cerasus
5th November 2003, 12:20 PM
heres some thoughts on avit 2003 and the state of the scene as i see it. please don't take these comments too negatively, its all fairly idealistic and doesnt take into account the hard physical realities involved in putting something like this together, so please take it on that level. i've lots of good memories from the event of people, clips, nodes and the pleasure in being part of something - and there were some great individual visuals that have put more colours on my pallette, but..
from what i gather, the reason this year wasnt a success financially, and was a bit of a letdown for me, was the massjam. to break even, the attention of the locals needed to be captured. now this shouldnt be too hard for us to do, seeing as peoples attention is what we deal with, and some of the people here live in brighton. well, the brighton clubber knows the brighton centre, they know it would take something extreme to transform the stale Office vibe of the venue, and from the advertising they simply didnt feel that was gonna happen. and they were right - at times the main room felt like a corporate powerpoint presentation, given by the dj, who was still the centre of peoples attention, and here lies the problem. dance music evolved us from the tired old rock format of the star on stage and the seperate observer in the crowd but the scene has regressed, superstar djs are the new rock stars, new sounds come and go (i'm a breaks fiend) and we're all still waiting for the thing to leap forward. well the responsibility lies with us, and what we have to do is not restrict our creativity to 640x480 but to consider the whole environment, to work with the building and get rid of ceilings, floors, walls, djs, and replace with the contents of our minds - only then will the club experience evolve - its waiting for us. the massjam should have been an event that showed what's possible, and showed others why it matters, and it wasn't that event. the friend i was staying with couldnt see why i'm so passionate about this, she said she 'doesnt wanna watch telly when she's out' and she's right of course so i took her to the massjam and we watched telly in an room not unlike the one i sign on in - now if a clip had shown someone signing on.. context is everything. i wouldnt place that much weight on it but it was built up to be the focal point of the festival, and i went there expecting a dizzying retinal scorch, which didn't happen, altho the AV area downstairs was more focussed and seemed to work better. my friend told me the only time visuals have added something magical to a night for her was at a free party nearby when they were beamed onto the white cliffs. this is what people respond to, visuals meaning more than the content shown on a square screen, cos theres only really us interested in that. we need to take responsibility for everything someone sees at a party, cos like i say, everyones waiting for us to sort it out.
with respect
t
from what i gather, the reason this year wasnt a success financially, and was a bit of a letdown for me, was the massjam. to break even, the attention of the locals needed to be captured. now this shouldnt be too hard for us to do, seeing as peoples attention is what we deal with, and some of the people here live in brighton. well, the brighton clubber knows the brighton centre, they know it would take something extreme to transform the stale Office vibe of the venue, and from the advertising they simply didnt feel that was gonna happen. and they were right - at times the main room felt like a corporate powerpoint presentation, given by the dj, who was still the centre of peoples attention, and here lies the problem. dance music evolved us from the tired old rock format of the star on stage and the seperate observer in the crowd but the scene has regressed, superstar djs are the new rock stars, new sounds come and go (i'm a breaks fiend) and we're all still waiting for the thing to leap forward. well the responsibility lies with us, and what we have to do is not restrict our creativity to 640x480 but to consider the whole environment, to work with the building and get rid of ceilings, floors, walls, djs, and replace with the contents of our minds - only then will the club experience evolve - its waiting for us. the massjam should have been an event that showed what's possible, and showed others why it matters, and it wasn't that event. the friend i was staying with couldnt see why i'm so passionate about this, she said she 'doesnt wanna watch telly when she's out' and she's right of course so i took her to the massjam and we watched telly in an room not unlike the one i sign on in - now if a clip had shown someone signing on.. context is everything. i wouldnt place that much weight on it but it was built up to be the focal point of the festival, and i went there expecting a dizzying retinal scorch, which didn't happen, altho the AV area downstairs was more focussed and seemed to work better. my friend told me the only time visuals have added something magical to a night for her was at a free party nearby when they were beamed onto the white cliffs. this is what people respond to, visuals meaning more than the content shown on a square screen, cos theres only really us interested in that. we need to take responsibility for everything someone sees at a party, cos like i say, everyones waiting for us to sort it out.
with respect
t