How much nudity is acceptable?

[spaceman]

I'm not a porn freak or anything but art has always containted images of nude human bodies, how much is acceptable for v.j.s?
Over here (in india), for example, live flesh in totaly unacceptable, but a carving depicting a couple engaged all kinds of sexual activities is ok thu :rolleyes: .
How is it in your area?

[okot]

In Australia I guess it depends on the context the nudity is used in. If its hardcore porn you may be able to get away with it at an Contemporary Art Gallery. Shock value kind of Stuff. At a party some toned down nude stuff works with other imagery to create a kind of narrative that can place the nudity in another context. We use some nudity in sequences and have had no problems with promoters or the genral public.

[syzygy]

Depends completely on the event in question (and what local laws will allow - e.g. I know in some US states you can get in trouble for showing nudity in the same place as you serve alcahol)

We don't really use nudity in our stuff as we haven't had the need to yet. We have had one promotor trying to convince us to use more risque material though... ;-)

Dan.

(Syzygy visuals)

[InsideUsAll]

we've been asked to project porn a few times. We never agreed to it though. Its not our thing.

Anytime theres any kind of nudity in a club, you can really feal the atmospere change around you. I found it really horrible to be honest last time I was in a club and there was an arty type dancing thing where a few girls were showing there bits. The whole vibe just changes, the guys just start emitting all manner of hormones & pheremones and animal instinct vibes. And the girls get all insecure & uncomfortable. I'm sure the vice versa would occur if it was guys getting there kit off.

for me its just not what I go out to do. When I go to a party i go to dance & to have fun [thats when I'm not working -which is rare!].

porn is great, but it just complicates the atmosphere too much to be usefull in a club environment.

[silk]

hahahaha I had a tape from a friend of mine and ( he said there was a great movie on it and I had a evening off not knowing the content ) sow after inserting it in the recorder I watched the tape and it was a gay-movie hahahah .... I used some clips in a gig , like showing it for an half a second ..... good shocking stuff :p

[unjulation]

i would agre with you inside about changeing the vibe of the space which it can do dramaticly, i've been to after partys ware someone started showing hardcore porn and the atmospher does dramaticly change and in that space not for the better

but i have done clubs both straight and gay ware sexuality and sensuality are part of the atraction and the selling point of the night for which i have used nudity within the space, nothing hardcore mind and as anyone who knows my work, i have a tendancy to visual overload my mix's so the actual nudity is not the only thing within the frame

so to me it depends upon what kinda night you are doing as to wether you should use it or not and to what degree

[wellREDman]

it all depends on the context,
i had a residency where the brief was scifi/erotica, and i found it a real challenge to find stuff that was both sexual enuff to satisfy the promoter (at one point she came back from a trip to amsterdam with a bag full of the most appallingly cheap porn you can imagine and asked me to use it !!) and aesthetically pleasing enuff for me to be happy to put my name to it.
one of the compromises i reached, (yes lev i know i promised you a copy and i will sort it out as soon as i get round to it :) ) was to cut out all the close ups of womens faces at the moment of orgasm and stick em on a tape, i ended up with a tape that had absolutely no nudity on it, yet was at the same time extremely erotic.

[cloud9]

it is the primary duty of art to be free

[InsideUsAll]

Originally posted by cloud9
it is the primary duty of art to be free

agreed

shite, that means I'm gonna have to do the next gig naked :eek:

[brain]

i always would prefer clever, sexy clips that do show very little, but tease and trigger imagination. some tricky cuts of a lovely leg in boots are much hotter to me than a pair of hopping silicone tits :)

almost all the fetish/sm events i've been to use projections of porn or of-the-shelf commercial sm-stuff, and this is SO boring and unsexy to me. an exeption has been the torture garden at london, they have used use clips from movies that are non-hardcore but play with sexy and/or violent images - sometimes predictable (clockwork orange...) sometimes old or tacky stuff with a lot of humor! ...but i guess they play the same tape over and over again. anyway, a good point to start with, the more for VJing...

[disassembler]

Yeah. I think doing things like showing a banana being pealed or a peach being pulled open. These are clever ways to show sexy. I did make a clip of from about 80 pics of people faces having a orgasm from some porn. Doesn't have to be the entire body for peeps to know what's being communicated. I also have this clip of two 3d animated dogs getting down that I show on nights when the musician is DJ Assault.

Currently I am on the lookout for extremely large couple porn. You don't really see anything but you get the idea. Kind of like a horror movie where they don't zoom in on the details and you still get it.

I really pride myself on shooting my own footage but Large people porn is just extremely hard to come by. But I spin what the DJ is saying, and the people that show up for the DJ know what the DJ is all about (most of the time).

For example: Detroit Pimps and Hoes show had Slick Rick and Ron Jeremy the famous large porn star. Or maybe a Too Live Crew concert. People know what to expect before they go there.

[vjrei]

I make visuals for House Music DJ's and I have some explicit nudity stuff just for them. I took a few clips of some lesvians and process them in After Effects changing the hue constantly to make it very psicodelic. Just tits and kisses. It is actually very creative, funny, sensual.

Now, I can not run the same thing in a rave party, ecstasis make you horny enough, imagine if I play some porn for 3.000 people! In rave party I play funny stuff, happy atmosphere most of the time.

Porn should be carefull. I can show 2 people having sex but in a explicit way, that is it. I do not want some one comming to me complaining because his girlfriend felt "offended" or even worst... complaining at my client!

There are all kind of people in a club and there are a few things wich I do not want to have to deal with.

[VideoChiel]

Uhm, for the two gay parties where I did visuals I was asked to show hardcore porn on the beams, something I personally don't like, my solution was to play the DVD fast forward, so the action looked more to something like a slapstick than porn, this feed then went thru my vid-mixer where I gave it a strobo and paint effect so the details were not so much visible anymore and the effect was very cool...me happy, my boss happy and the crowd wasn't disturbt :)

grtz
Chiel

[asterix]

I saw a lame assed vj who's entire set was manga porn shit with freaky tentacles and deamons 'penetrating' anime chicks... it was really sick and he just repeated the same clips all night.

I went around and talked to the crowd about what they thought- and they were quite put off.

[VjDeranged]

Over here (in india), for example, live flesh in totaly unacceptable

Spaceman! are you kiddin me! I used to so shows in Bombay there, full of FLESH! :D
take any snippet from an indian movie and its got camera closeups of T&A thats impossible to do even in a 3dsmax camera LOL!

remember one event for bacardi Limon where I retouched 4 seconds of footage (thats 100 individual frames) to superimpose "lemons" on a preferred part of the female form and the obvious part of a pelvic thrusting male indian actor in a movie and had the punters falling off the floor to that one :)

in India...creativity mixed with a 100rupee bill will do you wonders in the poetic licence dept!

[holly]

take any snippet from an indian movie and its got camera closeups of T&A thats impossible to do even in a 3dsmax camera LOL!
Ugh, it's true! Indian movies have the STEAMIEST fully clothed, raunchiest non-sex scenes...! Very hot! Very unlike rape tenticle anime.

[psychodude]

How far is too far?

We've been asked frequently to show some sexy stuff. We still are processing that. Most things me and the other male member find sexual, teasing ... are quite the opposite for our female member. And visa-versa BTW. Then we thought of using some hetero-stuff combining male and female "teasers", resulting in pseudo-romantic stuff which was not what we were looking for, and our gay friends didn't get "it".
So we are still @ not sexual.

I think confronting people with sex will always trigger some reaction. In my personal opinion, that reaction will not be sexual most of the time, rather defensive. Or how does one react on a sexual joke told by a complete stranger. (if it is good or not)

[holly]

how does one react on a sexual joke told by a complete stranger. Very true! It's not the come-on line that fails, it's the guy telling it.

Are you saying that what your femme-partner finds sexy, you don't? Are you turned off by it or just don't think it goes far enough...? There is no crossover at all? No common ground?

What do you consider "teasing"? I'm not trying to turn this into a "He said / She said", but I am always surprised that what most guys seem to consider fore-play I'd consider being about 3/4 of the way through sex ? and believe me I'm no prude!

[littlecatalyst]

Originally posted by holly
What do you consider "teasing"? I'm not trying to turn this into a "He said / She said", but I am always surprised that what most guys seem to consider fore-play

i'm a guy.... but i understand what youre talking about. subtlety, humour, allusion? i tag-team a lot. and i am constantly amazed at how many boy vjs consider it totally acceptable to have women dancing in scanty clothes or less while not having one (1) guy dancing in their computer.... i always thought at the very least be egalitarian (I actually picked up some gay soft core of guys dancing in their undies just to have on hand now when the boys bring on the 'babes...) i'm feeling a better vibe all around when there's the mix of big boobs and a nice six packs.

but its a funny issue i used to resident at this freaky thing called squeeeze and they had an s/m dungeon in the basement, a drag-queen vip room, and paid at least 50 people a night to dance around intheir underware (of course the crowd had no idea they were paid and by the end of the night there would be about 800 people who forgot where they put their clothes) they always wanted the raunchiest videos possible, and i would go out of my way to have things that were sexual while not being pornographic (indian stuff was good, i used to have a great X-rated snow white which keyed beautifully......)

there's a fine line out there.....

[holly]

Sounds like a great party!:D

This is soooo important to discuss! I see two camps of VJs: the ones who do completely a-sexual trance/techno (kaleidescope, flying gears, 3D vector boxes), and everybody else! I fall into the everybody else catagory so naturally my sets have people dancing, subtle nudity, club and fetish outfits, etc.

Like my avatar is from a Flirty Nurse set. There's no nudity but I'm doing all the campy nurse stuff (taking temperature, giving a shot, listening to heartbeat, etc. all to an imaginary person off screen) so for each little schtick I drop out of the frame (to grab the next prop), but everyone filled in the blanks and decided the nurse was doing the really naughty stuff just below the camera ("servicing" him was what I heard most). I didn't even think of that, but it bacame unintentionally a much raunchier video because of what everyone didn't see! I guess it works because guys and girls alike were able to scale the implied action to their own level. If i'd shown it, it always would have been gross to some and tame for others, besides there's no way in hell I'd be showing THAT!

Now I'm about to incorporate heavy bondage footage in my set and I'm a little cautious (understatement). It's all my own footage so I can show (or not show) whatever I want.... Which makes me a little nervous about what exactly I'm suggesting or implying even if I'm not showing anything sexual. People fill in the blanks, and I am standing in the room VJing and not trying to invite myself to be everyone's free/friendly dominatrix.... Do I really want to do this?

[littlecatalyst]

Originally posted by holly
Now I'm about to incorporate heavy bondage footage in my set and I'm a little cautious (understatement). It's all my own footage so I can show (or not show) whatever I want.... Which makes me a little nervous about what exactly I'm suggesting or implying even if I'm not showing anything sexual. People fill in the blanks, and I am standing in the room VJing and not trying to invite myself to be everyone's free/friendly dominatrix.... Do I really want to do this?

well if youre going to be a dom you ought not do it free/friendly (they make way more money than veehs, no?)...

@Squeeeze i used to use a lot of those old sm sequences from MondoNewYork but i had them on Betacam and found that when scratching them back and forth like a record to the beat (analog boy loves that dynamic tracking!!) they were no longer sexual but some sort of campy take where the players are now acting like robots and stuff... kinda compulsive and speedy. not quite sure whay i'm trying to say....

[holly]

Yes, yes. Through the magic of video you dehumanized the footage like puppets. It became more about rhythm and repetition than sex. It also had camp value, like dancing around the room with a poster of Farrah Faucet is a very different statement than dancing around the room with actual Farrah....
well if youre going to be a dom you ought not do it free/friendly (they make way more money than veehs, no?)...
No comment on the day job. The point is people form opinions about what they see (and don't see) irreguardless of what you actually show. What's up on the screen is only like 1/3rd of the story that's playing in their heads (one on one is easier for mindcontrol, but video is loose and sloppy mindcontrol; you can make them look, but you can't make them understand). If I want to introduce this element in my art (and I really want to), how do I keep it "on the video". You see what I mean? I'm not advertising, and if the crowd gets too fresh I could always show some scary knife footage and that should keep the amatures at bay;) . Hmmm. I guess it's sorta answered in your mondo-video example. "Magic of video" sort of processing.... Interesting.

Alright, I'm probably overthinking this like Bassy and Unjulation. It's about action, not philosophy. I'll just make it hella scary, process the movement in an unnatural video-way, and Bob's your uncle.

Thanks!

[burstingfist]

I like to use those old 40's, 50's and 60's nudy loops with the chicks wearing the pasties. It's not full nudity, but it's enough to make the visuals somewhat sexy (though I did have someone call and complain saying I was playing hardcore porn!). Plus some of those chicks are just darn funny looking.

[robotfunk]

great thread this..

in a lot of clubs, especially playing house music, sexual tension is a theme on the dancefloor that is very interesting to play with.
It is also very easy to get OTT with it.

I totally agree the way to go is tease and not be too explicit. A bit of sexiness is fresh, but too much meat will just gross everybody out or at least ruin the atmosphere.

Holly I can totally dig your fear of being misinterpreted when playing kinky material, I think its really cool for a chick to dare play that kinda stuff. Would not worry that much about guys, I think 97% of guys are scared off by a woman showing 100% sexual confidence, let alone a dominatrix.OK worry about the other 3% yeah, keep some scary shit around just in case. But I don't think ms kittin has to fend off a lot of guys from the stage, they are simply too scared.

@littlecatalyst: Yeah i reckon it would look comic, almost every human movement looks comic when played at the 'wrong' speed, remember 20s movies, all these blooper compilation video's etc.
The only exception i've found is 'working men' with machines, feeding coal engines etc. If this does not take too much altering to get in sync, it gives a great illusion of all these people doing all this hard work to keep that mechanical beat going.

[jeffhtg]

I use nudity all the time.. in fact some of my favorite hard banging visuals contain tons of 80's porn, midget porn, and anything else wierd n spicey I can get my hands on..

We're artists.. granted there are alot of guys out there that just get plain tacky with the nudity thing.. and I have never used such footages in corperate situations or places that common sense just tell you not to do it :)

[Lara]

but I am always surprised that what most guys seem to consider fore-play I'd consider being 3/4 of the way through sex- and believe me I'm no prude!

Agreed! ;)

Ah, there's so little sensuality these days. . . there is nothing worse than hardcore porn imagery in a club, but teasing is grrreat! It has to be subtle though, and I think this is one aspect of vjing where the crowd's reaction needs to be read really well. Holly, go for your bondage mayhem (;) sound good) without any worries, you know you can read the crowd well, and I'm sure it will become apparrent what to play and what not to. As for pervs in the crowd, well if its not a sleasy meat market club then everyone who might come up to you- well its a compliment on your visuals and your own sexiness! All gooooood.

[Lara]

. . . midget porn . . .

well, as jeffhtg says:

we're artists

wouldn't want to get tacky with the whole thing?!

lol :)

[holly]

Thanks Lara! Exactly what I needed to hear.:love: :girly: :heart:

[45NorthKeyboardist]

In order to have nudity in Wisconsin, I believe one must have a license. Indecent Exposure tickets have been given out to gals who've flashed the band...even at a few rowdy clubs where we've played. At biker bars where its a little more acceptable to show T&A the bouncers look the other way at time and sometimes they don't. They regulate a lot of things here...but just getting into the VJ scene, I'm becoming more aware of what is acceptable and what is not.

I remember watching a movie recently where the talked about your 'o' face and how that relates to your 'porn' face.

Well lots of scenes of orgasm would be great with out the nudity. I'm all for that. Time to ripp some of those shots from the personal library.

Anybody have vintage stuff from the 50's?

[gambit]

Originally posted by cloud9
it is the primary duty of art to be free


that's the point... I use nudity in fast flashes... this situation makes my set closer to 18+ rating, but don't turns it in a porn movie...

a naked breast isn't equal to Paris Hilton sucking her boyfriend :rolleyes:

[eyeballtoast]

For hardcore porn i put Fx over the top so it takes along time to see anything.

Bodies are bodies, everyone has them... or so i'd hope..?! To display flesh is always awkward as people have many different attitudes.

Hardcore un FX'd film in my book is a no no, too much prurient interest.

Bouncing comical titties tho... yeah, i like that!!! :nod:

[Amukidi]

it is the primary duty of art to be free
Yep - and so much art (I'd say the majority these days) is about sex, in one way or another!:)

[seex]

I got this lovely BUTHO series i did some jears ago. I have the right to use the clips, in all but one situation. The dancers are almost naked but the movements of the body are to cramped to be considered sexy, again to all but one man. I was so surprised when someone aproached me and said culd you please stop playing that clip, thats my wife. What wuld you do, i mean he has a paper stating ownership over that body.