If you want to find your way into the VJing scene, you can either head for the next AV Social, or you can buy yourself a copy of ‘Audio-Visual Art + DJ Culture’, edited by Michael Faulkner/D-Fuse…the world’s #12 VJs according to DJ Magazine.

Not so much a book as an visual experience, its lavishly illustrated 191 full colour pages are, quite simply, art, each one providing a unique visual window into the world of VJing.

Kicking off by tracing the roots of VJing, the book manages, in a few short and unpretentious pages, to namecheck everyone from Eadweard Muybridge, the Lumiere brothers, Melies, Eisenstein, Fritz Lang, Luis Bunuel and Kandinsky, to Warhol, Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin…though it does stop short of discussing the relevance of aboriginal cave paintings to the VJing scene (I’ll save it for the PhD…).

This is quickly followed by several features dealing with various aspects of VJ culture, after which the book presents 150 interviews with 149 of the world’s best VJs (I’m not included). Grouped by geographical region, each set of interviews opens with a brief intro to the VJing scene in that region. Rounding things off are fourteen pages of info about VJing software, hardware and setups.

Included free is a 130 minute DVD featuring exclusive performances & films from, amongst others, Coldcut + Hexstatic, The Light Surgeons, D Fuse, Elliot Earls, UVA, & Scanner.

If there’s one criticism, it’s that some of the interviews and the how to section could have been more in depth…though, if they had been, the book would probably have ended up three times the size and four times its excellent value price of UKP 25…or just UKP 16.50 on Amazon! As things stand, there’s more than enough to whet your appetite, in fact to leave you drooling, as every page is jam packed with stunning images that will inspire your visuals and text that will give you ‘nuff ideas for getting bookings and lots more besides.

So whether you’re a professional VJ or a complete newbie, buy this book, as it provides the best and most comprehensive overview of the art of VJing…and the art of VJing.



More info: www.laurenceking.co.uk



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