Scratch Video a mutant hybrid of scratch DJ music and guerrilla TV

scratchvideo/design/VJs

Realtime scratch video is a performance with both a DJ spinning music and a VJ (video jockey) manipulating images. The VJ is trying to match up the movement of images to the structure of the music.

"The DJ would take it somewhere, and I would try suggesting something and he would pick up on it. I came in with a lot of footage of people kissing, a theme I was playing with, and he used music that was really sultry. He would fade something in and I would be at the exact pace. It was like a big Tetris game, and every block was going in the right place." - VJ Anny One, 1998

The music always takes the lead in the relationship between visuals and music at a show. This is an unrehearsed jam session, in which the VJ is listening to music and trying to react -- when everything goes smoothly, the illusion is created that images and sound are in synch. Scratch video VJs move images back and forth, and mix visual samples creating juxtapositions.

The overall VJ subculture is still evolving. VJ Peter Rubin is credited with being the world's first live mixing VJ, beginning at the Amsterdam club Mazzo in 1979. VJs are now becoming an obligatory part of clubs, raves and electronic music festivals. Visuals at raves are mostly synonymous aesthetically with the trance genre of electronic music; these VJs employ a completely different visual language than scratch video (psychedelic computer graphics compared to sampled images from TV), but are still trying to create a realtime continuity between image and sound. The web site AudioVisualizers.com offers downloadable software, a history of different video mixers, and a listing of about 260 VJs and VJ web sites. The latest VJ evolution is music and visual artists touring together, such as Germany's Perlon label and Britain's The Light Surgeons.

To manipulate images in realtime, VJs use a video mixer, trigger software, and as many sources of images as their mixer can handle. VJ crews (teams of VJs) working together can operate different tools (trigger software, video mixer, live cameras, etc.) to produce layers of images being manipulated in realtime. This is not so different from a live television studio, where a director watches many screens at once, deciding which camera angle, graphic, or video taped material to put on next.

Why not just use the term "live", instead of realtime? At a scratch video show, the only actual "live" event taking place in front of the audience is people tweaking buttons - manipulation in realtime. Any video tape can be played "live" in front of an audience using a VCR and video projector, but this is not realtime manipulation of images.

Copyright 2000© Hart Snider