Behind every great DJ are great visuals.
The visuals entice your eyes and create another dimension: A dimension where anything is possible and all of your fantasies collide. My breath is taken away and I lose myself in the beauty of it all, but I never once think of the science and those working behind it.
During EDC Chicago in 2013, I was lucky enough to hang out with one of Insomniacs top “Experience Makers,” and get a front-row look at the technology that drives a DJ’s performance into perfection. As I walked into the “Front of House,” I was immediately confronted with so many machines – it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I was instantly drawn to the man in a little corner, nodding his head with music and pressing a never-ending amount of buttons with enthusiasm.
The bass and music boomed from the sound systems,and the crowd went wild and danced the night away. You could watch the crowd become entranced by the lights and stunning visuals and it was all being controlled by the man in the corner, Vello Virkhaus.
Vello Virkhaus, has been a leading pioneer of visual arts in the electronic dance music scene since 1993. His first company was called Optique Video Tech, or “OTV.” The company did many productions throughout the Midwest, and its first collaboration took place at a rave in Chicago titled “La La Land” in 1993. After receiving a BFA in Art and Technology Studies at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995, Vello went on to work for a post house called “Optimus,” where he created commercial animation. He also had a little side project in the works:
“I went and got a job at this post house called “Optimus” in downtown Chicago. It was a great place with cool people. While I was doing the commercial animation, I was also working on forging this strange live experience. I had my “college job” and paid off my college loans by doing commercial titles for Reebok and McDonalds. I made a lot of friends there but it was also a great place because they tolerated my incessant entrepreneurialism, wild artist attitude and just let me have a little bit of space. I would go in a lot during the evenings and do experimental stuff. It was great for them because we did a lot of visual work there that I would use and become apart of the library.
I remember it being met as “what are you guys doing?” I think people were most used to light shows instead of a whole video projection for electronic music productions. Film loops were still very popular, but we were some of the first Midwest VJ’s, and we met other artists as we were going. We met people from the West Coast and the East Coast and this community started forming. The more we did the more we were becoming aware of other people, and it was just a cool evolution.
Another reason I got into VJing was because it’s just a lot of fun. I did a big show when I had my Bachelor of Fine Arts show. It was a video installation in a room that was all blacked out, you could go in and out. It was designed that way because I wanted people to move in and out and be experimental with it and have some interaction. There wasn’t any interaction. So when I went to an underground rave and had people who were responding, it was really cool. I was drawn to that responsiveness.”
In 2000, Vello left the Midwest to pursue larger productions. In 2002 Vello established his own company called V Squared Labs. Since the establishment of V Squared Labs, Vello has partnered with highly acclaimed productions such as Electric Daisy Carnival, Ultra Music Festival, Coachella, Magnetic Music Festival, and Electric Zoo.
“I love video art, and I was always into video moving to the music. The EDM scene was a great place to be creative and just free form expression. It’s a nice place to be improvisational to music that is kind of without bounds. I enjoyed that and it’s what kinda got me into live VJing. It’s inspirational and it’s experimental. Continually being experimental and learning something new keeps me interested in my work. It was a job that I could, as an artist, be into doing.”
Magnetic Music Festival
Magnetic Music Festival Visuals from V Squared Labs Inc. on Vimeo.
Coachella 2012
Coachella 2012 VSL / Corso Montage from V Squared Labs Inc. on Vimeo.
Electric Daisy Carnival 2012
EDC – Behind the Screens 2012 from V Squared Labs Inc. on Vimeo.
So how does this art evolve from the drafts on a drawing board to the projection on a large LED screen?
“You know, people don’t realize how long it takes to create digital work, especially at high resolution. Some things could go quickly, maybe make a few things in a day, and some things could take months. The Amon Tobin show took around 18-weeks of animation with more than twenty people working on it. Some of the work we play is extremely high quality and it has been worked on for a long time.”
Amon Tobin ISAM v2.0 from V Squared Labs Inc. on Vimeo.
“Some artists have their own visual content or logos or loop packs, if they have something we will look at it as an aesthetic place to match what they’ve done. Depending on what the style of the animation is, we’ll curate things from our own library to match that style and then integrate it in. If they don’t have anything, we create a show. They’re reading the crowd and we’re reading the artists and the crowd, so we’re creating a show concurrently.
I’ve had a lot of fun creating shows for artists and getting a positive result. Some are more involved than others are hardly involved. The results have always been where you get a home run job and it looks great and people like the show. Its like you’re living the dream.”
In a industry that has many artists exposed for prerecording their sets, Vello does not have the luxury of prerecording his art.
“It’s totally improvisational. It’s really interactive and all on the fly. Color changes, content, waveforms, patterns, just putting these things together in a coercive package and following the music is quite complicated. They are setting the lead in the music and making their music presentation. When you hear the genre you can pick things that will match. Like dubstep, more organic and fragmented patterns and old film and torn up, grungy textures and glitchy digital errors works very well. You find visual things that relate to the music almost every time. Cause you can genre specialize your content. Like dubstep I’m always drawn towards kind of angular geometric patterns and fragmenting a picture apart. For house I like smoother pinks and sexy colors.”
Some of V Squared Lab’s recent projects include:
Krewella’s Volcano
Making of The Krewella Volcano from V Squared Labs Inc. on Vimeo.
Datsik’s Vortex Lumen
DATSIK – Case Study from V Squared Labs Inc. on Vimeo.
Hyundai Grammy Amplifier Lounge
Hyundai Grammy Amplifier Lounge from V Squared Labs Inc. on Vimeo.
If you’re interested in pursuing this field as a possible career, Vello has some advice.
“Don’t do it if you don’t like it! It’s a very difficult field to work in. But if you like being an artist and you like video art, this is a cool avenue for video art performance that is outside of the typical “art world.” It is also kind of outside the commercial animation world and whatever that world is becoming. So sign up and become apart of something that is outside of four white walls, cracked lights, and McDonald’s titles.”
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[Photo Credit: StopTime341 Productions]
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