(Academic) research on VJing

[Marina17]

Hi,
I?ve just started my PhD on VJing at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). I?ve seen some threads on academic research in the forum ?business? > ?talk with VJs?.
I propose to start a new forum area on ?researching VJing?, as a meeting point for researchers and VJs. This could also be the space to announce books and resources on audio/visual art forms and discuss it in a broader cultural perspective.
As far as I know there are no places to do that, and despite the large number of papers and thesis on the topic (I know some here in Holland, if somebody is interested?), VJing is still a ?difficult? topic to propose in most universities.
I believe that no PhDs on VJing have been completed yet. Please let me know if I am wrong!
Nevertheless, I think VJing is ready for ?historical research? and theoretical understanding.
Maybe some people (who are suspicious towards academics, like Holly in the thread ?VJ Academic essay, please can you have some input??), would like their job to remain ?underground?, untouched by ?boring? :zzz: theorizations and completely projected into the future (like most of the forums are!).
I respect this opinion? it is in the ?spirit? of club culture. But, as goST3 noticed? we are going to write our thesis/dissertations anyway, at least if some VJs are available for collaboration ;)
With the same passion for VJing as you! :love2:

Cheers,

The other :alien:

[Rovastar]

Interesting idea about requesting a separate area for discussions such as this.

I wonder how much support there would be a new subforum though.

Over the years we have seen many requests for information from academic sources but to be honest very, very little back in the form of documents written.

Often the questions are repetitive or ill thought out and appear to be asked without any basic grasp of the scene or reading of the forums (First post and just a list of 10+ questions, etc).

To be fair I get the impression from you that you know more than most academics that post here. You appear to have put in the effort and have read some of the posts.

I don't think it is really an issue that the majority of those here want to keep it "underground" we would not be posting here at all if it was really wanted to do that. For me it is same questions that come up and the energy to fill another questionnaire out every month. The motivation is difficult to sustain, I hope you can appreciate that.

That said if there is enough call for a new subforum we will be, no doubt, create one however I personally don't think there is enough call for one. We probably have too many underused subforums as it is.

[Marina17]

hi Rovastar,
I perfecly agree with you that filling questionnaire on such anonimous way is quite boring (and often does not work at all for the researcher). That is why I didn't submit one!
The problem is that there are very few ways of collecting information, and going through the forums requires a huge amount of time. Moreover, it is sometimes difficult for non technical people like me to understand the language and the contents ...
Maybe a separate forum with a good moderator would help find new ways, more collaborative and more effective, to analyse the VJ scene.
I was thining on researching with key words: VJ forums has a good archive and good search engine...
I know that these problems are of no interest for VJs, but I think that they would have benefit, indirectly, from academic research on the field.
So, let's keep in touch and see if I can convince you later ;)

[deepvisual]

bulletin boards are no way to do academic research. except for the lazy;
which is probably why we get such dull, short sighted posts from students who have left their research to the last minute.

if you really want to research visuals why not use a visual medium.

For my degree I did the interviews to camera and cut it into a documentary.
it was so much more accesible that way.
but of course that isn't the point of academia.
it needs to be ponderous, obscure and use words with more than 5 syllables.

[Marina17]

bulletin boards are no way to do academic research. except for the lazy;

if you really want to research visuals why not use a visual medium.



there is very good academic research based on bullettin boards, but that is not the point... My research is not based on interviews and is not for a degree.. it's a 4 years contract which has a totally different approach...
It would be to broad to explain what my methodology is (except in a dedicated forum of course ;))... but trust me, it is no a 'last minute job'!

Camera interviews are a good idea... I made a lot of recordings of VJ sets in the last 5 years (also for my work as curator...), but I think your camera work is much better than mine ;)

I hope this will lead to a 'readable' book, like some academic books on club culture are (see Malbon's Clubbing,. Dancing, ecstasy and vitality, for instance).

anyway, thanks for these advices... they are always interesting... :angel:

[spork]

I got this book a while back "Live Cinema - Unraveled" by Timothy Jaeger.

I think he asked people here for input for his book, as well, and I thought it managed to be respectably academic as well as VJ relevant.

The book that really helped put the form in context was "Visual Music", the inch thick catalogue of a show of the same name that went from LA's MOCA to the Hirshorn in Wash D.C.

Of course the recent DFuse book is great.

One way to get good commentary on the contemporary scene is, I think, to contact the developers of VJ softs.

They type 1000 wpm, and are informed and opinionated, and perhaps could distill for you comments they get from VJ community.

[lowRes]

Hi Marina!

Glad u're doing your phd on vj'ing!!
looking forward to read your dissertation!
actually i wouldn?t mind a sub-forum for research, trading links, docs and ideas would be great!

visual music is a must read!(and trust me if u have money - BUY IT!)
some more books u might find interesting::
expanded cinema - Gene Youngblood
Eingenwelt der apparate-welt (pioneers of electronic art) - ars electronica'92 catalogue
u might find these ones on artscilab.org or vasulka.org (both sites great sources of info on this and other matters)

can u post some links on those papers u mentioned? r they translated?

hav fun!
good readings!


r_x
* )

[deepvisual]

OK.
so I have to ask you, why VJing?

the usual answer is because Vjing is new.
(one of the main requirements for reseach being originality)
then we get the same tired old theories from music and art being used to explain it, suggesting that it isn't new at all.
so why bother? save yourself 100,000 words (PhD thesis)

I'll be very impressed if you academics find anything to say that is new .

having said that, I do hope you can breathe some life into the academic understanding of visuals.
but no one seems to have managed it so far.

[seex]

Someone has to be the first, deepvisual im guessing you wuld be surprised what people write their phd on. My sister is observing four monkeys as a phd plan with the university. She doesent know what she will discover, but thats not the point. We can leran off mistakes too.

[USE]

personally i would welcome an area devoted to more theoretical discussion of vjing because as marina rightly points out, the majority of this forum is about projecting vjing into the future and there is precious little discussion about the history and evolution of the art-form. as someone who is trying to include vjing into some kind of curriculum, the better the information i have the the more likely i am to produce an effective course and receive funding.

not only that but my girlfreind is in museums, and ive been tringto get them to look iinto iteractive video installations, but without a broing load of crap (sorry academic studys) to show them, i have no chance.

the few thesises that i have seen on here have been very illuminating, but it is clear that only a small section of the community is interested in this way. which is why i think it would be a usefull step to include a sub-forum, so teh academia doesnt get lost in the flow.

im suprised and a little bewildered as to why there would be resistance to academic studies on vjing, unless there are resentments against formal education bubbling under the surface, or a feeling of insecurity about the future of vjing if knowledge is too accessable. i have no clue tbh, but what i do knoiw is i would relish having an academic forum.

[Marina17]

OK.
so I have to ask you, why VJing?


well, simply because I like it. I come from contemporary art studies, then did a post-doc in video art and television (see http://comcom.uvt.nl/e-view/04-2/turco.pdf) and because I was a little boared by art discourses and a great professor supported me, I decided to pick this NEW topic!
I saw my first VJ in the Melkweg, Amsterdam, in 1999, Samplemadness, and I loved that!

Deepvisual, you really are a zeurpiet (sorry I don't know the word in English!).
;)

Thanks to Lowres and spork for the great advices (I know expanded cinema, but not the other two books you mentioned) and seex for the support:violin:

[Marina17]

personally i would welcome an area devoted to more theoretical discussion of vjing because as marina rightly points out, the majority of this forum is about projecting vjing into the future and there is precious little discussion about the history and evolution of the art-form. as someone who is trying to include vjing into some kind of curriculum, the better the information i have the the more likely i am to produce an effective course and receive funding.

that was my point when I said that VJs would take advantage from academic research!

only a small section of the community is interested in this way. which is why i think it would be a usefull step to include a sub-forum, so teh academia doesnt get lost in the flow.

you got my point again!

im suprised and a little bewildered as to why there would be resistance to academic studies on vjing, unless there are resentments against formal education bubbling under the surface, or a feeling of insecurity

maybe... but I don't care... resistance is always fun!

[deepvisual]

S.... deepvisual im guessing you wuld be surprised what people write their phd on.

would I?

Mrs deepvisual is just finishing hers.
4 years and almost a hundred thousand words later.

only a true manic would put themselves through that sort of suffering.
the sort of maniac who could put up with me...

anyway, 3 cheers for anyone brave enough to tackle this can of worms people call VJ
you can write 100,000 words on definitions alone

just remember to protect your ears.
nightclubs will send you deaf

[Marina17]

would I?

only a true manic would put themselves through that sort of suffering.
the sort of maniac who could put up with me...

you can write 100,000 words on definitions alone


ja, I know, but the problem is that writing useless, boaring, complicated discourses is the only thing I can do!
Why did you do it if you don't like it? What is your dissertation about?

As you said, you can easily write 100,000 words on definitions alone, thus, it shouldn't be a problem to put a book together :rolleyes:

[skulpture]

This is great that are more people than what I thought interested in the historical factors, the current and the future possibilities of VJing.

I have felt people think because you want to ask them questions you are being 'lazy' and not doing you're research yourself. Some people who have replied to my emails have helped me so much whilst others have a real issue and a sharp bite when you ask them for help. I don't understand this myself.

But on a brighter note a separate area for research would be cool, maybe try and combine a forum with AVIT ? (http://www.avit.info/)

I have found out so much for my dissertation and there is loads and loads of text you can find BUT there is so much undiscovered text aswel. I had no idea Andy Warhol for instance had such a deep involvement with the rise of VJing. Or the Magic Lanterns used years and years ago as mini projections in the street. Its fascinating stuff!.

[deepvisual]

Why did you do it if you don't like it? What is your dissertation about?


I needed a degree in order to emigrate.
I got on the UKs first degree in digital video only to find out it wasn't really a digital video degree at all - just 40% - the rest was media studies where I learned a lot about TV remote control use in mining communities in wales in the 1980s from a feminist perspective.

seemed to me academia just couldn't keep up with the pace of progress. the people teaching had graduated in the pre-digital era and at times were struggling to keep up.

I had wanted to do a diss. on the history of visuals, my personal feeling being that VJing is just a brief sidetrack, its popularity having as much to do with the mainstream appropriation of drug/dance culture than it has the demoratisation of instant video.

needless to say I was pushed into embracing club culture by a tutor who was a wannabee DJ and an expert in guess what? club culture.

so in the end I knocked out a very dull look at how DJs and VJs do or dont work together. The whole experience was very low on learning and very high on conforming to acceptable norms.

[USE]

The whole experience was very low on learning and very high on conforming to acceptable norms.

ahh, british "education", what a wonderful thing.

best paper ive read yet which breaks that convention: http://vjforums.com/showthread.php?t=17001&highlight=LIVE+CINEMA

[Lara]

Hi hi Marina

Check out www.vjtheory.net - we are hoping that this will develop into a space for these kinds of research exchanges.

Ana and Brendan are doing a very good job of developing the site. I am sure they would be very keen to hear about your work.

Lara

[Lara]

seemed to me academia just couldn't keep up with the pace of progress. the people teaching had graduated in the pre-digital era and at times were struggling to keep up
I think there is a political question here - should academics be theorising about culture 'as it happens.' Isn't the fact that they struggled to understand new forms of media and mediated experience also interesting?

[labmeta]

That link should be www.vjtheory.net btw;)

[deepvisual]

Isn't the fact that they struggled to understand new forms of media and mediated experience also interesting?

well to be honest, no.
I would have had more respect if they had been honest and said it was all too much. but I agree it is more about politics than culture.
in the last few years, competent visual performers can do more in 30 minutes than a whole production facility could do in 3 weeks.
but education as an institution has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, or all those hard earned professorships would be obsolete.
the downside is, they want to teach us about cinema when it just isn't that relevant anymore.
nobody is to blame, I just think the tech advances have caught them with their pants down.
we need someone to make theory RAM so we can understand things in real time.

[seex]

well to be honest, no.
I would have had more respect if they had been honest and said it was all too much.

Thats what happend to me and its equaly frustrating. I was studiying photography, since it was 1995 and we were all eager to leran about digital technology, the school made a investment and bought a "phase one" chip for our sinar camera. Ok, so we said "when can we use it" the professors decided they will first take time to study it before alowing students to use it for their projects. I finished in 2000 and never got to work with it.

My frustration is almost opposite to yours deepvisual, but we both were at a loos in the end.

[Marina17]

Hi hi Marina

Check out www.theory.net - we are hoping that this will develop into a space for these kinds of research exchanges.

Lara

Why do I get to a Atoz web site if I try to get ot www.theory.net?

[Lara]

Sorry Paul corrected me - it should be www.vjtheory.net

[Marina17]

I am going to read all the stuff you suggested... thanks for the info :)

I am still beginning, but you can read my article for the conference Media in Transition at MIT 2004 here
http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit4/subs/mit4_abstracts.html#rz
Later I'll post something about my research... is based on performance studies and club culture, but maybe from a different angle...

I'd like to read deepvisual's dissertation... did you publish it on line?

[Marina17]

Hi hi Marina

Check out www.vjtheory.net - we are hoping that this will develop into a space for these kinds of research exchanges.

Ana and Brendan are doing a very good job of developing the site. I am sure they would be very keen to hear about your work.

Lara

great tanks! :kiss:

Are Ana and Brendan in the forums too?

[lowRes]

hey Marina!

your paper seems very interesting, (andi do need some good readings to keep my headout of java!)
i'll be reading it shortly!
glad you worked on Edgar Pera's performances!
u reminded me how much "saudades" i have from my tiny-faraway country!

on the other topic (and stepping away of narrative) another interesting reading might be john whitey's "digital harmony". it 's an interesting counterpoint to the light organs.

* )
r_x

[Marina17]

your paper seems very interesting, (andi do need some good readings to keep my headout of java!)
i'll be reading it shortly!
r_x

I hope you like it!
You are from Portugal then... nice country... I'd like to go there one day!
I didn't find digital armony... any tips on where I could find it?

[lowRes]

hey!
any tips on where I could find it?
i bought one last year on amazon, never found a digital version..

[Bokonon]

so in the end I knocked out a very dull look at how DJs and VJs do or dont work together. The whole experience was very low on learning and very high on conforming to acceptable norms.

1. Learning how to conform to acceptable norms is a very useful and fundemental part of any learning process. (written and spoken communication being a prime example.

2. If you do a degree in a media department then you are going to come up against media/cultural theory of some sort - I would have said a degree in art - (with video leanings), would have been more appropriate if what you wanted to do was investigate an artform - a media department will allow you to examine the medium - as distinct from the art of its creation...this is perhaps pissing in the wind, as we are talking past tense, but i wouldn't want people to think that your experience was the only possible experience of HE in the UK, you just got onto the wrong course, as ever, there is a pressure to get people onto courses, and you were another bum on a seat - you should have been told that the course was perhaps not for you at an earlier stage in the game (by the course team, or who ever was advising you in the first place.)

When I interview candidates, I generally try to get them to look at other courses and suggest this course is not for them - if they really want to do it, then they come on my course.

[unjulation]

[Learning how to conform to acceptable norms is a very useful and fundemental part of any learning process. (written and spoken communication being a prime example.

but its going to make for a very boreing and mediocha individuals who just tug there forlocks at any given norm

[Bokonon]

but its going to make for a very boreing and mediocha individuals who just tug there forlocks at any given norm
I disagree.

for example, in order to communicate effectively with other people around you, you have to accept and conform to the standards of the spoken language(s) of your locality - just because we are both speaking English, and probably learned it in a very similar way, and conform to very similar norms - this doesn't mean that what we communicate with that same 'conformist norm' is going to be anything like the same thing - just because something is written in a language you actually understand (as opposed to making one up specifically for everything you say/write) doesn't make it mediocre or boring.

This analogy can be carried across very effectively to music/film/whatever - there are basic building blocks of knowledge which are absolute and necessary to understand in order to complete basic tasks within any discipline.

[critique1867]

I disagree.

for example, in order to communicate effectively with other people around you, you have to accept and conform to the standards of the spoken language(s) of your locality - just because we are both speaking English, and probably learned it in a very similar way, and conform to very similar norms - this doesn't mean that what we communicate with that same 'conformist norm' is going to be anything like the same thing - just because something is written in a language you actually understand (as opposed to making one up specifically for everything you say/write) doesn't make it mediocre or boring.

This analogy can be carried across very effectively to music/film/whatever - there are basic building blocks of knowledge which are absolute and necessary to understand in order to complete basic tasks within any discipline.

But you don't just pick up norms you also change them and act within social roles in an individual way. (Bourdieu solved this dualism of action and structure using the concept of habitus). But this conecpt cannot be stretched to fit everything, because not everything is evolutionary, there are also breaks that cannot be explained using the concept of evolution (especially for history and society)

[Bokonon]

But you don't just pick up norms you also change them and act within social roles in an individual way. (Bourdieu solved this dualism of action and structure using the concept of habitus). But this conecpt cannot be stretched to fit everything, because not everything is evolutionary, there are also breaks that cannot be explained using the concept of evolution (especially for history and society)

Yes indeed, but I didn't feel that needed to be pointed out - as it was largely implicit in what people were saying - where as the accepted norms were getting bad press, when they are useful and actually quite important.