How can VJ be more than “cool?”
I have had this question for a long time. Before I was first introduced to the concept of VJ, I thought it was really “cool.” The concept of “cool,” on the other hand, what does it exactly mean? What features or characteristics are associated with the concept of “cool” in VJ?
Is it technology? Is it the liveness? Is it the sensory experience with visual? Is it in the nature of the venue that a lot of VJ performances take place – the night clubs and music festivals? I think the problem with the generalization of VJ which boils down to “cool,” and no more than “cool” is the presentation of VJ lacks a requirement for more critical and intellectual conversation around it, except with drug and alcohol, it stimulates hormone and epinephrine. And the experience, the very experience of sensory stimulation is “cool,” since it must be experienced at that moment. And the experience was not experienced before. Being “cool” means being the alien for the indescribable, beyond or under utterance.
The social aspect of “cool” in VJ is associated with another form of social capital – uniqueness, fashion, and popularity. VJ can be considered a way of publicity that communicates between the participants and the practitioners.
Dug down from the surface of how cool VJ is, Fischer thought about what does VJ mean historically and socially. And the artistic potential of VJ as a medium of expression.
Historically, she also mentioned the musical nature of VJ in relation to DJ, “The performative character of a VJ performance is closely connected to the structural and formal influences of the music: composition, rhythm, the desire to create immersive 12 [ spaces, and the use of samples, 13 [ loops, 14 [ or patterns, 15 [ all of which can be compared to the development of electronic music and DJing.”
She also analyzes in detail the “liveness” of VJ by citing the German theater scientist Erika Fischer-Lichte, who defines “‘liveness’ as “the bodily co-presence of actors and spectators,”
She considers the improvisation of VJ is one of the essences of VJ as performance, “Participation, reciprocity, and interaction are some of its characteristics, as well as enduring and appearing in the very moment.”
Content-wise, I think Fischer also mentions VJ has the potential for experimental cinema. Through visual enhancement, repetition, transformation, and curation of even very simple content, the outcome of VJ can be sacralized in the ritualistic practice of live performance. There are some new there at the moment, sublimed from the mundanity of simple things.
I think contextualization a VJ piece through selections of video footage, consideration of generated visuals, making guidelines of the performance but not step-by-step, choosing/making appropriate music, rules are important for the audience and greater art/creative community to think about VJ more than “cool.” Eventually, as VJ/Visualists, we should have a statement through the work, more than dizzy visual effects that make people sick.