Hang the VJ?

Things are looking up for the much-maligned video jockey.

Dec  1 2006

VJing is a black art. For all its zeitgeist hype, the phrase still elicits a contradictory mishmash of definitions. In the '80s, VJ – short for video jockey – simply meant MTV presenter. Since then, it has become a fuzzy umbrella term, encompassing various forms of live video mixing, from plain visuals to AV (audiovisual) concerts and DVJ sets, where DVDs are mixed on turntables.

VJing has outgrown both its original definition and its original venue: the nightclub. The Roxy Bar & Screen, which opened in August, is London's first VJ bar. Tucked away on Borough High Street, it houses a four-metre screen, floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains and a clutch of intimate candle-lit tables. The Roxy's exposure of audiences to cinematic experimentation is backed up by a free entry policy. Its Christmas
Audiovisual Lounge next Wednesday, December 6, is a good opportunity for the uninitiated to sample AV culture's various strands, from 'remixes' of features like 'Get Carter', to music videos by graphic designers.

Audiovisual Lounge is organised by Addictive TV, which has been instrumental to VJing's development. Its Channel 4 series 'Transambient' was the first TV outlet for non-linear visuals set to music and in 2005 Addictive established Optronica, the London festival dedicated to live AV performance. The group has been an important catalyst for VJs to gain exposure, but Addictive's breakbeat mash-ups are representative of an entertaining yet immature performance art. AV performers such as the Light Surgeons have developed shows with more critical depth, often in collaboration with digital film festival Onedotzero.

The aesthetic roots of VJing lie in the kaleidoscopic postwar animations of Oskar Fischinger, but the contemporary version is often a distant relation. While not inherently bad, nightclub VJs often display amateurish sample selection and woeful mixing 'skills'. At best, VJing is an absorbing synaesthetic interpretation of music, at worst an ancillary morass of clichés. The mediocrity of most club visuals has turned it into a pejorative term. 'VJing is a dirty word,' says Mike Faulkner, co-founder of motion-graphics collective D-Fuse. Even so, Faulkner suggests that 'club visuals [as] moving wallpaper can still be interesting. Music doesn't require a vocal narrative, people relate to it emotionally – visuals can be the same.'

A more reliable form of VJing is AV performance, whose greater demands filter out lazy bricoleurs. London hip hop label Ninja Tune has pioneered this type of performance: founders Coldcut developed the first VJ-specific software, while label-mates Hexstatic made the UK's first audiovisual album. 'We do scratch montage,' says Coldcut's Matt Black. 'It's similar to what Eisenstein did in the twenties, but we're doing it live.'

If VJing grew from clubbing, it has also colonised other cultural arenas, from disused car parks to art galleries and the NFT roof. Similarly, the tools, techniques and aesthetics of VJing have had an impact on cinema. Mike Figgis's 'Timecode' and 'A Portrait of London' – his live edit in Trafalgar Square during the London Film Festival – showed the influence of the techniques, while Peter Greenaway has VJ'd his 'Tulse Luper Suitcases' alongside a DJ.

'Live cinema' – such as last week's Future Cinema reworking of 'Metropolis' – is another evolving area. The Roxy will host a live rescoring of 'Belleville Rendez-vous' this Sunday. These feature reinterpretations bring different art forms together rather than presenting an alternative. Single-screen 'cinetheatre' offers a more cohesive possibility for truly original VJ-inspired filmmaking. A director could edit footage in response to audience reaction, marrying the interactivity of live performance with the communicative power of linear film. This kind of storytelling could be a cinema for the web 2.0 generation.

Addictive TV's Christmas Audiovisual Lounge is on Dec 6 at the Roxy

• 
•