VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture: Includes DVD [Paperback]

D-Fuse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 14, 2006

A major change has taken place at dance clubs worldwide: the advent of the VJ. Once the term referred to the video jockey who introduced music videos on MTV, but now it defines an artist who creates and mixes video, live and synced to music, in clubs or at concerts. This book is an in-depth look at the artists at the forefront of this amazing audio-visual experience. The book combines how-to, showcase and reference elements, opening with a series of articles on contextual and historical issues. The central section showcases the work of a wide selection of international VJs, and the last chapter covers equipment (hardware and software) and typical stage set-ups (explaining equipment, the use of space, how to create an environment to suit an audience, and more) along with supplementary guidelines and tips on how to master a performance.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

D-Fuse is a group of artists and designers from varied disciplines, who work across a range of creative media from the web, print, TV, film, art and architecture to live A/V performances. D-Fuse work in collaboration with musicians (including Scanner, Beck and Leftfield) as well as creating idents for TV studios around the world. Their clients include Nike, Nokia, Sony, Apple, Diesel and BMW.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Laurence King Publishers (December 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1856694909
• ISBN-13: 978-1856694902
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 9.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #769,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Show Pony for the VJ scene, March 22, 2007

By 

Katrina Black "aka Kat Black of Touchstone an... (Perth, Western Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture: Includes DVD (Paperback)

This book was several years in the making, and I admire the dedication of those involved in getting it to print.

Unfortunately, that means that in such a rapidly-moving field, it's a bit out of date. Several of the acts featured have disappeared off the radar by now, and there are some quite glaring omissions - such as the EyeWash DVDs, Resolume software (currently used by around a third of the world's top VJ's) and uh... PC's. This wouldn't bother me as much if not for the tagline on the back cover which touts 'full details of the hardware and software available for VJing are provided'. I'd suggest that 'examples of hardware and software available for Mac-based VJing are provided'.

If you get the impression that you need a pair of Mac Powerbooks to VJ from the setups and info given in this book, don't worry - that's not the case. The scene featured in this book is just one aspect of international VJ Culture, and it's been curated from a particularly Mac perspective.

It's a graphic-design triumph - you couldn't ask for more beautiful, slick presentation. The background of Faulkner and other members of D-Fuse as print-based graphic designers with decades of experience between them really shows. Personally, I find the layering and shiny panels a bit distracting and hard to read at one sitting, and I feel like I should put on gloves every time I pick it up as the slightest touch leaves great grubby fingerprints on some of the shinier pages. But it's a stunning, jaw-dropping book, which is just what the scene needed.

To be honest, I don't see this as a book to read so much as to show-off. VJing is a very visual artform, so what better way to communicate what it's all about than in gorgeous, awe-inspiring imagery? Even if it's a bit of a struggle to actually sit and read it cover-to-cover, it's the PERFECT coffee-table book. You couldn't ask for a better showcase for potential clients, newbie wannabes or... well... your Mum... to show what VJing is and why you're dedicating yourself to it despite the bad pay, the expensive equipment, the long hours, etc etc.

A friend of ours runs a Band House, where touring members of bands stay when they're performing in her town. She's a VJ, and so in a good position to plug 'have you thought about using visuals?' on a daily basis. She said this book's been the perfect way to do that - she just leaves a copy lying around and the muso's thumb through it over their breakfast.

The DVD is a huge improvement over that provided with Spinrad's 'the VJ Book'. There's a load of great material on it, and most of it's of an equivalent standard to the imagery in the book - the glamour, high-end of the VJ scene. Positively wow-worthy, and the most impressive DVD collection of live VJing I've seen to date. Some of my favourite parts though were cut very short - eg just a minute or two long - and then there's the bizarrely out of place inclusion of long swathes of content by Elliott Earls, most of which has little to do with the VJ scene - eg a long mockumentary called the Saranay Hotel. Given that there was so much other great VJ content that could have gone on there, I can't work out why Earls' doco was included. It's got nothing to do with VJing or audio-visual art, and the quality is so vastly different to everything else on the DVD.

Like Spinrad's VJ Book before it, I've bought multiple copies of this book/DVD to give away whenever I can afford it. I take a copy to meetings with new clients, and I lend copies to newbie VJs that come along to our Plug n Play nights. The real problem is keeping a copy for myself, as everyone wants to take it home.

The VJ scene is really still very young - maybe equivalent to the DJ scene of two or three decades ago - and we need some impressive look-at-me Superstar VJ's to get the public to take notice, so that the rest of us can get on with doing what we do with hopefully a bit more attention being paid to what's going on behind the scenes on the screens.

I think this book is probably the single biggest factor so far in that process of getting the public to take notice. It's a lush, visually stunning celebration of a new phenomenon. Thanks so much to Faulkner and the rest of D-Fuse for giving this to the scene. Every VJ should own a copy. Or three.

VJ kattyb, VJzoo.com

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Speechless, February 28, 2007

By 

R. Torres - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture: Includes DVD (Paperback)

I was contacted by D-Fuse for an interview for a book a few months ago. I am a VJ as well and I was expecting some sort of paper bag book when it came out. I got it yesterday, a day after my birthday in fact and I have never seen a book (if you can call it just that) with so much detail and so much artistic value.

The audio-visual art + vj culture is one of those books you need to have in your livingroom for your friend to look up despite its content yet. Tp make it better there is so much information inside, even a graphic on how many VJs are per country.

Is a book compared to those of Frank Lloyd Wight. Is one of those books that make you feel like having one even you do not know what is about. The best thing is that you will learn a lot because of the way all reference are managed. And you know what? I'm on page 160!!!

Really good work regarding content and desing, I am very very impress. I am about to get another one, one to show to the people and another one for me.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Value, December 25, 2010

By 

Optrix - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture: Includes DVD (Paperback)

Just purchased this book.... yes its a bit out of date... but for the price its fantastic value! Thank you!!