There are already many different definitions of performance from performance art to theater and music for example. In what way(s) does VJing differ from or overlap these other practices? Is it sufficient to describe VJing as ‘technologically mediated performance’? In this sense isn’t an orchestral performance also technologically mediated? Has anyone tried to map these overlapping areas of practice? In ‘performance art’ on it’s own there are a huge range of approaches allied to different intentions, ambitions and presuppositions. Some of these hold as central the presence of the body of the performer. Where does VJing or, for example, telepresence relate to this?
Finally, is the ‘performance’ of an interactive installation a result of the interaction between the viewer and the software/hardware. In this sense can you say that an interactive installation is also an improvised performance?
4 comments:
My feeling is that an essential part of VJ performance is that it is a visual performance. In this regard we should perhaps include the paintings where Yves Klein directed nude women coated with paint to drag, roll, etc themselves on canvas as (possibly) related, although I would prefer an understanding where this kind of performance was something different than VJ.
I can easily imagine breaking it down something like this:
-- performances where you are aware of the controller
-- performances where you are not aware of the controller (either hidden, or meant to be unobserved)
-- performances where you become aware of the unseen controller
The key issue in each case is whether the dynamics of the performance demand the awareness of the controller by the audience or not. In any performance it's possible to be aware of the controller or to ignore that presence--the issue is whether this awareness plays any role in the performance itself, as opposed to our subjective experience.
My mind has to go to Roland Barthes for a bit. The paraphrasing of his concept of the death of the author is to argue that it is that live conduit, that current of exchange with the viewer/observer that agitates the dormant within a created work. I am not saying this just as a theorist but also as (pardon the damn hyphens..can't help it..) but as a musician/new media guy/writer. Think of the cheesy old "If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?"
Does a book tell a layered narrative full of moments and symbolism of no one is reading it?
Does a work of music play out its tones, architectures, flow, structures, feels and emotive weight sitting inside a shiny c.d?
A bell is a cup before it is struck.. to quote another old saying..
The work is a constellation of potential and something that its creator has some satisfaction with yes, but is it fully in fruition and in a sense alive when being read, heard in a way that is much more ? And there is no way to really know how each person will react and respond and what personal memory, mood, taste, expectation,release they will bring to its shape and details...hence it is like a circuit complete and aglow.
I have written on the relationship between Barthes' death of the author and the recombinatory practices of appropriation: http://www.hz-journal.org/n10/betancourt.html
While it is true that all reading requires a reader for meaning to emerge, even more significant (and ignored in Barthes) is the role of past experience and context in the determination of meaning. A work without context can be quite opaque. (The indexical statement "bububu" is a good example of this.) It is this context--existing beyond the control of any singular interpreter--that creates meaning. If there is a consensus meaning and a subjective meaning that are radically different, and the subjective one depends on private, idiosyncratic referents, then it is not likely to be believed by anyone as a legitimate interpretation.
Thus we need to remember the power of context in our interpretations.
I think that that's the problem when VJ's are considered more of visual producers hiding in the background rather than performers who can be see doing their performance - otherwise who knows it "live" and how cares? My first interest in VJing was years ago at a party when I actually saw the video on two monitors and the VJ playing the keyboard that triggered the mixes and effects and I was struck by the physical interaction and the movement of his body to the music and using that to change the visuals - that was what made it interesting to me - how is this different for an audience watching a guitar player play live before an audience? I think this type of performance does demand the "the awareness of the controller by the audience". That's what makes it feel real - especially when music is involved - to see that the VJ "feels" the music in their bodies and reinterprets that in a synesthetic way back out through the imagery as any musician does through their other instruments to accompany the work. As an assemble piece - requiring in many cases the marriage of image to sound - it makes a huge difference to me to see the performer - otherwise - and this is why club visuals can be boring - it could easily be canned music and eye-candy visuals with no soul. How does a VJ otherwise breath life into the work? I'd like to see more VJ's out front and have a view of them as they create the work we see - yes this takes away from the immersion - but so does watching a guitar player - the audience can be in control of their own experience however and choose what they want to watch/ experience - the artist or the art.
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