always going to be slightly strange to hear a cultural researcher talk about a subject you’ve wound your life up in, as did dominik hasler in “party as art? antivj and the migration of vjing into the sphere of fine arts”. even stranger when the focus is on a project you’ve known since its inception and people you count as good friends: joanie and (his) antivj (label). looking back, joanie’s proto-mapping at avit>c23 precedes this blog, it was december 2006.
The paper considers the European visual label AntiVJ as an extraordinary case of the widespread practice of VJing. The example shows how VJing does not only connect music and the moving image but also the two sepa- rate worlds of the dance floor and the white cube. The recent orientation of art museums to performances and events as well as the growing interest in public art offer alternatives to the club for ambitioned visual artists such as AntiVJ.
My presentation concentrates on the way AntiVJ relates to classical themes from the history of fine arts. After tracing the history of AntiVJ’s visual vocabu- lary back to constructivist visuals I will discuss the way the group joins the modernist tradition of problematising the picture’s surface. Other important features of AntiVJ’s work are its remarkable spatial and sculptural qualities that result from a thorough reflection on the use of perspective. Before con- cluding, the paper takes up a development by which, from the Dadaist move- ment on to Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable, party has become a possible medium for fine arts. It addresses the question to which extent the art of VJing includes aspects beyond the screen.
full presentation: http://vimeo.com/17192497
photo by blanca: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteemotion/5189310465/in/photostream/