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The Book

VISUAL WALLPAPER

  David Bernard

 

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?

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VJ Theory: TEXTS
Date published: 12/10/06
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