderei live show is more like a collage, which contains all kinds of elements that can be used to bring the liveness to the whole scene, instead of showing something on the screen as the Live Cinema.