What do images mean to you?

[ermetekos]

Are you tring to say sth with your sets?
What is the purpose of images to you?
What kind of images do you like to use?

[holly]

I use a lot of female characters dancing and having fun. Women with sly looks and villianesses are cool too. I don't show cars and I don't show men, but I do show guns and food. I like putting these women into interesting environments, rooms made out of light and animation that spin and whirl around them. I try to recreate the feeling of being out and dancing and having fun. When I'm out dancing with my girlfriends and it's just about having a great physical exchange with my girls, being active and enjoying the night. The heat inside the club, the cold air outside for a cigarette and talking a mile a minute, then rushing back in to dance some more.... Unfortunately, I don't get to do this much anymore, and when we do it's annoying to be interrupted by random guys looking to hook up.... My visuals are about that giddy, fantasy experience. Glam, whirling, sparkling, physical fun. I take it to an abstraction, like the environment is blurred while the girl is sharp and clever with a well defined look and personality. That's what clubbing always was to me.

I don't get political and I don't try to appeal to guy's aesthetics. I'm just not interested and there are plenty of male VJs out there doing their circuitboards and disposable gogo-slut silouettes. Skateboarders seems ridiculously un-glam and immature, and travel videos bore me. Patterns and audiovisualizers are fine as backgrounds, but they don't hold my attention without the girl on top. It's not about where you go, it's about who you go with.

[ermetekos]

thx for your reply holly.
I appreciate it!

[TechnoLust]

First Holly said:
Originally posted by holly
I use a lot of female characters dancing and having fun.
Women with sly looks and villianesses are cool too.
...don't hold my attention without the girl on top.

Then Holly said:
Originally posted by holly
I don't try to appeal to guy's aesthetics.

To which I say:

What a funny irony / contradiction! :D :jump2:

Everything you're doing appeals greatly to me, and I'm definately a guy! LOL

-TL
P.S. Hope you see the humor in this... don't judge me a sexist bastard!

[holly]

No no, it's cool, Technolust. I didn't want to belabor the point, but it's a marketing fact that when advertisers want to get a man's attention they show a woman, and when they want to get a woman's attention they show a woman.... Maybe not the same woman, however....

I see lots of local (male) VJs who show a man's sensability - and there's nothing wrong with that of course! But it seems when men show women *WARNING SEXIST STATEMENTS COMING YOUR WAY* they tend to show generic women (the dancing silouette) almost like it's woman-as-shape, often with a ton of fx over her, and they will introduce her form as interchangable with any number of other shapes (squares, crashtest dummies, circuitboards, anime sample, machinery, dancing woman, industrial complex, etc).

What I see the female VJs doing around here are using an identifiable woman as a character or subject and use her for a while, before moving on to abstract and later introducing another female "character" which stays on screen for a while. This is all very vague of course because what "personality" you can convey in a VJ set is limited. But it goes back to clubbing: I know women who spend 2 hours or more getting ready and fixing their "look" before going out, you know: creating a character through fashion, if that's a believable statement. I never mix the women, it's just one woman at a time and I try to give her her 15-20 minutes in the spotlight so people get to know her and she conveys this personality.... Since I shoot a lot of bluescreen dancers, it generally starts with a girl coming in my studio with hair and costume and doing her schtick for the camera, then sometimes I make custom backgrounds just for that character.... I had a girl come in yesterday with these amazing cyber-bat wings so I have this whole fantasy that I will make a cyber-goth cathedral for her to be dancing in ? yeah right, when I have the time and the 3D skills!

Anyway, I think my VJ aesthetic comes from working in clubs and having been a go-go dancer (a long long l-o-n-g time ago) and giving that 30 minutes of organized focus on only one performer. I don't really like the "jumble of fast images" that I see a lot of guys do (including my male partner), but we switch off throughout the night. I'm not saying men can't enjoy a female aesthetic, and I keep getting gigs so I must be making the (male) promoters happy.... In fact, I'd say men can more readily enjoy a female aesthetic of longer, subject-oriented VJ than women enjoy a male quick-cut-and random-collage aesthetic.... Men can enjoy abstraction a lot longer than women for some reason.... I'm not saying one is better than the other or trying to do another male/female generalization, but I see what the local guys do and I deliberately don't go there.

I think you'd like my stuff. Women are sexier when they're not trying to be "sexy". Like if I told a girl to dance for a guy, it would be totally different than her dancing for her girlfriends or dancing by herself, you know? I don't distort or put fx on them besides the occaisional sparkle and glow, I keep them really sharp so it's about them and not about video tricks.... I totally try to get them to be goofy and have fun and show a lot of personality. They don't try to be sexy or come-on to the camera.... (not saying you would tell them to do that either...);) :cool:

edited to add:
Agh! I'm talking too much! What do you do Erm? TL?

[bluntfaktory]

Are you trying to say the with your sets?

"whoooaa dude that's whoooaa yeeaa "

What is the purpose of images to you?

an inescapable none verbal form of communication that's instant , even if it's on a subconscious level , the moment it's viewed .

What kind of images do you like to use?

bold hi contrast images that are colorful but minimal when needed with intense subject matter that's hi energy without being too busy or obvious .

[Lucidhouse]

Images cause responces, harsh or subtle - combined with musical rythms it gives them more force

I like to use lot's of figuretive stuff as well as cerebral looking abstracts and subliminAl things. I love faces, especialy female one's, birds, bees, plants, toys, hands, quirky people, anything...

[Retardia]

think you'd like my stuff. Women are sexier when they're not trying to be "sexy".

Your absolutly correct...

Images to me open vorticies to each and every intellect differently. One might be stimulated completely differently than others.

I like to make thing fun, thats all, not hip, nor "cool" nor decrepit. Lego men playing guitar is my best example. Color and boldity with clear images is always more powerfull than visualistic over effected compilations with no real subject. I do however like to be busy, a bold kind of busy that is and to go into noisy at certain times but it always comes back. More than anything I want to stimulate the same buzziness and keenity of the childhoods people had growing up in the eighties. Not using eighties images particularily but rather capturing the same kind of confidence in true Good Times. The fun of things like He-man and Neon Skateboard scars with neon bandaids.

I know Im not explaining myself very well... Ill continue with cartoons since they have so much effect on us. Lets compare cartoons (the popular ones) of yesterday and today.

HE-MAN, TMNT, INSPECTOR GADGET, CAPTAIN PLANET, REN & STIMPY

ROCKET POWER, THORNBERRIES, SPONGEBOB, SOUTH PARK, RUG RATS

I look at my little sister and other younguns in comparrison to me at her age and I see huge holes in her immagination, we were treated to fantasy and heros, and mutants.

They watch their shows (way too much real life shows like on disney) and there simply is too many social undertows. ROcket Powers the worst of all. They tell you straightforward and boldly whats cool, sure they have adventures, but they are nothing but bland.

Thank god for spongebob, keeping acctual annimation alive, with exagerated movement like ren and stimpy.

RUG RATS used to be all sorts of immaginative, but no they had to kill it and make the babies all of a sudden lose their immagination when they grew up. ITs too much for me. When I was a kid Reality had no limits. Now kids everywhere are given limits.

I dont know... I went way too far. sorry its just that i feel imagry/imagination is dying. well not dying but rather receiving limits. I feel VJing is one way I can bring back that to the world. simple exagerated Radikal Fun.