Origins of Vjing

[Miguelo619]

Just out of curiosity, I would like to learn more about the history timeline regarding live video performance.

How does it start?
When?
Who?
How?

Maybe this was discussed already in here, if so, please post a link. I made a search and I couldn't find it.


Thanks in advancE!

Peace

[Anyone]

Miguelo, use the forum search!
or start here:

http://www.vjforums.com/search.php?action=showresults&searchid=395028&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

[Amukidi]

But you'll be none the wiser......! Seriously, I don't think anybody has done rigorous formal research on this, or if they have, its not posted here. Lots of opinions and theories, but impossible to draw any firm conclusion from...would be a great Master's / Doctrate thesis though!

[cat]

It all depends on whether video is regarded as the start of live visuals or whether you take analogue visuals prevideo as the start, to my mind video is another tool in the visual arsenal rather than the be all and end all, its convenient, cheap and less labour intensive than other forms of visuals, but it also is limited to some degrees by those things.
I think that its slightly insulting to audiovisual pioneers like Brackhage and Mclaren, Len Lye, Fischinger etc to ignor them, they were all working with abstract animation and sound way back and set the ground work for visuals since. In some cases things have moved on supprisingly little from these early experiments that took years of these peoples lives to make, for very little reward.
If your at college see if they have a book called " Experimental Animation, an illustrated antholgoy" by Robert Russel and Cecile Starr. It covers animation from the start of film upto the beginnings of computer animation (printed in 1976) but dosent mention the start of club/performance visuals with Warhol, Mark Boyle, Merry Pranksters, Joshua Lights etc.
I was meaning to do a analogue techniques workshop at avit but didnt get round to it, just because its not video doesnt mean that its not interactive, or that it cant blow you head off! One performer at Avit used only stills run off a computer, that I could nt help but like as I had some of the same images as slides, (from stock catalogues), only difference was using slide projectors takes more sweat and more operators to get it going!
Check out www.pooterland.com for 60's light shows

[Miguelo619]

Cat: Thanks for the info!
I started to investigate online, and I found this:

http://www.boylefamily.co.uk/boyle/texts/journey2.html

I would like to find out more about the wharhol thing, if you have any links, I found mostly print works on his site. was he doing something similar than boyle?

To be honest I haven't heard or read about Merry Pranksters and Joshua Lights but I will be searching on them as well.

Thanks again for the info!

[cat]

Mark Boyle's work was the reason I first started doing projections, the decriptions of his performances blew me away! Had me projecting fluids and burning things!
Warhol, had events called the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which were film's + velvet underground, plus all his junkie experiments performing and trying to freek out the artscene, never seen more than a couple of photos of the events, mainly in Velvet underground books.
Merry Pranksters were Ken Kessey and friends making some weird shit happen. Theres a book by Tom Wolfe called the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, which is very entertaining, (at least the first half is) a short potted history of LSD too!
Have fun!

Cat

[NicoHouet]

Another ressource site about this subject : www.rhythmiclight.com/ (http://www.rhythmiclight.com/)

[multo]

hiya:

A book by Paul Spinrad, The VJ Book (Feral House) is coming out in October that goes into the history of light shows, all the way back to the 1800's.

You can also look at various vidoe and film archive sites for examples of early live and animated experimental works.

:) melissa