Did you see that sound?

Ah sound, the forgotten medium. I don't think it was ever a medium to start with for people to forget that is is one... but it is now with birth of VJ's... and no, I didn't mean to write 'DJ'. 
Before diving into VJ's first let's take the time to ask ourselves "What is sound? How do we hear it? How does it imbue meaning?
Well let's see;

• Sound has 3 elements to it: Vibration, Context and Pressure change.
• It also has 3 phases: The initial noise, the sustain and the decay.
• Sound is immersive, cannot be shut out and has no directionality.
• It can be physically felt- At a nightclub for example.
• For many, sounds can prompt memories and evoke emotions.

Sound can be alot more than just the noises you hear everyday; "All sound is music, music is all sound". You just have learn how to hear the sounds everybody else is missing, which is hard...

And now we can dive into VJing (Is that a word?)
VJ's or 'Visual Jockeys' create or manipulate imagery in realtime in sync with music using just about every visual tech going; VHS tapes, DVD's, Hard drives, computer generated visuals and even live camera inputs. Using an analog mixer to make the magic happen a VJ can manipulate all these inputs and blast them into your eyeballs via projector or moniter. The sky's the limit here as there is so much technology that you can make use, in fact there's probably so much that it would be pretty difficult to find somewhere to start.

An example of a video mixer

There are many VJ's out there but one of the few we looked at were the 'Light Surgeons' who operate as a multi-media production company based in East London. Say 'Light Surgeons' fast and it sounds the same as 'Lysergic' which if you don't know is what 'L' stands for in 'LSD' (Lysergic  Diethylamide). LSD is known for making you see weird, psychedelic things and during many of their performance the Light Surgeons attempt to recreate such things with real-time manipulation. 

Example of a light surgeon performance

A basic idea of how VJing works can be seen in these categories below;

• Source- As mentioned earlier; VHS tapes, DVD's, live camera feeds etc
• Playback- Usually a computer so the VJ can see what's being manipulated
• Mixing- A device which allows sources to be mixed e.g A video mixer
• Effects- Computer programs that can add special effects to source material
• Output- Displaying the manipulated sources e.g projector, monitors, LED displays etc

The technology used is constantly evolving with artists such as the Light Surgeons experimenting with new ways of  giving you visual LSD.