Major New VJ website: WWW.AVIENCE.NET_

[shelley]

This is an Experimental collaboration between internationally renowned VJs/video artists and BMW. The website contains commissioned work by 6x VJ collectives from around the world: 242 Pilots [USA], Cinetek [CAN], D-Fuse [UK], Meso [D], Minus Zero [NL] + Monitor Automatique [D]. Each collective was given footage of the new BMW X3 and interpreted it in their own style. The challenge was to remix, deconstruct, and re-collage the original material. Music has been provided by the Berlin label '~scape' and includes tracks by Pole, Deadbeat + Jan Jenlinek. The website contains biogs and info about the VJ collectives with clips created on the theme of Urbanism/Technology/Dynamism. All clips are available as downloads or videostreams. It's worth checking out: www.avience.net

[Rovastar]

Some nice stuff here although I doubt it is a major new VJ website. ;):p

There are a few clips from each artist the production level is pretty high and slick.

Thank you for sharing.

Moving to inspiration forums....umh changed my mind mix content forum

[sleepytom]

++++DO NOT DOWNLOAD THESE CLIPS TO PLAY OUT+++++

This is a pretty obvious scam / marketing explotation - it is clever and multileveled and very much the way things are going...

lets take a closer look...

BMW want there sports cars to have a pop culture appeal - they want their cars to be the objects of desire of the blingbling generation.

part1:- they get some VJs to make some cool and funky videos (this is very cheap for them - usually they must pay lots of money to advertising agencys to make video clips)

part2:- they post on some forums (ie here) saying how the VJs have made all these cool clips that you can download

part3:- people download them and watch them at home (this is very cheap advertising to a relitivly small number of people)

part4:- they hope that some of the people who download the clips will show it to others ether as a "look at this cool clip i downloaded" (small scale propergation) or what they hope for most is that other VJs will download the clips and play them out in clubs - this gives them free advertising in "cool" venues all across the world.

this is pretty advanced astroturfing with a twist - notice how they have even posted it in the "mix content" section - implying thay want you to play it out

+++++NEVER EVER PLAY ADVERTS UNLESS YOU ARE BEING PAID DIRECTLY TO DO SO.+++++

[brain]

hope the crews got at least decent money out of this corporate deal. would have been nice to see the creativity spent on something more useful than just another shit fuel-burner promo.

[syzygy]

It should also be noted that rights are NOT granted to use these clips:

Such graphics, sounds, video sequences and texts may only be reproduced or used in electronic form or in printed publications with the explicit permission of the author.


Why would someone post their site in the mix content section of VJF when they do not allow VJs to use the content?


Dan.

[Rovastar]

Sorry dan that was me I move it from VJ events. To inspriation then *shrug*

[dongbamage]

I hate capitalism :grrr:

[Rovastar]

No need for the hostility toward them here. True it is shameless advertising but they are VJ's and to me is does show how given a set framework of car clips different video mixs are made. Something maybe we could get ideas from and looka t other avenues of providing income for use.

I for one welcome BMW with this approach get artists involoved at an early stage. I hope they the VJ got paid a decent amount for their work too.

I amnot a fan of clip based VJ'ing but there were a couple of interesting clips here worth looking at.

Not all VJ are anti-capitalist, tree hugging hippies. :)

[holly]

...and having one job with a car company doesn't sell your soul to the devil.
uh, hello? Gotta pay rent.

"starving" artists are so 19th century.

[ecin]

Originally posted by sleepytom
++++DO NOT DOWNLOAD THESE CLIPS TO PLAY OUT+++++

This is a pretty obvious scam / marketing explotation - it is clever and multileveled and very much the way things are going...

lets take a closer look...


while i do see your point tom, i don't see any blatent logo use or branding in any of these pieces. many of them are quite abstract and resemble nothing I would recognize as a BMW or even a car. granted there is the typical "car commercial" type feel to some of them but they're not all bad. i'd be willing to bet BMW was not completely satisfied with some of the results because of the abstractness and not showing enough of their car.

if somebody wants to use them, I say go for it. that was obviously their point, otherwise they wouldn't offer hi-res versions for download. however, if it does looks like a car commercial, you're the lame-ass for using it.

[Lucidhouse]

what aboute all the music thats beeing used in advertising?

does this make every musician thats made their talents available for selling a tub of shampoo a bad person?

comon people, live in the real world...I would've jumped at the chance If it was offered to me!

and hey it's great! The VJ artform is beeing recognised as a powerfull medium....

[dongbamage]

Its cool that BMW are providing work for VJ's.

I don't resent ppl making money, i resent being told to download adverts in the guise of art.

[brain]

would be really interested in figures (what the teams got payed), or if they were talked into this once again with the old "... we can't pay you much now but its a nice project and a great promotion for you and maybe you get a well payed job afterwards" bullshit...

[sleepytom]

i would certainly not make adverts for BMW - doesn't matter how much they were going to pay (yes i have turned down large sums of money to make ads before[more than most people earn a year] )

advertising is pretty fucked up - how much money would you want for your most poular work to become better known as a BMW advert than as your own work?

how much is your style worth? your ideas? your thoughts? your fasions?

they want your soul - and your willing to sell it to them so they can use it to trick others to buy there crap?? why? cos you need money to buy more crap?

the VJ artform is a very powerfull medium, you can use it to help people or you can use it to help corperations - its your choice but please at least think a little bit before running after the $$$

[chaLe]

but which is worse working for corporate big bucks or fighting for funding from arts organisations?

[Lucidhouse]

It's true that petrol driven cars are a blight on this planet, in fact I'ts our Obsesion with them that's causing the Iraq carnage.

personaly I don't own a car, maybe I'll get one when theyre hydrogen driven

but, where does the moral high ground end?

not going to perform in clubs because they exploit youth, selling
boose and charging loads.
not doing dvd collaboration with a record lable because they don't use reciclable paper on their albums.

and the list goes on...

If a big corporations & advertising agencies want to hand out buckets of cash, exploit artists talents so as they get some street cred, they will find many talented participants...

Why not exploit them? use their cash to positively develop your talent and i don't mean you should pander to them in what you produce.

[sleepytom]

ulitmatlly we all have a duty to consider our actions - if you get the offer of work from a big corp then do some research into them and consider if you want to promote the activitys they engage in - if you are happy to support the way they behave then theres no problem but if you find out they are evil* then you will be best off turning down the money and doing something better with your time.

www.corpwatch.org

*evil is a personal opinion - what i consider to be evil you might think is great !

[Rovastar]

LOL Tom what are you like. :)

[spork]

commodity fetishism is inseperable from consumer capitalism.

none of us are immune from it, either- anyone who claims to be had better be barefoot.

even underground cultural movements define themselves by adherence to a different set of totems.

so true purity is nigh unacheivable, but this does not mean that the BMW adverts in question are a 'Good Thing' for VJing.

I hope the folx that made them got ducats, and to some extent it adds mainstream legitmacy to VJing, but to anyone who uses the styles represented there- transfer mode handheld camera overlays, P-in-P time offsetting- your styles have now taken a huge step towards being played out and corporatized.

I was into Mr. Scruff from early on, and still dig his stuff immensely, and I'm glad he and Ninjatune got paid, but can't get over the mild annoyance of having to think of the repulsively bloated Lincoln Navigator everytime I hear "move on" (heavily aired here in the states).

So next time I go down the street to Rodan here in chicago and see some Jitter looking stuff I'm going to have to brush off thoughts of those lovingly fetishized shots of BMW dashboards overlayed on each other.

even worse for those using shots of consumer culture to comment on consumerism- it'll be even harder now to tell the difference.

so there's my attempt to walk a nuanced line here- this issue is a fertile one, and probably as juicy and unresolvable as the sampling/original material wrangle.

[dongbamage]

I'm reading Love all the People @ the moment by Bill Hicks.

He hated adverts nearly as much as me. they're everywhere! and its mostly sex.

has anyone noticed the strobe like effect some ads have, causing u to turn and look a the screen just in time to see the product(tm)? :mad:

I always look round from my pc it sucks, god knows what they do to u if you're looking directly at them when it happens (i try never to) :P

[unjulation]

hmmmm.......interesting (said in a monty berns type manner) well it is very interesting none the less that a multi-national has chosen hear out of the millions of other web sites thay they could have

so to me this is an indication of what they see as the pertentiol of v.j.'ing, to pass mesages to a wide group of people, you naritive peeps should be jumping for joy - whatever you have to say about them politicaly or morley, they know thier market and they know the spaces that they are dealing with

i personaly belive that the indervidual has a choice about wether they want to suck the corprate knob or not, mmmmmmmm....... tastes so nice ;)

as for actualy what they have done re-this thred etc well there just shooting themslves in the foot realy not to know that actualy the markeket of prctitioners - i.e. v.j.'s per say - aint willing to use adverts within there set

personaly i'm working on a set only useing adverts and i'm going to try and get funding from every one of the f*****s, lol

[mf]

I think there is 2 aspects to thread.

One, that finally corporate brand [who is no products related to the scene like pioneer, etc] has decided that the VJ scene is worth investing money + time in. OK, cars are crap and we all know they are ultimately destroying the world, but most of you have a car. I can't find anything on 'corpwatch.com', so does that make BMW ok? I think not, but separating this ethical issue.............

BMW as an high profile brand, is seeing the VJ scene as something attaching itself to. There isn't many "cool" brands doing this. Would we be more happy if Porche was doing this or on the other end of the spectrum Ford or Walmart had set up a VJ website. Are we happy about the mainstream getting involved, I personally think it needs to attract more "BMW"s if we want to be taken seriously. Like it or not the world is governed by distribution and control of the major corporations

Secondly, what do think of the work? It certainly shows a variety of styles considering they had the same material to work with.
Is it any good? did they pick they right people?
What next?

mike f

[Amukidi]

I guess we all have our own personal lines in the sand, over corporate backing / sonsorship / collaboration. One thing I have to say is though, this project has produced some fine work. I mean, nobody kicks up a fuss when the Diesel U-Music awards come up - lets not kid ourselves that this is done entirely for the benefit of the artists, it's a well established marketing strategy, and designed to sell more Diesel products.
If this campaign has produced a worthy body of work from the participating artists, then that, in itself, is a very positive thing. I don't get the feel of hard-sell from the films, and as I said, I think ther's some lovely work in there.

[genoflex]

this case is typical.

one corporate "support" art by funding artists.

artists make some art with material from the corporate .

the art is shown and is supposed to support both image of artists and corporate. (it is clear and wished)

what the public got is some art passed throeg the filter of the corporate... somthing clear, nice, beatifuul, well produced, intelligent, etc ....
but totaly politicaly correct ....

what if all art was produced like that?

art supported by official fundation are not unlike that neither....

the other side of the story is like this :

once upon a time a guy from a media company call me to do a show at a big event party for a big gaz company in Europe. I got the deal ....
I was not really please to play for a gaz company but it was supposed to pay very well.... and I need that to live every day cos ther is not so much monney around for the moment...etc...blabla

so ...

One hour later, the guy call me back : -hem .... sorry but we got a problem... the artistic director of the main event company do not want a VJ .... in case of misplaced image (you know, like war or sinking tanker or ... ...)
I said : -ok then I can play only abstract ...
-well no, he don't want fractals neither (!)... the problem is realy that images that you could play will not have the time to pass the "approbation procedure" ....

I just didnt spent my time to explain that abstract video is not fractal....


.....

do you know you can run your X3 diesel with colza or mais oil ??? it's ecologic, do not deplete the atmosphere (co/co2 are captured by growing plants used to make the oil, no metal emited etc...) and we know about that since the invention of the explosion engine .......
.......


why do they went in Irak ????


......


coz we all are stupid.

[grayn]

i dunno, isn't it to do with the brand image of the company rather than its a corporate? i mean if it was mac then i don't think people would have such a problem with it. and whats the solution, who else is going to fund a global vj website?

[brain]

Originally posted by grayn
who else is going to fund a global vj website?

exhale and the community here do so. without any corporate bullshit around.
the BMW promo site is NO WAY a "global vj website" :grrr:

[sleepytom]

there are allready global vj websites - here vjcentral.com avit.info audiovisualizers.com etc etc

BMW cannot make a global vj website - they nothing of VJing and will have no intrest in promoting the diversity of work that is required to establish a global vj site.

its very nice of you to come here to promote BMW - i hope that they are paying you well for this gurrilla marketing service - or are you on some kind of commission to find motion graphics artists to make promos for less than the going soho rates?

i find it very sad that DFuse only ever post here to promote there own projects (and if there book is anything to go by i'd read the fine print very carefully before signing anything to do with this BMW site) - as established experts who have been in the bussiness a long time they have a lot to contrubute to the global vj scene - however they seem willing to do this only when they profit from it - be that on some kind of commision from BMW or through the dodgyest licence agreements that i've ever read.

[elbows]

Im watching with interest these new forms of internet martketing, hoping that the mass-participation nature of the internet will cause this stuff to backfire.

Ive been googling avience and trying to use babelfish to make sense of it, not struck gold yet but found it mentioned on this page:

http://www.cscout.com/News/archiv_mark.html

"marketing & branding

04.2004: ARTISTS AND BRANDS: Invoking the Art - Three Casestudies

01.02.04: MARKETING INNOVATION: BMW initiiert mit dem online Kunstprojekt Avience eine neue ?sthetik

01.11.03: CRAFTMARKETING: Werbespot von Honda setzt auf Pr?zision

01.10.03: MARKETING UND MUSIK: Productplacement in HipHop-Songs

01.09.03: RETHINK - Change of Perception creates a new view on the brand"



Also put a scrollbar on the legal information popup for crying out loud!!!

[elbows]

OK the words on the avience site make me really angry!

They are talking about "brand hacking" and are quoting people saying things like "a patchwork of experiences and aspirations that has little to do with the depressive stories of an apolitical intelligencia or the repressive fictions of corporate medias Magic Kingdom".

This stuff is being quoted completely out of context. It suggests to me that marketing slugs have noticed that certain mediums of communication have lost credibility in the eyes of some of the target audience. Will Vjing and other new media technology be their saviour?

Theres other humourous stuff there about how the club scene isnt political, that it borrows from the radical gestures of its precursors, but leaves behind their messages. True to a certain extent, buyt as discussions on vjforums show, political messages aint been wiped out.

Grrr now they are quoting Albert Hoffman the inventor of LSD.


Oh well I guess I have found some inspiration in this site, its begging for a parody. I've got the title and some lyrics for a song to feature on it so far. Body Meets Windscreen, an emotional response to the stats that came out the other day suggesting 1 million people a year die on the worlds roads.

[spark]

another way of looking at it: who should be profiting from the new aesthetics developed largely by the vj community? the developers themselves or the soho-esque media/advertising agencies sniffing new trends out?

snork may say "your styles have now taken a huge step towards being played out and corporatized." but that is both inevitable and happening already. one thing that is up to us, is to be known widestream as the owners/originators of these styles before we're ripped off wholesale - and dare i say it the BMW move is good for this kind of awareness and legitimacy. as elbow's google showed it is a conscious act of "a new aesthetic".

posturing apart, i agree with amukidi - it has produced a fine body of work.

toby

[sleepytom]

QWhat's the diffrence between a VJ and a "soho-esque media/advertising agencies"?
A About ?3000 per day.

why is this a good thing? - surly the individual VJ who is intrested in making adverts could use his or her skills to get work from ad agencys at proper comercial rates - don't undervalue your talents

[eXhale]

Corporations have never supported artforms. Just look what MTV did to music in the past 10 years -- sucked all the energy from it in exchange of $$$ so that artists could buy crap they didn't need.

Calling avience.net a major VJ website is a joke, grand empty words to fit in the marketing propaganda. Much like the words which can be found in the website: cooperation, sharing, culture, networking, dialogue, active participation, all totally meaningless, especially since only a few "high-profile" artists are allowed to show their mixes while others are turned, once again, into passive consumers. This cannot be compared in any way to what we're trying to achieve here and through the AVIT festival.

BMW even managed to buy D-Fuse's soul and convince them to post here under 3 different usernames to feed us with their lies, showing a total disrespect for this community and blatently breaking the terms of service.

All I can say is: THANK YOU BMW!! AND THANK YOU $$$!! :yep:

(I hope some people will take these clips and remix them with videos about climate change.)

[elbows]

Located the people responsible for the words on the website that wound me up so much:

www.zentrale-intelligenz-agentur.de

Babelfish does substandard translation job but I got this:

"Brandhacking BMW

If the world becomes ever more complex outside around, marks make themselves improbable, which hundred per cent streamlined, coherent communication and to few attributes to be reduced to be able. Such marks are simply under complex and in the long term terribly boring.

The BMW innovation department recognized, researches that at the edges and lets artists with the own mark experiment. On the occasion of the Launches of the new sport Avtivity Vehicles X3 BMW let AV collectives and VJ team the internal pictorial material renowned internationally samplen and Remixen. The results are presented now under www.avience.com. Central intelligence agency accompanied and has responsibility this process for all texts on the Website

05.01.2004, cross-beam Friebe "

[elbows]

Ahh the myth that if you can afford to turn down advertising work then you must have rich parents. Thats a bigger load of balls than the words ZIA put on the site.

Anyway its a personal decision as far as Im concerned, not going to have a go at anybody for choosing to to work in advertising. My criticisms are with the way it is posted on these forums etc.

The rest of the ranting is just my personal opinion on these new forms of advertising, getting VJs to remix stuff appears to be percieved as similar to product placement, in that it is a more subtle form of advertising.

Oh well the website does say that it is experimental and seeks to provoke reactions. Looks like it got a reaction from me!

Website also says "Behind all artistic praxis lies a theoretical motive". It doesnt say what the motive is though, it just talks crap about ever-novel information cascades.

[spark]

mike - thanks for posting, its good to hear something from someone involved. it'll be good to hear from shelley too.

personally, this sums it up for me:
QWhat's the diffrence between a VJ and a "soho-esque media/advertising agencies"?
A About ?3000 per day.
thats something i'd like to change. i don't know if this BMW project has been a good thing in that regard, we don't have any real facts on how the artists have been dealt with. but it certainly seems a move in that direction to me.

incidentally, bmw commissioned bauhouse to produce an advert for them - its very good, and they got paid properly to my understanding. i'd wager bauhouse will use the money to give them some studio time and produce another mean audiovisual/vj performance show.

toby

[elbows]

Ive become interested in Holm Friebe who is connected with ZIA. This person is certainly very interested in the anti-corporation and anti-globalisation movement, and interviewed Naomi Klien of NO Logo.

http://www.weltsozialforum.org/2003.esf.texte.kuv.2/news.2003.32/

http://www.nadir.org/nadir/periodika/jungle_world/_2001/09/04a.htm

Unfortunately German to English translations do not allow me to understand most of the google results about this person. I would be extremely greatful if someone who speaks German could look briefly at webpages such as the one below, and tell me from what angle the subjects are being written about, what Holm's politics etc are?

My assumption from translations is that he is interested in how large corporations can adapt to a new world where their brand image is vunerable to attack, he is both a journalist and PR man? I think he hilariously asked Naomi for advise about how managers can save their brands, she didnt play ball lol.

Lets see how wrong I can be, making assumptions based on translations can be very dangerous.

[scharke]

I think these are fantastic. Advertising is a gas, I've worked in it, it's a great way to make money, do a lot of work and get it seen. I love any medium that is widely seen. If I had a problem with someone owning my best work I'd be resigning myself to the notion that I didn't have plenty of better work in me.

[BrainStove]

[White Noise]
I don?t wanna allow the usual ax of my words ruin or wrecks the healthy direction of this thread in any way, so simply ignore the fact this post has been made by the resident nutter. ;)
[/White Noise]

I?ve just seen all the sample clips over there in Avience site and I must say none of them are actual VJing whatsoever for me, yeah the VJ aesthetic may still be there, but they should be considered perhaps more like isolated ADvert A/V pieces instead, therefore nothing to complain about and yeah I agree they are good looking too.

BUT... for true VJing work BMW should have provided and/or imposed the same audio soundtrack too for all the participants to build their videoclips from the scratch, I really would have enjoyed a lot more watching with what kind of visualz each participant would have came up with if BMW?d have imposed the very same bangi'n TechnoPsyTangoJoropoTapat?o to workout the visual pieces.

Warning: It?s just a short rant, my more juicy & relevant comments will come later. :nod:

[akira_k]

I don't get any of this talk about " VJ aesthetic" (are we all suposed to do the same and make our work look the same? huh?) but anyway, what I saw there were some nice pieces of work, and some not. It's good IMO if BMW paid them to do what they like doing best, that's my work, I get paid to do what I like to do, one of those things is VJing. Lots of the events I take part in are sponsored by brands, and most times we have to show the brand in our screens somehow and sometimes. I suppose this means I'm a sell-off? Well as Holly said I need to eat. And if I had the chance to mess around with the brand or product as much as this guys have been allowed to, I'd be more than happy to include it in my set if I'm getting paid.

As long as this site generates some "publicity" for the VJ scene and some crews get paid for their hard work (very good work in the case of many videos over that site) I think it's not bad at all.

Regarding to considering those pieces "VJ or not"... even if BMW imposed the same soundtrack for all, the ycould have all been done in Final Cut Pro. As long as I don't see this stuff live, or noticeably taken from a live feed, I can't consider it as VJing. But they are great pieces of work and I think that the crews involved could perform like this live, is just that it's hard to tell like this, anybody involved care to say if this has been done live or not? Most of the videoreels we see everytime are edited offline and not done live.

[eXhale]

Originally posted by mf
Most people on the post have complimented the work.Apparently not enough people since you felt the need to post under fake usernames to praise the project!

Any more excuses for this sad attitude?

[fluchtpunkt]

Originally posted by elbows
Ive become interested in Holm Friebe who is connected with ZIA. This person is certainly very interested in the anti-corporation and anti-globalisation movement, and interviewed Naomi Klien of NO Logo.
I would be extremely greatful if someone who speaks German could look briefly at webpages such as the one below, and tell me from what angle the subjects are being written about, what Holm's politics etc are?

My assumption from translations is that he is interested in how large corporations can adapt to a new world where their brand image is vunerable to attack, he is both a journalist and PR man? I think he hilariously asked Naomi for advise about how managers can save their brands, she didnt play ball lol.

Lets see how wrong I can be, making assumptions based on translations can be very dangerous.

...well judging from the two articles you linked & the zia website holm friebe seems to be a 'left leaning' young urban intellectual economics graduate, trend and marketing expert and (ex)journalist that has gone into marketing. (is that vaguely descriptive enough? :D ). in any case he seems to sympathize, if not agree, with naomi kleins' 'no logo'.

...

as far as the last question in the interview with naomi klein goes: i think that's just the typical humourous question to end an interview: "what would you recommend a manager that has to fear the upcoming death of his brand?"

[elbows]

Cheers :) Due to my highly cynical nature I just keep thinking of Bill Hicks and "ahh the anti-marketing market, very lucrative ". When marketing people take deep interest in NO Logo, what does it mean? Somehow I fail to see how they can have the same agenda as the rest of the target audience for NO Logo.

Still if I read another translation from Jungle World correctly, there seems to be an idea that the best "cover" for people from the left who want to make a real difference is to make money lol. Im not buying into this philosophy ;)

[brain]

marketing will use every possible strategy to sell stuff. for them it's important to scout trends, use them until everyones sick of them, then use the next.

for one year VJing might be the hot shit in advertising and events, then it will be dropped for another gimmick, maybe candy coloured swastikas, if they are back in style by then.

exploit, burn out, move on. art, environment, all the same.

gaultier shirts with a "fashion sucks" print, 300 euros a piece, sewn in romania?

a car promising freedom?

"art" produced according to a briefing?

by destroying meaning, capitalism irritates, separates and isolates, then offers us group warmth in brand identification and a consuming haze.

ok, get the corporate gig or project to make a living, but be aware it will be you who is used. they will drop you the moment you are not useful anymore. nothing to be proud of, how stylish ever.

ps. avience is no VJ site. all i see are editing jobs. i bet my ass not a single clip has been done entirely live.

[Amukidi]

But remember one thing kids - most of the posturing you are reading here comes from folks who, for the most part, do not rely upon their visualizing skills to put food on the table, clothe their kids and put a roof over their head. Easy to take this sort of stance when this is the case - think on. The VJing world is growing and evolving as is culture itself - no-one here has any right to dictate what is right and wrong, just what they personally would rather not do. The VJ world is a lot bigger than this site you know.

[Rovastar]

Lets not see this turn nasty folks.......

[sleepytom]

no intention for this to become nasty...
(sorry if i've offended anyone so far)

a difrent take on car ads can be seen in this clip from funki porcini
(which has failled to upload due to my poxy ntl connection... hangon)
clip is here (www.sleepytom.co.uk/video/porcini_carad.mpg)

[syzygy]

I don't find myself amazingly bothered by the way BMW and their marketeers are trying to use something that is cool to get their products into popular conciousness.

What does bother me more is the way this site is trying to portray itself as the one and only global VJ site, when it only represents a very small fraction of artists working with VJ tools, ideas and techniques.

As far as I can see, the site can be seen as several things:

* A (slightly disguised) advertising site for BMW
* An online showcase of specific artists work
* A great example of how to say lots but mean very little

But one thing it certainly isn't is representative of the global VJ scene. I'm not even sure how representative of VJing it is at all, since the clips do appear to have been edited music-video-style rather than mixed live (surely a key aspect 'VJing' is that it is performed live...?)

Dan.

[brain]

Originally posted by syzygy
I'm not even sure how representative of VJing it is at all, since the clips do appear to have been edited music-video-style rather than mixed live (surely a key aspect 'VJing' is that it is performed live...?)

see no VJing either ... nice editing jobs done by people who may do VJing too.

good example how little marketing guys care for the true character of an art form when they use it in a commercial context.

so no benefit for VJing here as it is displayed incorrect.

[akira_k]

Originally posted by brain
see no VJing either ... nice editing jobs done by people who may do VJing too. That's what I feel as well. And this talk about " VJ aesthetics" pisses me off, like if we all had to work the same way.

[syzygy]

(I agree about splitting out posts about the book to another thread)

mf - I can appreciate that you feel like you are being attacked by 'VJF regulars' because you are new and I think to a certain extent that does happen here (like with all communities, new people tend to be given a harder time than well known people)

but...

Take another look at the attitude you have taken in this thread and consider whether maybe some of the friction is coming from your side.

I think there are genuine issues with the way the avience site presents itself as more central to the VJ scene than it really is - surely you can understand why members of a VJ community that is truly open to the whole scene get a little put out when a marketing site for a big corporation seems to be telling the world that it is the place where VJs come together.

There are plenty of ways those issues could be discussed and maybe even resolved, but you don't seem to want to discuss those issues.

The issue that you have responded to is the astrotufing/corporate work/ethics thing. There are plenty of ways to respond to the arguments that SleepyTom etc have used without resorting to the ab hominem. I can understand that you felt under attack from Toms comments about ytaking money from corporates, but calling Tom a liar and challenging him to reveal details of his business just doesn't seem like a good way to explain your point of view. Attacking a well respected member of a community is not a good way to make friends.

I'd suggest that everyone calms down just a little bit and posts about the issues rather than about each other.

Dan.

[unjulation]

dont know if this is of topic or back on to the origioanl responses to the first post but anyway this whole thing about "the man" - be it multinationals, poloticions, or whoever your perticular bugbare of the time may be stealing, useing and incorperateing the inderviduals personal/groups totams to sell themselves within the globell econamy has realy focuseed me upon the act of samperling or steling there totams as a senserbal response to what they are doing to us

a bit, tit for tat atitude, i admit but think about it

what peeps are realy complaining about is the emotional response that is illicitated from cirtain totams - ie somthing that represents somthing else - wether that is a style of music, a dress code, or a way of being - that is important to the indervidual in question and the false representation of that totem being used to sell something whatever that might be, a physical object (as is the case hear) and ideolagy or a political party

as we know this practice has been around for centeries but it is in this day and age that we can realy see this working over time, the whole "pop will it its self" concept springs to mind

so as a gut response to that kind of atitude if it is a practise that they employ lets see how it works agaist them and subvertion in the only indervidualy practical frame work of the moment has been to to take what they use within the midea and deconstruct its power wether this then becomes a indervidual prosess and experiance has yet to be worked out

because by the process that i go through by the act of samperling removes any meaning that i have to the product or movie and it just becomes visual parts to be playd with - much in the same way as a sergon doesnt see a indervidual but sees a colection of parts working together - well so i have been told and it just poped into my head while i was writeing this

anyway like i said dont know if of topic or not but just struck me about the parells between what they are doing and what samperlers do - you can almost see a parasitic echo system going on - more thought i think

[elbows]

Nice post Unj I share your views, this is why I looked into the marketing company because it does look like they try to hijack the brand hacking concept for their own commercial purposes - I guess this is what you mean by "parasitic echo system" - nice phrase! :)

The entire site is so misguided in terms of implementation and text content that I am sorely tempted to spend lots of time doing a parody of this site, but Im not sure if its worth the time. Still I have to learn flash so maybe this will be a good trainign exercise.

As usual Im stuck at the first hurdle of coming up with a name, so far Ive toyed with things like avarrogance.net or avinalaugh or avabrandmakeover but Im not happy with any of these yet, any ideas?

[fluchtpunkt]

...you should definately check out the 'backfeed' part of the site. very interesting approach to implementing a non-existant guestbook! (i only realized that it actually isn't a guestbook after having checked it out in both the english and german version and wondering why they would translate guestbook entries...).

[Lara]

For me VJing is a medium- not a phenomenon, so I think that all these uses can happily co-exist. Designers, as has been pointed out in this thread, work every day in the corporate world. I don't think they are bad people. Nor should they be judged as such. Designers are interpreters, they must respond to a brief in their own way- balancing their own creative response with the needs of the client.

Artists frequently are critiqued for 'selling out.' They face a fierce onslaught for selling their trademark work or ideas. Why? Works of design have a practical site and use, art a spiritual value. We don't like to blur these boundaries very much. It's an interesting thing to think about.

Now I think what people are objecting to is not related to matters of art and design, but related to matters of culture. Postindustrial cultural shifts (like lifestyle marketing) have created in my opinion a very difficult relationship to consumption.

I too resent that big companies feel empowered to manipulate culture to sell their products. Very much so.

This website is the most equivocal of examples of the thin lines we all must tread. I must say I have NO PROBLEM with big companies becoming interesting in VJing- I do think it can be, with the right projects, very beneficial to everyone concerned.

This project is interesting and the video is lovely, it has generated a lovely body of work. I can really appreciate that, and I can appreciate it on another level as a very good marketing exercise. But I do agree with lots of people who say that it isn't really VJing. This is remixing- which is a separate issue from VJing for me. VJing as a medium is LIVE. This seems to be part of a continuation of Scratch Video- which all too frequently gets lumped together with VJing. Maybe we need to start inventing our own terms here.

This is the bit really that spoils the project, but I think its just a personal thing. For me theoretical, critical language has a particular weight- especially in the realm of VJing where there is little or none. I just think this is overcooked, for want of a better word, and that it veils a quite a worthwhile marketing exercise with a veneer of quasi-theoretical horseshit.

http://www.reali.tv/aviencetext.pdf

[Amukidi]

Ah, a breath of fresh air - well spoken Lara - as ever.
Elbows - "but Im not sure if its worth the time." Your words mate;)

[Amukidi]

I mean, just stand back and look at this thread - the words "get over it" spring to my mind - and I hate that expression. Anyone would think that there are sinister forces of evil working against us. And nobody answered my question about the Diesel awards - clearly it didn't suit anybody's sensibilities!

[elbows]

I wouldnt go on about it so much if it werent for the Orwellian misuse of language and corruption of terms ont he site. I rarely see such obvious examples of it, which iss why this website got me all excited for all the wrong reasons. Dont see what the harm is in me still waffling about it, though I will slow down as Im starting to repeat myself too much lol.

Regarding the Diesel awards Im really not too concerned about companies funding things, its what they expect/get in return and the control they have over the content that interests me. This is why I keep ranting about the hijacking of the term brand hacking.

Now I have no idea how Diesel relates to the judges of the competition and whether they have any say in terms of unnacceptable content in shows etc. If they interfered in that way with the competition, or if all entrants had to remix diesel images to gain entry, I would be ranting in the same way that Ive ranted about this website.

[syzygy]

And nobody answered my question about the Diesel awards - clearly it didn't suit anybody's sensibilities!

Or maybe the kids just aren't paying attention to your posts any more... :P

Personally, I didn't respond to your point about Diesel because I think its a red herring. The marketing approach taken by the avience site is completely different to the Diesel awards sponsorship approach.

My issue with the site is that it portrays itself as something it isn't. I've no problem with corporates putting money into a scene that they think they can benefit from (there are companies that I wouldn't take money from but thats a personal decision). However, I do have a problem with a company making out that its marketing exercise <i>is</i> the scene, especially when the work they are showing is not even really representative of what they say it is.

I don't think that being concerned about the effects of new marketing techniques makes everyone tinfoil hat cases, as you imply with your "get over it" and "Anyone would think that there are sinister forces of evil working against us" lines. On the contrary, I think everyone should be concerned about advances in the field of marketing.

Marketing is, ultimately the art and science of getting people to do what you want. The techniques of marketing can be used for small things like influencing which brand of effectively identical washing powder people buy or big things like getting oppressive regimes into power.

The ingenuity of marketeers facinates and concerns me in equal measure. In this case we see a marketing company attempting to turn a technique adopted by those opposed to corporate marketing ('brand hacking') into another weapon in the marketing arsenel of corporates. Surely that is interesting?

Dan.

[Amukidi]

"Or maybe the kids just aren't paying attention to your posts any more... "
You're not wrong there.
And on that point, I'm outa here.....

[sleepytom]

i think this thread has gorn off the rails somewhat...

my original sentiment was to say that big corperations ARE intrested in vjing and that VJs should be awair of the potential revenue streams from advertising and the like and should make sure that they are paid properly for incorperating the advertisers products into there art.

it is the reverse subvertising element of the avience site that i dislike - i fear that they are attempting to offer up VJ style clips to the genral public which subtly increase the "cool factor" of there product - there is nothing wrong with that persay - but it should be pointed out that people shouldn't download the clips and play them out in clubs etc as not only will the be advertising a product for free but they are decreasing the likelyhood of anyone else getting paid for playing advertising.

lots of people - me included have said they like the work - question is would it of been better work if the artists had been given the same budget but not been forced to use shots of the product?

as to diesel its a very diffrent thing - they are promoting a contest which gives a huge amount of publicity to the winners and the scene as a whole - Diesel-U-Music is a long established and very well respected award and there are no restrictions on entry (ie you don't have to sing about clothes or make a video from shoes)

can someon split the book stuff into another thread because it is very intresting but a diffrent issue to avience

[syzygy]

I have split out the VJ Book discussion from this thread, following several requests to do so.

The VJ Book thread can be found here (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=6792)

I have done my best to split the posts logically. Apologies for any confusion caused by posts ending up in the wrong place.

Dan.

[devonmiles]

concerning the ZIA website

someone who writes a text like this on his official website to appeal business executives from major companies cant really pretent someone should take it serious (otherwise he must be a completely evil psychotic):

(this is the German version):

"Harte Facts, softe Insights und Masterideas als No-Frills-Package. Delivered von einem Freelance Network mit einem bestechenden Track Record und dem n?tigen Commitment. Der perfekte Match, wenn das Outsourcen medialer Skills oder die ?berbr?ckung kreativer Bottlenecks auf der Agenda stehen."


(my translation into english):

"hard Fakten, weiche Einsichten and Meisterhafte Ideen as a Keine-Extrawurst-Packung. Bereitgestellt by a Netzwerk von Selbstst?ndigen with a mind boggling Kundenliste and the necessary Pflichtbewusstein. the perfect Wahl if the an andere Leute ?bertragen von creative F?higkeiten or the need to surpass creative Flaschenh?lse is on the Schedule."


i think this is a group of young urban intellectuals who from top of their superiority felt free to play quite careless on the fancy synthesizer of nowadays media business.
they sit in their berlin flat thinking: wow we got BMW, lets fool around, produce an artsy like content for cheap and poke a bunch of money out of it. lets see if someone gets behind it.
thats a neat strategy: if everyone swallows it, they won. it not, as it actually seems, they can at least say it was all a great trick and they doesnt gave BMW value for money and ripped a global brand off some paycheques.
I know this kind of people from university, long time ago, they started off young brilliant idealistic and had become pretty asshole slickers sooner or later.
maybe we ask Holm personally? a statement of him in this forum could provide interesting insights.


elektroschroeder
_______________________
you have been videotaped

[hamageddon]

don't get fooled. the germinglish white noise they consider a "mission statement" proves nothing but one fact:
they don't know and they don't really care.

[fluchtpunkt]

Originally posted by elektroschroeder

(my translation into english):

"hard Fakten, weiche Einsichten and Meisterhafte Ideen as a Keine-Extrawurst-Packung. Bereitgestellt by a Netzwerk von Selbstst?ndigen with a mind boggling Kundenliste and the necessary Pflichtbewusstein. the perfect Wahl if the an andere Leute ?bertragen von creative F?higkeiten or the need to surpass creative Flaschenh?lse is on the Schedule."


:D :D :D :D :D :D :D
genial

[elbows]

Thanks for the explanations, it was hard for me to be sure what the "tone" and "philosophy" of ZIA was by using translations, wasnt sure if the strange attitude was due to translation or not, seems not lol.

[littlecatalyst]

ok two things kept me from checking out the site, 1 I'm still on a fukt 28.8 hack to get online and 2 all the hubub sorta took the wind from teh sails regarding the site.

and so i finally go check it out and shit. its a pretty nice site, its got nice representation from the worldwide scene (UK.USA.Montreal.NL.DE) pretty good (though no japanese VJs!) and although they are toally asking for the VJs to do work based on their comercials... it does seem to be a positive step overall. if its ok to have swirling vodka lables in your sponsored set, or to work for bikers, then i see no reason why this would lower teh bar anymore in fact it seems to be that it woudl raise it if anything. This type of web/VJwhoring is what will help people take us seriously and help them understand exactly what we can do for them.... so instead of explaining to some company what you woudl do with their footage to remix, you can send them there.... its fine. really.

i don't have a car-- the cops took my electric motorcycle away, but that's not the point, besides BMW out of the lot seems to be one fo the few car makers with cojones, making small cars (bringing back the mini) and not willing to bend over for the fuel-cell smokescreen lobby, at least they have stuff thats do-able (http://www.bmwworld.com/models/750hl.htm)

glad to see cinetik on the world scale, props!