The "VJ"

Patricia Moran’s article, “VJ Scene: Spaces with Audiovisual Scores, focuses on the acronym VJ to attempt to explain the meaning behind the abbreviation through what it stood for historically. Moran goes on to look at the first “official” VJ’s on MTV and explained their importance as being background support to the DJ’s. Though they are important as they were an example of improvised mix tracks being enhanced by images, Moran distances the idea of VJing to something more organic in which the image is not presented but warped and manipulated to “provoke concept associations”. It is this concept that she focuses on as she explores the idea of the “VJ” and the different meanings the acronym has. In seceding examples, she always points out in the techniques used by “video jockeys” the importance of real-time addition of effects and mixing images, and if such is not possible she highlights the importance of an organic way of presenting the work (i.e. randomization) from a constrained set of preselected images.

I found this exploration into the conceptual practices and theory of VJing really enlightening in that it was able to clear up, though not entirely I must admit, some of my reservations in separating the art of VJing from just recorded production. Perhaps the most interesting part of this article was the small section in the end entitled “A few pacts”. She talks about the projection work as an experience that effects the audience’s perception of elements such as space and time. The “pact” she describes is the pact that the audience makes to become immersed in the enjoyment of the work much like one loses oneself in a work of fiction, and it is up to VJ to not only create the environment, but make the audience want to accept this “pact” with your work.

One of the names brought up by Patricia Moran in her article was Gregory Markoupoulos, who was a Greek-American experimental filmmaker who worked from the 1940s on whose works were the precursors for the theory of VJing.

Here's an example of one of his works called "Sorrows".