" What is a VJ? "

" I’m sure what the guy meant in this case is that you should be a Visual Jockey, not Video Jockey.

A VJ, in the modern new media context, is not your typical music video presenter anymore.

A VJ is basically a visual artist who projects visuals to accompany music, most of the time in a club setting, to enhance the clubbing experience. Visuals or imagery can help heighten the experience of listening to the music, especially when you ‘hit’ the audience with an awesome visuals at pivotal parts of the song.

Though the VJ-ing culture is garnering a reputation as a culture of its own, it’s been a practice for many visual artists over the past decade or two, especially those who explore video as a medium, and these include video artists, animators, motion graphic designers, etc. And although the roots to VJing is set deep in club culture, active VJs are taking it out of the clubs and exploring VJ-ing as a part of performance, such as for concerts, galleries, theatre, etc. Which is why most big acts in the music world such as Linkin Park, U2, Groove Armada, and even 50 Cent are using VJs to elevate the concert experience.

I can’t actually sum it all up here and i’ve only been VJ-ing for only about a year, so here are a few references that might help:

VJ V2 http://www.vsquaredlabs.com/
D-FUSE http://www.dfuse.com/
United Visual Artists http://www.uva.co.uk/
VJ Central http://www.vjcentral.com/
VJ Kungfu http://www.vjkungfu.tv/

Hope you get some inspiration out of this.

[ Fai ] "
( Odell’s World )