VJ Hypnotica
VJ Hypnotica |
|---|
Russell Vaz, commonly known by his stage name VJ Hypnotica, is a Canadian VJ. One of the originators of Vjing in Canada in 1995[1], VJ Hypnotica's style has evolved markedly from early beginnings, consisting more of scratching, B-movie and synthetic synesthesia than psychedelic and geometric[2].
Biography
Vaz was born and raised in Montreal, QC, where he spent much of his youth playing the guitar, listening to mostly classic hip-hop, new wave and industrial, and watching B-movies and current Hollywood films. Vaz was also influenced by the local punk scene and the music of touring American and Canadian bands that would play at show bars such as Les Foufounes Electriques (translated from French: The Electric Pussycat) including Ripcordz and Nirvana. Vaz frequented a local underground house record store called Inbeat Records, where he became acquainted with the sounds of artists like Kraftwerk, Ministry, Public Image Limited, Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb, and dance music genres like trance, house, techno, acid, and tribal.
He gained experience in the Mars Bar nightclub as the light board operator for a short time prior to founding Hypnotica Visuals in 1995.
The first few years of VJ work saw Hypnotica performing live VJing for many underground raves, installing very heavy analog slide and video projectors, and remixing live video with video cassettes, live cameras and video special effects units. He also operated Technodrome (the public rave calendar on the internet), managed a database of contact information for all major players in the rave scene, was depended upon to act as a fair mediator in disputes that broke out in the scene, ran the Smart Info Booth kiosk at events which gave out safety info leaflets on the effects of drugs.[3]
1997 saw VJ Hypnotica serve as an original advising consultant and beta tester to ArKaos for their first VJing software X<>pose which was released the following year, 1998.
In 2002, VJ Hypnotica's uncredited work producing the visuals that were projected on the giant screen behind the live performance[4] recorded for the French-Canadian singer Garou's 2002 DVD release [5], with the participation of Celine Dion and Luc Plamondon, produced by Sony Music Entertainment and BMG, helped this DVD receive a professional review score of 17 out of 20 points: the “Image” section of the DVD review, which covers the quality of the projected visuals as part of the emotional impact of the live performance, received 5 out of 5 points. The reviewer concluded, translated from French, “For those who haven't caught on yet, this DVD is a bomb that you must absolutely explode in your living room.” [6]
Honors
Named to the list of the 9 most notable people and organizations working in the underground rave scene of 1997.[3]
References
- ^ Rave, Inc. by Patricia Bergeron, Scanned from original printed newspaper article in La Presse, 21 March 1996, page C1. Bergeron asks VJ Dr. Hypnotica for his evaluation of the health of the underground rave scene.
- ^ Video-Jockey: Artist of the Digital Age, MusiquePlus, 11 October 2003. VJ Hypnotica is interviewed from 11:15 to 13:13.
- ^ a b Elle Quebec, April 1997, pg 63-66, scanned the from magazine.
- ^ Youtube clip of Sous le vent showing some of the visuals by VJ Hypnotica, from the Garou: Live a Bercy DVD, uploaded by garoulive.
- ^ “Garou: Live a Bercy”, DVD with comments and ratings.
- ^ Review of the DVD “Garou: Live a Bercy” on dvdcritiques.com, "Bref, pour celles et ceux qui n’auraient pas encore tout compris, ce DVD est une bombe qu’il faut laisser absolument exploser dans son salon!"
External links
- VJ Hypnotica official Website
- VJ Hypnotica official MySpace
- VJ Hypnotica official Facebook fan page
- VJ Hypnotica official twitter page
{{subst:#if:Vaz, Russell|}}
[[Category:{{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:1971}}
|| UNKNOWN | MISSING = Year of birth missing {{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:LIVING}}||LIVING=(living people)}}
| #default = 1971 births
}}]] {{subst:#switch:{{subst:uc:LIVING}}
|| LIVING = | MISSING = | UNKNOWN = | #default =
}}