International Festival and Platform for Live Audio Visual Art & VJing

The festival aims to promote innovative and outstanding productions in the field of audiovisual performance, vjing and interactive installations, as well as to gather recent artistic and technical developments in order to present it to the general public.

Cimatics presents productions that explore performance concepts and the interaction between different media formats – especially image and sound – in an innovative manner and view. It encourages the crossover of institutional, academic and sub-cultural contexts as well as the interdisciplinary work between art forms, media techniques and concepts.

Artists are the powerful drive for the development in multimedia productions and innovative use of the new technology as they push the possibilities of the common sense past the limit, pushing the concept where they collapse in new formations and perspectives.

The International VJing Festival 2003 organized by Cimatics took place in Brussels on the 10, 11, 12, 17, and 19 April , on different locations: Recyclart, La Raffinerie, Cinema Nova, Halles de Schaerbeek. It presented some of the leading international artists in the field, between experimental and dance ambiance, for the pleasure of the ears and eyes…

Cimatics invited a number of VJs & visual artists from Belgium and the rest of the world including : Visual Kitchen (B), D-fuse (UK), Qubo gas (F), Minuszero (NL), Cinétik (CA), Visual.Displacements (AUT), visomat av (GER), Solu (SP)… some of whom had already acquired international notoriety or won international awards at festivals and events like Sonàr festival, the Netmage Diesel Awards festival of Bologna, etc…

Cimatics Festival 2003 archive page

Participants

Visomat (GER), Datenreport (GER), Lab[au] (B), Qubogas (FR), Antonin De Bemels (B), Roburang (B), D-Fuse & Scanner (UK), Minuszero (NL), Telcosystems & Eog (NL), Stanzacrew vs Lo/Mechanik (NL), Boutique Vizique (B), sK2 (B), Christina Vantzos (US), Visual Kicthen (B), Eavesdropper (B), Rafaël vs Rawakari (B), Anouk De Clerq (B), Tina Frank (AT), Funkstörung (GER), Solu (SP), Mortenson (FIN), Genoflex (B), Sitoid (B), Cinetik (CAN), Visual.Displacements ft Markus Kienzl (AT), Fisheye vs Spacid (B), Exceeda (UK), Axoltl Corp (CZ), Hell-zo (B), Joshua (B), OB/srv (B), Miyu (B).

VJing

VJs work more or less in the same way as musicians work with electronic sound. The techniques and equipment differ but the basic principles are similar (e.g. cross-fading, sampling, scratching, cutting, to the rhythm, synthesis, sequencing, modulating, etc…). Some VJs concentrate on the visual element, manipulating and mixing film or video loops to create moving light patterns (aka video sequences) which can now be seen in many clubs, urban raves and underground parties as well as in art galleries and museums.

The definition of a VJ is quite large and free of interpretation. Still, there is a clear difference between VJing and other visual arts such as film: the VJ mixes images live, thereby generating a flux in real time; whereas film and “video-art” are linear and pre-produced. It is certainly a form of performance as accidents, improvisation, mood and relation with the public enter in the parameters of the performing visual artists.

VJing has found itself to be a new technique in arts. A New Medium with infinite possibilities to discover, as well as dangers and hazards in which you can get stuck…