StarCulture rooftop shoot, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.
I am most delighted to present a short interview with Grant Davis. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the most recent installment of the Cimatics VJ Festival in Brussels. It was casual in a highly chaotic environment of party people. Despite that we were able to chat, comparing our knowledge of people, ideas and as usual modul8. Some people fall into things such as marketing and real estate. There is no doubt that Grant did fell in love with VJ’ing. And it is obvious that VJ’ing has rewarded him with the hard work he does with this love. To get all the details straight I have asked Grant to introduce himself and his past/current projects to date. Lets begin then.
Grant Davis (VJ Culture) gave up his collegiate ideals of working with deaf children 12 years ago when he first experienced a live, immersive, VJ, environment in the Black Rock City desert.
As a Communications Disorder Specialist, he thought this was a great way to visually interpret music for the deaf. Since then, under the name VJ Culture, Grant has provided sight and sound for audiences around the world. Torino, Italy where he performed 19 shows with the Magnetic Poets during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.
UK’s DJ Mag has voted VJ Culture among the top 10 VJs in the world for three consecutive years. He has also toured with Beck during the summer of 2006.
After returning from a tour in Japan, in the fall of 2007 Grant performed an audiovisual set at Forum Mexico as StarCulture, performing at the American Music Awards on US NBC TV for Mary J Blige.
Since the beginning of 2008, Grant has performed at NYE, ESPN/Red Bull Rio Hotel Las Vegas, Macworld SF, Austin TX, SXSW, Musikmessa Frankfurt Germany, and Winter Music Conference Miami and Glow, Santa Monica.
Grant with his partner Xarene Released, ‘vE-jA“, “Art and Technology of Live Audio Video”. A 196 page VJ book that covers the global VJ scene and includes a DVD.
Grant is also featured in two other books on VJ’s and has been in numerous magazines on the subject. Not only is he a visual artist, but he also organizes large-scale VJ related events across the US. Video Salon, Video Riot, VJ Battles and VJ Festivals. Co-producer in AVIT North America (Chicago and San Francisco). Recently, curating VJs for Beatport stage in Mami FL during Winter Music Conference.
VJ Culture rig macworld 08, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.
m8.us: Do you see a major difference between the newer vj’s and the more seasoned artists from 10 years ago.
VJ Culture: I’m envious of some of the new design talent in younger VJs. I think on average they are producing higher quality design than older VJs. In the early days it was more about the process than it was about the design. If today’s aging VJ’s don’t develop a good design sense they are going to be marked as technicians or has beens.
That said, some of the new VJs are simply cut and pasting code to create generative visuals. Although tightly synchronized it is algorithmic and can lack a human touch or narrative. My personal interests combine both approaches.
Sandisk vma afterparty, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.
On the technical side a lot of the newer generation of VJs don’t have the technical skills for installing a large video show. Muiti-projector installs over long runs of cable and appropriate lens configurations, seamless stitching. The earlier pioneers had to figure this out for themselves.
What I think is more interesting than age and experience is demographics of artists. We touch upon it in the vE-jA” Art and Technology of Live Audio Video. The difference in styles between artists is dramatic. Influence from other artists, venue challenges, policies in each region all contribute to the style developed.
The international festivals that focus on the visual are really important to developing a global scene. Everyone has something to gain when we experience art from outside our surroundings. The internet is helping us bridge that as we share demo reels and comment on forums. However, there is something to be said for being in the environment of a festival with like-minded visual enthusiasts. I would encourage everyone to make that investment, pilgrimage, whatever you want to call it and attend a festival.
The Riottt show, originally uploaded by VJ Culture.
m8.us: Does the term VJ sit well with you in regards to what you do?
VJ Culture: Not really, but its in my title. To make a living as a “VJ” you have to do a lot more than just VJ. I commend those that can live off of strictly VJing. I personally don’t know anyone doing that but I am sure they exist.
The term VJ is so general, it means different things to people. I think the one thing we have over come in the past 5 years is that a VJ isn’t just a MTV term anymore.
I had a show in Monterrey Mexico last year and when I went through Mexican customs I was ready to explain the whole VJ thing and why my equipment was racked in a pelican gun case. He opened my case and said, “Oh, you’re a VJ”. This was a 50 something year old man in a small Mexican town. I was blown away. I had two kaptivators and a v4 in the case and he knew exactly what they were for.
m8.us: How has modul8 served you in your work? What is it doing best for you and where would you like to see it go?
VJ Culture: I’m currently touring with Sharam from Deep Dish. We are using 4 bullet cams and a quad splitter. I take the 4 feeds as a single quad-view channel in as a live camera and then make a separate layer for each quadrant, colorize and effect each layer differently and then use the sequencer module to switch between camera angles to the beat.I love the stability I’m getting with the live camera feature and streaming it into Modul8 as uncompressed.
I also create a lot of my content as alpha PNG codec. It’s like photo jpeg but with alpha. It layers nicely in Modul8.
I would love to see more incorporation of generative elements in Modul8. Better integration of processing, Quartz, vvvv, etc. Oh, and apple + “Z.”
m8.us: What are your expectations from a vj software?
VJ Culture: Stability, flexibility and support. Rarely do my shows require the same configuration, so having a flexible design to the software is important to me.
For NYE, I did a show at City Hall in San Francisco. We used 4 DL1’s projecting on 4 massive columns in portrait mode. I used a desktop with dual graphics cards and a matrox triplehead2go card. I fed the V4 into a DFG box for converting the analog signal into a live camera feed for Modul8. Modul8 then spit out 4 portrait seamless images.
It ran perfectly all night long. Trying to pull that off with a hippo, spyder system or watchout would have cost thousands.
Photo credit: Ilan Katin via flickr
Keyword: Immediacy
This image has actually nothing to do with the following article but I found it on flickr and thought it was so cool to have people in China using modul8 in such a lovely way. Nice right?
Title disclaimer: to all you module code heads out there, you will not find a keyword in the modul8 python dictionary with this name. At least I have your attention though right? Stay with us for a bit.
Last week I did a quick repost on the forum from an article on Create Digital Motion about a manifesto created by Zarah Cabanas called ‘Respect Your VJ.’ Zarah is a modul8 user (as evidenced from one of the photos included by Peter Kirn in the article). I am actually using this association in order to outline a few points about some thoughts I have about VJing or live video in general along with some other points about why I think people are so interested in this medium.
First I want to praise Zarah for taking this statement and giving it its own website. I am sure this information is probably available in one form or another, tucked away deep within the bowels of the VJ Forums. The flip side of this statement are offered aplenty and it opens up the vein of the ‘what is vjing’ debate that continues to rage on. For now though I think Zarah has provided a strong cornerstone for what a VJ should try to obtain from someone who wants their services as well as what a VJ should live up to as stressed in the final paragraph ‘VJ’s: get your shit together.’
Check this guys outfit!
The interesting thing about VJing is how much it is dependent on the internet considering it is a activity that is tied to being in the ‘real world.’ I try not to reflect on it too much because I think that most of what VJing amounts to can be summed up in one word: immediacy.
Why is immediacy so important? For the sake of keeping thing simple I think this has two points in the context of where we are today. The first would be that we are very thought oriented animals. This has led us to extend our thinking to the point where we don’t realize that most of the time we are speculating about almost everything. The news you read today? Is that true? How would you know if it was really true if you did not see it? If any image can be fabricated or even it its not fabricated then taken completely out of context what can you trust?
On the other end there is this need for a sort of instant gratification. With painting you sit in a studio and apply paints to a canvas or manipulate objects to create an image that may or may not be displayed somewhere later on. Films are passive in that they are created and the maker(s) may never see the reactions of their audience. Unless ones work gets distributed widely both in the real world and online it may take years to assess the validity of the work or at least get some feedback on how to improve upon what has been created.
Xarene and Naute at Brokenbeat. Photo Miguel Vega
I guess I could add a third point that we live in a world where when you need to fix the problem with your phone bill you have to talk to a machine or someone who is just as unhappy as you about having to deal with such problems.
I think live video addresses these issues for both the creator and the audience. With live video the creator is in the same room with his audience and is creating the images in person. If the audience responds, it is right there. No polling data needs to be analyzed. No waiting for comments on a web page. Immediacy.
Mostly it is up to the VJ to really make things happen. The distinct disadvantage that visuals have is that unlike sound they are not immersive. There is a difference between pressing a button and displaying a red dot and pressing a button and generating a tone. You cannot ‘hear’ the dot, you can only use it to provide a visual cue but otherwise the tone can do just find without the dot. How can we make things happen? First and foremost I think the golden rule with anything is to be nice at all costs and be forceful about something only if you need to. Every successful person whom I have met in my life that I truly admired for their artistry, be it images, sound, wall painting, also managed to impress me with how kind and/or humble they were. Honestly. If you can look past your ego into what you may fear as being a void of indifference and extend a hand and a smile people will treat you so in kind. You’re not alone. If you happen upon someone whom you really can’t deal with you have the given right of free will to not deal with them anymore. Its that simple.
Incredibly subtle promotional material.
Now that we have gotten past this basic building block here are some other ideas that I have picked up and written about in the past.
The next thing to do is to figure out what you really want to do. Do you want to do visuals for bands? Do you want to mix video in a club? Whatever it is try not to think about big profits. Try to think of what you are doing as something that has value and start from there. Look at your materials and the time it takes to make or gather the stuff you want to do. Calculate the time it takes to do it. Make a demo of your material and get out there and find someone you would want to do visuals for. If you like it all then there is nothing wrong with being diverse. In fact all the more power to you for keeping things open. I personally don’t know anyone doing live video that only does live video although I am sure they exist(?).
This of course is the tricky part. You may have to find other methods for obtaining compensation for your efforts when you start. But whatever you do just keep in mind that you do your best wherever you are doing it. Find ways to demonstrate to your audience that you are active when you do what you do. This is one of my problems with requests from people about beat matching software. It begs the question: What do you plan to do with your time if the software/hardware is doing it all for you? If people see you are working hard, keeping your a/b cross fader synched, changing compositions, moving or rotating your images physically, these simple acts will a) Prevent the audience from asking you to change the music and b) demonstrate to the people who have hired you that you are working hard for what they are paying you for.
Now once you start performing you can put together some material for a demo reel. You may think that this should have come before trying to get your first gigs. If that is possible then sure. Maybe just to demonstrate your graphical prowess. But the reality is this: You will need some practice first and a long VJ night in a club. This is the best way to explore and learn new things. One of the main reasons for this is that a long night in the club, while unforgiving if you enjoy the daytime, is very forgiving when it comes to audience/employer reactions as to what is displayed on the screen. Remember… its not sound. So once you get the sense that what you are doing works find a way to get this experience on camera so that your visuals have a context. You can splice it together with direct feed footage cutting between the two occasionally to the rhythm of the music.
Speaking of music… when you are doing your recording try to get permission to record the line out from the audio board. You can use the mic from the camera but like my Father always says ‘put your best foot forward.’ If you can’t get the line audio then find some music that will work with the video you have captured. Add a title and make sure you give credit where credit is due. If someone shot the footage or made a mix for your demo: give them credit and make a copy available to them.
I want to add one more thing about demo reels. I have seen some really great VJ mixes but I barely got past the titles to the beautifully crafted mixes because the titles looked like they were copied and pasted from a badly formatted PowerPoint presentation. If you have trouble with type find a friend who is a designer and ask for their advice. It does not hurt to seek out some help.
Hexagonales from Rafael Pereira on Vimeo.
This last bit kind of leads me onto another subject that is both advisory and reflective. You don’t have to do it all alone. This is probably the reason that there are so many VJ teams out there. Sometimes its really great to have some people whom you can work with. Its a sharing experience. You don’t have to do every VJ gig together. But you can come together when it is project that is larger and requires more then one set of minds to work. If a team is not your thing and you still need some support or a community? Try to reach out using the internet to build a network of people. At the moment there are several very large online communities in a variety of languages and it seems that new ones are popping up every day. As mentioned earlier there is the VJ Forums. Spanish? Log onto VJ Spain, French? While somewhat local there is the Visual Berlin (I am pleased to reveal that I am a member now since November, 2008) that is less of an online presence and more of a grassroots club that supports a community of like minded folks.
Brokenbeat Night – Feb 2009 from Accent Creative on Vimeo.
Ok. What if there is no community near you? No club? Nothing? Make it happen! One of my favorite examples of this is Brokenbeat. A monthly party in sunny San Diego. The party was initiated by Miguel Vega of Accentfeed. In his case its not that San Diego lacked clubs. It was more that the clubs were simply not interesting enough places for him to want to do visuals in both from the perspective of the types of clientele and the type of music offered. What did Miguel do? He found the one party that he liked attending called Brokenbeat and got involved with it doing visualsm leveraged his design skills to create a presence for the party that is both stylized and still has a down to earth feel. You know looking at this that everyone involved enjoys being a part of the action he is creating.
To some of you everything I have written here may be trite. The truth is I am always continually amazed at how unaware people are of the vast amount of resources that are available now. Or you may feel cynical about these sort of suggestions because you have tried and tried and it does not work? To this I have to respond: if it does not work out and you are doing the same thing over and over try to change what you are doing. But if what you are doing makes you happy no matter what then just stick to it and eventually people will see that you are serious about what you do and start to appreciate it.
I have of course have a lot more to write about this stuff but this post has gone way beyond what I normally write in terms of depth. If you have any questions or suggestions to add please feel free to make contact. The inbox is always open.
posted by admin @ 11 February, 2009 3 comments »