VJ LADY FIREFLY
VJ VISUALHORNHONKING
What is VJing?
VJing is the art and craft of using moving images in a real-time performance to engage with people in a space, typically through screens and projections. The desired result is to create a dynamic and visceral visual experience.
During an event, Video Jockeys (VJs, visualists, live mix video artists etc) are the ones mixing the video live. “Mixing” is basically the creative way a VJ blends, layers, combines and changes various parameters of their videos/moving images. This is done with interesting combinations of software, hardware, and mixed medias. VJs will often mix together, combining their unique setups to create more interesting results, and to basically have more fun. At a performance, VJs often work their magic on a table full of their mixing gear, on-stage or off-stage, mixing video and using projectors to project custom visuals onto large surfaces such as screens and walls.
VJs can be seen performing their craft in many ways– performing as a collaborative member of an audiovisual group, in nightclubs and lounges, in concerts with bands, in galleries and artistic collaborations, with dance companies, in fashion shows, in corporate parties, private parties, festivals, and as part of a larger video team during live events…. The possibilities for VJ craft continue to grow.
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The soul of a VJ set is the live performance. It is about how the VJ’s mix affects and, conversely, is affected by collaborators, the space where the performance is happening, and the people in the space at that time. The VJ’s artwork blossoms during their performance–no matter how much time and planning a VJ has put into preparing their sets–the artform is about the fusion of creative visual improvisation with a particular space and gathering of people over a certain amount of time.
You should see the way VJ mixes get so morphed and insanely gorgeous and absolutely out of this world, so crazy-lovely, that one would have never known how this combination of images came to pass, haha especially the VJ her/himself, and one may never know when the next time they will see that particular combination of visuals pass by ever again 
It’s this sudden appearance of the beautiful unknown that keeps VJs addicted to mixing. Some VJs we know can play for days on end, they’re so tapped into it, the times, the vibes–visually riffing off of it all–we are convinced its the moments, not the screens, that are the canvas.
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It’s due to the combination of unique skill sets, renegade setups, and the informed improvisational quality of mixes existent in this artform that we believe some of the best pieces of contemporary video art are coming from the video feeds of live VJ performances. The 6 minute loops you see looping over and over again on a framed flat screen tv in a gallery don’t really cut it compared to the calibre of soul, connection to an audience, and intellectual/visual/tech savvy found imbedded within some of these VJ performances. And the way some of these VJ mixes come out, with all the happy accidents and of-the-moment decisions really couldn’t be conceived or scripted in the confines of an edit room, not to mention the hours and hours and hours of rendering it would take to mimic a mix in its 4th hour. Not to be all like that…. It’s just to say that VJing is no joke. There is a deep history–but we’re not going to get into those specifics here, at least for now.
Point is, people have been experimenting and putting their badass work out there for years, before laptops and overhead projectors and VDMX and VCRs, for anyone to see, in all sorts of strange places. And so now, with all this tech and access to info, its really a pleasure to experience current work. This artform is thriving and fresh and inspired due to folks who have come before us. And its truly a great thing to see VJs now recording and documenting their work more and more.
On a side note, its an interesting topic, how to best document a VJ set. To get decent coverage, it probably makes sense to record 3 views simultaneously–the recording of the actual video output/s with audio line in, a recording of the space in which the performance is taking place with the screens/projections etc visible along with any collaborators and people in it, and a view of the VJ/s physically mixing their work. Anyway, sometimes its just best to let the performance happen and let it live in the collective memory of those who were there.
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There’s no one way to go about VJing. A lot of people we know got into it from practicing other disciplines, like film/video, graphic design, computer programming, dancing, painting, music, photography, illustration…But it hasn’t been a usual thing that people go to school to get a BFA in VJing. It’s not institutionalized and that’s what makes it exciting, a living breathing art. Which means VJs tend to be folks with a DIY mindset–because if you don’t install it yourself, you’re not going to be able to play. And that goes from learning the craft, the tools, the art, the tech–that goes for shooting, drawing, editing, compositing and finding things to mix with, finding the perfect hardware, software, cameras, cables, couplers, converters– etc– which makes it the most wonderful thing when a VJ finds a community. Discovering collaborators and the gatherings and organizations and websites that recognize and support the work are extremely important.
Ha, if you made it reading this far, kudos to you! You’re probably a VJ or someone interested in learning how to VJ So the words stop here and there’s nothing else to say but thank you for supporting VJ artform and, above all, let’s keep mixing.