what's your defintion of AV?

[hamageddon]

hijacked this from the inspiration-forum, guess makes
a good start for a definition quest, since this forum
cares a lot bout av-concepts too.

Originally posted by wellREDman
hows this for a pop at defining what makes something AV

a performance where both aspects are having some influence on the other is AV

so when the vjs an old fashioned silent vj like me, busking to a dj thats doing his own thing, thats not AV

and when someone does the (heard of it but never seen it ) DJ to film thing its not AV

but two guys one doing audio one doing video, jamming together is AV.

one person producing both at the same time is AV.

25 ppl on a stage all feeding audio and video signals back and for between themselves in a great big electronic circle jerk is AV.

[Amukidi]

For my money, when one person/crew is responsible for both sound and vision, that's AV. I watched "Sundaze" DJ along to "Close Encounters" at the Big Chill this year - shouldn't have worked, but it did - big time!! Thats AV in my book! I think that the key difference is that for most VJs, they are responding in one way or another to someone else (may never have met before the gig, may be regular partners) playing music, which is usually not chosen/written by them. With an AV set, the visual artist has editorial control over what noises come out of the PA.

[littlecatalyst]

um, this thread is called "what's your definition of AV (2 replies)"
andthen there's a thread a just a little bleow this called "your definition of VA (6 replies)"
and Hama then theres that kewel thread with you and Kriel talking abouit your laptop VA gear...
oh and of course, the one in inspiration "Teaser for new AV experience..."

...just to say i'm getting confused.... where do we go to rant about this subject?? j/k but it seems a littel all over the place (much like the definitions of AV)

[littlecatalyst]

...but now for a more serious reply:
riught of the bat i agree more with RED that it doen't matter how many people are on stage.. what matters is if the A and the V are beiung tweaked in theact and (imho) more importantly if there is a cohesive gel. if there is some link, and not just the simple sinc points, but if there is some link....

...and nnow i am almost embarassed to even bringthis up, but last night i was visiting my sick Mom and brought her Chicago on dvd. For those of you away from Broadway and hollywood propeeganda, Chicago was some big hit apparently, based on a broadway play. now that has got to be as far removed as it can get to VJing or PAs or AV, but it was the formal aspects that made me think whilst sitting with me mom of talking about this with all of you;

there was one sequence before the music and singing and dancing kicked in, where there were sounds tied to visual cues, like fingers clicking one-by-one on a table (nice beat-y sound), or jail cell bars being hit by a trunchon... each of these had a sound + visual an dthey were introduced in sync but then the sound kept on getting bigger... ok it has little to do with anything, but i kept on thinking about our AV questions.... and while this was total pablum, it illustrated to me a great point, about the two and hwo they interact (not 100% full on all the time, but when they do it gels nice)

[holly]

Tee hee. Yeah, I'm not sure why a/v became part of THE FUTURE. Obviously some VJs think the future of VJ is a/vJ, but that just seems like a bit of an agenda, more so than prophesy. There was talk a while back for making an a/v forum or a DJ/VJ forum or something like that, but it was all too nebulous to lock on to. *shrug*

We're (FMT) working on a theater/performance situation where I can lay down the main video and audio from mixed DVDs and a soloist can use a midi-suit or some specialty "showpiece" interface to trigger what we are calling "Sparkles", or short audio/video clips that blend in or ontop of what I'm doing. One person is handling a continuous a/v stream in hardware, and a soloist is triggering the jazz accompaniment/intermittant "sparkles" in software. It's still a work in progress because we haven't settled on the midi-soft or the interface, but it seems to fit the way we work together. I bring this up as an alternative to a duo where one is audio and the other is video....

[robotfunk]

The definition of A/V is just Audiovisual. So anything catering for these 2 senses is A/V

A/V PERFORMANCE is where A and V are PERFORMED.
IMO if one reacts to the other, great, but not necessary to call it an A/V performance.

the last thing we need is inventing all kinds of limits to the definition before it takes off.

[wellREDman]

yeah but by that token all tv films and all visuals is AV, we need some way of differentiating between AV as we understand it and othe stuff

[littlecatalyst]

...not to mention those cute little slide shows with teh audio "beep!" cassettes... in fact when i had to go get one of those projectors for my sixt grade class, i would have to go to the AV room..... but that is not the AV we are talking about here

[littlecatalyst]

i do not think it is limitations when trying to understand some thing, why to do it, what it's stregnths and rules are (you know rules: the things you have to learn so you can break?)...

i want to know the range of the medium's possibilities. and if i feel strongly that the two must interact, that is part of my style and part of my mandate... if you feel differently then that will add to diversity. but i do not think that just anyone with a beatbox and a v4 will be making AV pieces (even if when they do it live it is an AV performance) there is more to it than that.... it's new and we are cartographers.... mapping out the range of it...

its to get a better understanding of what it is and why to do it.... and that will be different for each person.... some will like the greater control they have, some will like to sync everything up , and some will simply want to get top billing (something not yet happening to vjs but maybe to avjs) instead of a snooty dj.

but for me, if it isn't to push the envelope further and see what we can do with it, then its boring (thats for me imho, not a rule... lets get that straight). i mean, once we are looking at AVJs we are talking about a medium that almost completely eats up every other medium (from belly dancing to educational videos, to hip beats and classic samples (music) (hell, video samples too). how cool is that?? you want to throw in architecture, sure no probelm.. how about some contemportaty political views? sure... everything AND The kitchen sinc (hopefully not all at once, hopefully with some narrative. as abstracted as it may be) to me this is what's exciting.. going from fluff for the djs and club kids to some 25-story monster of a meduim that can wrap up the last century with cool keying and spit back something senseful: with a good beat, of course

so its not just how 'the a affects the v' and all that formalist stuff; but that is part of understanding this meduim which can actually incorporate any other meduim be it visual, or auditory... dang! what else is there..

if we are playing with this, isn't it ok to try to define it? does that have to be a prison?

[robotfunk]

not per se a prison, but defining will often lead to pigeonholing and people not exploring possibilities that are excluded from the term. And even if we found a better definition, how are we to get the rest of the world to agree upon it.

Also we already have the A/V term meaning audiovisual, look it up in the dictionary.

If thats too broad a definition there is also audiovisual art, audiovisual performance, and a lot more terms to choose from.
Each of them is defined, yet broad enough for me to
work with.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I love more than audio, video and other media reacting to each other and enhancing each other, in fact thats my main goal. I just think if we want to define this kind of stuff, we should come up with a new term, not invent a new meaning of an existing term, which will only lead to more confusion.

intermedia harmonics anyone?

[holly]

Ho ho ho. We tell people to "look it up in the dictionary" so many times I think I will ask eX to put a link to Dictionary.com at the top of the page....

Well, when we are using a pre-defined art term like "surreal" it is important that we are all on the same page. Surrealism is a recognized movement, a period in time, and it cheapens the discussion to use these words in their mundane context. (Surreal = Dali, Surreal != swirly blobs). It's like saying my 8ft screen is COLOSSAL. Well, no. It's really not big enough to be "colossal", but I'm given some freedom to exagerate as long as no one calls me on it.:D

With this AV thing, I think Lil'Cat has covered all the bases by saying it is everyone's opinion and more, but I think it can be narrowed down a little until like 98% of what is really out there being AV can fit into the catagory. It's fine to say AV is something that has A and V, but it seems to need some fusion between them, some interlocking..., some inseperable relationship to make it AV, right?

Multi-disciplinary art is just too general of a term.

How about some examples?

[littlecatalyst]

well this is from Miriam Webster dot com:
Audiovisual- adj (from 1937)
1; designed to aid in learning or teching by making use of both hearing and sight (kinda liek i was saying teh AV geek depot with teh pverhead projectors and teh tapes that go "beep"
2: of or relating to hearing and sight
(oh and AV is good for audiovisual, as well as Average, Avenue, Ad Valorem and Authorized Veriosn (which is about as far away as i think you can get)

i dunno robo-- neither if those make me feel all tingly...

and it's kinda funnny cause when you say that audiovisualperformance is good enought for you to work with, sure, we are all willingto work with no name, but if someone says how do i VJ you will say (aside from that being too general a questions) something about the different aspects of VJing even though some people hate the label, what is different here?

and i do think the av noun sucks ass. its lame. its a lame way of explaining what you do, and instead of having to say "V. no... V.... not DJ, i do the visuals" you will be telling people you are an AV and then they will ask you to get them an overhead projector

taxonomy is boring to me i do want to talk about the formal qualities....

[littlecatalyst]

Holly... are you doing Roman screenings???

[holly]

Yes, all gladiators in little leather skirts *pant, pant*

[JeSs]

I'm getting really lost with all the A/V_crap name_stuff :)
I suppose that for me they are 2 aspects in an A/V set.
First the fact that you have audio and video mixed together. But that makes pretty much anything A/V : tv, dvd, cinema, any vj playing for music etc... So thats not good enough.
And secondly the fact that they inspire each other in real time. So tv gets out of the way along with cinema and dvd. Because the V does inspires the A (et vice verca) but not in real time.
So most of the time a vj playing to music is not an A/V either because the vj is inspired by the music but the dj (band...) is not responding to the visuals (if he can even see them !!!).
And I think thats really disapointing. But vjs and djs don't often talk to each other. If I can, I always get to talk to whoever I'm mixing for. Not to chat about the visuals themselves but to get a feel of the person.
So to get an A/V running you really need to know the person you are working with. So that you know is language (records) and he knows yours (videos). Working with dj ElwOod I now feel the same as when I play music with friends. We know each others languages so we can improvises together. And the fact of me talking a few of his words (sound/video samples) is only helping but it is not necessary.

[wellREDman]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by wellREDman
hows this for a pop at defining what makes something AV

a performance where both aspects are having some influence on the other is AV

so when the vjs an old fashioned silent vj like me, busking to a dj thats doing his own thing, thats not AV

and when someone does the (heard of it but never seen it ) DJ to film thing its not AV

but two guys one doing audio one doing video, jamming together is AV.

one person producing both at the same time is AV.

25 ppl on a stage all feeding audio and video signals back and for between themselves in a great big electronic circle jerk is AV.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



so i guess my definition stands then, AV is where both parts are interacting with each other , the degree of interaction may vary , but as long as there is some influence we can call it an AV act.


lil cat your comments make me worry your going down the judgement route, bad AV stuff is still AV stuff, if it fulfills the criteria,

this is what derailed the what is a vj thread, too many people were saying "that isnt vjing", when what they meant was "that is shit vjing "

[littlecatalyst]

youre right RED i guess, at some point there will be a bunch of people who are making music and visuals and putting them together-- and they might feel that there has to be no link whatsoever between the a and the v, that will be their aesthetic choice so i guess the things i am hampering on about are not really the defining aspects of av

so what is it?
it's av if you or your crew:
a) make the vis and the beats
b) mix the vis and the beats
and that theres *some* relationship between the two

that makes sense, i mean if i were going to see an AV act i would expect at the very least to see 1-5 people making music and mixing visuals... (though sometimes it may seem no different than a dj + vj that doesn't change anything right?).

i still think there is something of a difference between an AV act and an AV piece though. dont wanna sound judgemental but i think that there may be at least a slightly higher bar. something to discern it from a vj mixsession. is that still too judgmental?

[holly]

I think that's a fine line that will have to be judged on a case by case basis. Simple catagorical definitions are the antithesis of "art".

[wellREDman]

Originally posted by holly
Simple catagorical definitions are the antithesis of "art".

but the daily fodder of art intellectuals :crazy:

[Amukidi]

This thread is starting to scare me! Does it actually matter?