1- The worst insult
to a VJ?
Researching the field of "visual wallpaper" (if there
ever was one) makes you aware that there are mostly negative connotations
associated with this word combination. It is often associated with
a bland and inoffensive brand of video display as favoured by trade
shows and supermarkets, and in most contexts, it seem to be used
to dismiss someone's work as some kind of "visual muzak"
with no substance rather than likening it to the design perfection
from respected designers such as William Morris.
I suspected how strongly some VJs felt about this concept whilst
speaking up during the Q+A session of Pixelache's 2005 VJ debate.
In response to another careless use of the "VW" words
by another audience member, I daringly described the work of Pointless
Creations, our visual collective, as "championing" this
misunderstood style. This was a positive - yet extremely animated
- piece of investigative research, which left me with no doubt as
to which section I should contribute to in response to the call
in VJ forums for the production of this book.
Why on earth should the written combination of the noble craft
of wallpaper design with undertones of video production techniques
feel so threatening to such a wide ranging group of respected VJs?
Of course when being told that "VJing is NOT wallpaper",
one should translate as "we've gone a long way since playing
fractal tapes, projected onto an white sheet with a crap projector".
VJing and its associated scene is far from having gained recognition
overnight and owes its success to the years of hard work produced
by lighting/video artists (as they were known before the word VJ
was invented- think Grateful Dead/ Pink Floyd stage shows) and the
recent explosion of clever real-time video manipulation software
and affordable equipment.
"Visual wallpaper" may refer to VJing from a long gone
era and may still be a turn of phrase used to undermine a growing
scene and there are reasons to suspect that the term might bear
its origins in " the dark days " of VJing.
By the mid-90's in the UK, the rave+club scene had settled into
the different musical genres that still mostly apply today but club
visuals hadn't evolved much and a typical setup consisted of a couple
of VCRs, a video mixer and a 700 lumen or so projector. Basically
the content was generic (material was more often remixed rather
than custom made) and the delivery lacked in dynamics (as compared
to what's produced by current software using tempo sync capabilities,
for example). Around that time, it seemed that the golden age of
the club scene came to a close as the excessive number of venues
struggled to keep their punters. Budgets started to shrink for anybody
who wasn't the headlining act. Promoters, Djs, live acts, lighting/sound/visual
and security crews had to share smaller takings and it seemed that
a lot of venues started to streamline superfluous add-ons to their
budgets, often starting with the video projections: "why
not get rid of the expensive-yet-not-so-bright screen in the corner
that isn't doing much?"
Around the same time, in interior-design-land, wallpaper sales
were hitting rock bottom. Ikea and Habitat catalogues were homogenously
going for bare painted walls, and the brash 70's patterns became
synonymous with naff in the mainstream design world.
Could this be the explanation for my perceived negative angle to
the "visual wall paper" word association?
Maybe it is a far fetched starting point to base a book chapter
on (and highly relative depending on the city or scene you were
into around that time), but good enough to motivate more research
on this subject.
2- Where have the backdrops gone?
Intricate luminous banners and suspended shapes coming to life
through clever UV lighting positioning- one of the most effective
ways of transforming the most boring space with fresh graphic content.
These were the days when "visuals" were synonymous to
decor or installation rather than video projections. The early raves
and clubs were awash with these, a trend that has almost completely
disappeared.
Let's face it: banners are still easy to install and carry about,
lights are cheaper don't break like projectors, and painted canvas
is less likely to interfere with club lighting as white screens
do. Banners are in no way restricted to the ominous 4:3 (TV shape)
video format.
Banner making had been for a long time the perfect creative outlet
for graphically inclined ravers at a time when video projector and
editing equipment was scarce and pricey. A lot of graphic designers
(to-be?) still worked by hand and early flyers often came as photocopied
hand-made artwork.
The reference imagery associated with the "new" music
genres such as acid house were few apart from smiley faces, fractals
and tribal symbolism as record labels could only afford to produce
white labels. Banner makers, flyer and record sleeve designers
were left with the job to create bold new graphic identities for
the variety of emerging musical genres. Many of these "new"
images were created by experimenting with the technology in the
same way musicians did in their productions (who cannot remember
discovering the possibilities of the photoshop filters for the first
time?). These disciplines paved the way (in a static manner) to
the rise of VJing, many video artists (included myself) gained their
first club commission as backdrop or flyer designers and many VJs
double up as graphic design professionals.
So, with the VJing scene owing so much to the printed medium, what's
the big deal with slagging off wallpaper, being clearly an experimental
yet popular artistic printing discipline?
3- VJ stereotypes.
For sure, there are many styles of VJing, associated with the different
techniques of production and delivery as well as the musical scenes
these visuals "represent". From scary Drum and Bass to
fluffy house, the "other" genres are always referred to
as stereotypes and, inversely, it can be interesting to know which
stereotype you might be associated with - willingly or not.
An opinionated review of such stereotypes could follow such lines
as:
The visual wallpaper VJ (as mentioned before) concentrates
graphic compositions that complement their environment that lacks
dynamism and synchronisation with abstract material translating
as poor content.
Some of those that would object most to fit in the wallpaper category
would be:
-The film-maker V J who shoots all his own material and
VJ using lengthy narrative sequences of camcorder produced footage.
-The sampler VJ who abuses the best known sections of
cult movies and have their set resembling an audio-synced version
of a blockbuster-digest.
-The turntablist VJ who sees in your face video scratching
and real-time filter tweaking as the vanguard of visuals and insists
on blinding the viewers with aggressive visual movement in rhythm
and intensity.
-The animator/ gamer VJ , much like a CG version of the
film maker V J, concentrate on the action of a central
character/object (that often have to be repeated over and over due
to their time-consuming production process) rather than changing
the content to match the feel of the music.
-The Marketing VJ takes a branding approach to projections
with relentless name-dropping of sponsors, DJ, clubs and venue names
and logos- eyeballs mean money.
- Last but not least, the superstar VJ has their own
name/image as a central theme to their act, very much in the tradition
of the bling 90's rappers.
Although I can think of excellent work created by artists belonging
to most of these categories, the anti-wallpaper camp often unites
in the "steal the focus" crusade: in their quest to get
their work (as well as this of their peers from the VJ fraternity
in most cases) appreciated as it should, they often aim to compete
for the top spot usually reserved for the DJ or main music act.
Unfortunately, this can often translate as a race to capture the
audience's undivided visual attention with the screen(s) becoming
the dominating focus of the space rather than a complement to the
other visual stimuli such as lighting, decor as well as the stage
performers and the audience themselves. Content (read artistic
genius) becomes everything and having a cinema-style environment
to the club where the whole audience is glued zombie-like to the
screen(s) is seen as a satisfactory outcome.
Maybe these emerging differences and stereotypes are announcing
the fragmentation of VJing, just like the rave/ dance scene produced
acid/ techno/ house/ jungle/ electro and its ever growing list of
associated sub-genres
4- Visuals = motion printing*.
(*:a term coined by YUVA, another visual crew from Glasgow )
Digital video has become such an easily accessible medium that
it's perfectly conceivable to become an accomplished producer without
knowledge in fields such as colour theory, photography or screen
printing. However as the most common digital imaging tools have
been developed to replicate the behaviour of their old-school counterparts
( think of photoshop and after effect as a chemical-free photo labs)
it would be a shame to ignore many of the traditional techniques
that have been developed by printers from artistic and design-based
backgrounds. Here are some of the most obvious similarities that
can drawn from those disciplines:
-1. Overlays:
Most VJ software (as well as editing packages) offers options to
mix superimposed layers according to their colour content. The opacity
and mixing mode of those layers are truly reminiscent
of screen printing techniques. The extent to which a colour palette
can be expanded from a few simple colours through layering can be
observed in the work of 50's duotone jazz posters, 60's Finnish
wallpaper and west African wax-batik dress material.
-2. Pattern making:
An essential tool of wallpaper and textile printing, pattern making
is a geometric visual trick that enable the creation of an infinitely
repeating environment from a small template. Despite the set size
of most projection screens, it is possible to use these same rules
to suggest an infinite visual space for which the screen would only
be a small revealing window. Tiling techniques used in printing
can be replicated in 2 and 3-dimensional visual production and are
also of great relevance when it comes to use a cyclic timeline to
create a forever-looping animation (for example: matching the first
and last frame of a loop then deleting one of them to get rid of
the glitch/seam)
-3. Subject scale and depth.
One of the most relevant contributions of wallpaper design to the
field of projected visuals is the essential concern for the integration
of the imagery with the environment. Unlike the TV and Cinema schools
of visual-making which assume that the audience is "watching"
the visuals from an optimal viewing position, wallpaper designers
aim to develop a graphic style that remains effective despite conflicting
visual constraints such as: complex viewing angles, combination
with the existing ambient light (why moan rather than utilise club
lighting), being complementing to the performers/audience position
and movements within the space.
One of the greatest wallpaper tricks is to be able to create content
that will both look great as an non-distracting background to somebody's
face whilst you're chatting to them, and as a dynamic complementary
composition to a dancer's figure, as well as a fascinating piece
of graphic in its own right on close inspection. To this aim, it
is crucial to note the essential differences in compositional rules
between film /photography and wallpaper - specifically with regard
to the size of the subject and the content complexity (wallpaper
often uses simplicity to ensure integration into a wider range of
settings) as well as the varied depth of viewing (a film screen
assumes that the viewer actively focuses on the image whereas wallpaper
textures are made to produce a certain look when perceived as an
out-of-focus background whilst these same textures can be composed
of watchable intricate figurative details.)
-4. Optical distortion:
The golden age of wallpaper design (or those naff 60-70's patterns
depending on where you stand) is remembered for its striking use
of brain twisting graphic techniques derived from the Op-art (optical
art) movement from the mid 20 th century. The work and theories
of artists such as Vasarely can be linked to various successful
1970's wallpaper collections
Beyond aesthetics alone, these designs were experimented with as
visual
psycho-active stimulants: the dream machine, a DIY 78rpm turntable
powered spiral is meant to induce trance like states). The
pursuit of similar goals remains an important concern for many visual
producers today, as many commercial clubs provide an (almost) socially-accepted
environment for such experimentation.
With these similarities in mind, it remains hard to comprehend
why so many VJs would still insist to distance themselves from Wallpaper.
5- Wallpaper versus Narrative.
The fundamental role visuals fulfil within a club space (or any
public event that chooses to feature projections for that instance)
can be seen to be disputed from two perspectives (that aren't always
incompatible, it has to be said).
The Narrative VJs will emphasise on their content/delivery
as the core entertainment from their performance. The audience is
expected to "watch" their set and appreciate it on an
equal, yet individual level with the DJ (or live set act..)
The Wallpaper VJs will be more concerned with
the overall visual environment and propose content which offer cohesion
with the style and layout of the venue and the music policy.
Whilst it is important to keep both aspects in mind to create a
show that is neither bland nor self-indulgent, it seems to me that
the bad press around the idea of wallpaper visual only
seem to galvanise the egoistical aspect of VJing. The
design constraints of a projection rig for a narrative set
and a wallpaper event are almost opposite, with one prioritising
the best viewing quality (size, brightness, position) of at least
one screen (i.e. cinema theatre), the other being mainly concerned
with providing an environment with social qualities to encourage
audience interaction and movement through the space- this translates
into multiple custom shape display surfaces.
Although it is difficult enough to provide consistent material
for a single screen display there is much to be gained from looking
at visual acts such as D-Fuse and The Light Surgeons who develop
their own projector and screen set-ups alongside their visual content.
They provide a rare visual experience that goes beyond that of (home)
cinema, by deconstructing a much-standardised platform.
In this age of TV omnipresence, as the dominant medium of single
screen culture, it seem important that clubs (and other spaces with
visual displays) should find ways to help people remove themselves
from the "TV zombie mode", as, the whole point of being
kept on the edge of your seat is to be able to share the experience
with people around you. You wouldn't want to be stuck there forever,
would you?
Visual displays in public spaces and content production for such
set-ups still have a long way to go, by judging of the advances
in new available equipment and the recent increase in the number
of VJs and motion graphic producers.
At this (early) stage of the game, it seems that VJs should momentarily
turn away from TV and Cinema as leading paradigms and take a second
look at Wallpaper culture as an example of selfless integration
of imagery into life and social spaces.
Now - how differently would VJs think about Wallpaper if it came
in standardised pixel programmable rolls at 10 for £3 down
your local Ikea store? |