From: Brook Hinton (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Dec 15 2008 - 16:11:16 PST
Like so much of the terminology surrounding non-narrative or even
experimental narrative temporal media, "VJ" means so many things to so many
people (and is even, to some people, the exact same thing as "video art" if
you read some of the relevant discussion groups) that I wonder if it's even
possible to have a conversation about it. I once heard someone refer to a
Zoe Beloff film performance as a "veejay thing". Scott Arford's work has
been been labeled with the term. Peter Greenaway is using it to describe
what are basically concert performances in (sometimes) a club setting of
Tulse Luper. What do these have in common with each other, let alone with
somebody using modul8 to scratch images of Bettie Page and Bette Davis back
and forth on split screens in time to a set techno BPM while a particle
generated spiral pattern sweeps over them and the whole thing goes
positive/negative based on audio transients from a live input? Found
footage, sometimes. Live performance. And that is all. The huge variety of
cultural meanings within all this is an interesting subject, but I wonder if
the term "VJ" is already as meaningless in a contemporary context as
"experimental", or that decades-old dance culture term now exploded through
co-option, "rave". (yes, I know there's an even older context for that one)
On the other hand, when I hear the term VJ, I think of Martha Quinn, Adam
Curry, Nina whatever her name was, and the other original MTV guy who looked
kinda like Epstein from Welcome Back Kotter.
Brook
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Brook Hinton
film/video/audio art
www.brookhinton.com
studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.