The Vj Book

My Girlfriend got my this book as a birthday present. I Don't know how many VJ books are out there, but I found this one very interesting, it features interviews with a lot of visual artists, not all of them Vjs, but related some way or another to live visual performance. From the 1920s "color concerts" to the '60s psychedelic light shows to the contemporary scene's huge projection screens. Some chapters are dedicated to practical information, such as software and hardware tips or even copyright issues and lessons from related fields like film editing or improv. theater.
The book also comes with a DVD, which I though it was a great idea, but I'm not sure if I liked how it was executed. But then again I wasn't expecting the DVD at all, so I was just happy with the book alone.

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The VJ Book :
Inspirations and Practical Advice for Live Visuals Performance
Edited by Paul Spinrad;
DVD by Melissa Ulto (VJ Miixxy),
Foreword by Jon Schwark (videojon)

Royksopp: What Else Is There?

Danish director Martin De Thurah, directed this beautiful and haunting mystery for the Norwegian duo. Royksopp release the third single from The Understanding on November 28th. The vocals, by Karin Dreifer of The Knife, give this great track an eerie feel, which is perfectly complimented by the video.

Video Recycling

When I'm performing at shows, people come up to me and ask me: Where do you get your content from?
My answer is always the same: EVERYWHERE.
I like to create stuff from scratch, shooting video, photos, rendering original animations or sampling from many sources. Yes, Sampling. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, maybe because most of the music that I listen to makes use of this same technique, Sampling is an artform and you shouldn't feel bad about doing it (as long as you avoid the well known cliches of course). Here is an example I made using 2 clips from a Japanese movie, I only took a couple of frames of each sample, because the shots on the movie where really short, so I looped each one of them over and over to make them longer. On the Video you can see the 2 raw samples and then the recycled result with a little help of After effects, displacement mapping and color correction. Enjoy!

LFO - Freak

LFO's "Freak", directed by Daniel Levi, featuring a gaggle of spazzing, mischievous Asian schoolgirls dancing to frighteningly alien choreography.

Futurismo Zugakousaku

Among the excellent collection of animatable generators and screensavers displayed on his website, Zuga s Quartz Composer samples are beautiful. If you are running OS X (Tiger) you can download any of his Quartz Composer (QTZ) files and drop them in your User/ Library/ Screen Saver/ folder, then select them under System Preferences as a screen saver.

Check them out

SMS Guerrilla projector

If you are also a VJ, you might find this interesting...

The SMS Guerilla Projector is a home made, fully functioning device that enables the user to project text based SMS messages in public spaces, in streets, on to people, inside cinemas, shops, houses, etc

Small, portable, and battery operated, the SMS Guerilla Projector contains a mobile phone which enables the device to receive and project messages from other people.

The SMS Guerilla Projector is made by recombining available technologies. As an open object, the projector generates a wide range of applications, allowing the user to display messages and share his reflections.

Studio Troika

Vita Umbra

Using red and a green lights, Klass van der Molen of Studioklaas created: Vita Umbra, allowing you to view your own shadow in 3D.

The lights produce a shadow on a surface. When wearing 3D-glasses you're able to distinct one shadow with one eye, and the other shadow (from the other light) with your other eye. This allows your brain to create a 3D-image of your shadow. Objects near to the lamp also appear nearer to you. You're even able to slam your own head with your shadow-hand!

Studio Klaas

IKEA 360

Taking an "old" concept from the Matrix movies and implementing it to show furniture in a beautiful way. It's hard to resist the temptation of spinning the rooms back and forth, over and over.

Watch it

Information Contraband

This motion piece seems to be inspired on old Thai movie poster illustrations, the result: an incredible visual fragment that merges 2D illustrations with real life characters, blending seamlessly with Money Mark's great audio track. As always, Logan amazes me with their impeccable style and originality.

Photoshop 3D

A re-presentation of the Adobe Photoshop interface within
3-Dimensional space

See it

Amana - Screen Saver

I love this screensaver, It's a very intriguing, engaging visual presentation that makes great use of time lapse video and beautiful photography by Japanese visuals solutions experts, Amana.

System Requirements:
Mac: OS X or later
Win: Windows 98/ 98SE / Me/ 2000/ XP

Download it here