When we did our feature on VJing our we got a lot of feedback along the lines of “thanks, but what about VJs we haven’t heard of? We’d like to know about them.” So, here it is - an interview with Addictive TV, twice voted the most popular VJs in the country. Oh, and we had them pick their favourite under-exposed VJs too.

Do you think of yourselves as VJs, AV artists or something else?

GRAHAM: Good question. We think of ourselves as AV artists - but a lot of people still don’t know what that means.

TOLLY: Some people have called us visual DJs, but that sounds crap!

Can you tell us a bit about your live performance technique?

TOLLY: This really depends on what show we’re doing - whether it’s a club set or a live cinema project, two very different things.

GRAHAM: Yeah, our current live cinema project, The Eye of the Pilot, involves a live guitarist and a lot of kit, like two laptops, MIDI controllers, three audio mixers, three DVD turntables, an audio/video mixer and so on - so it’s quite different to one of our club sets, which is a much simpler set-up. The Eye of the Pilot is also a very rehearsed project, much like any band - so we each really know the part we’re playing, and during the performance we have to cue each other, Tolly often whispers count-downs to me in certain sections and when Alex - our guitarist - plays a particular riff, that’s a sign to trigger a certain audiovisual sample and so on.

TOLLY: We work so much together though, that pretty much we instinctively know what the other is about to do anyway!

One of the running themes of this series of interviews has been the standardization of a pair of DVD decks and a vision mixer as a club set up. VJ Anyone felt this would be a good idea. Do you think this would be a good thing?

GRAHAM: This really depends whether you’re talking strictly about VJing, as this kind of set-up clearly wouldn’t work for acts like ourselves where we’re also doing the audio. But in the world of VJing, yes any standardization is a good thing!

Obviously what you do requires a lot of equipment, particularly computers, on stage. Is it difficult to get people to look past the equipment and focus on you as performers?

GRAHAM: Stage presence is actually quite important to us. We definitely don’t hide behind laptops.

TOLLY: We don’t only use laptops though, and are quite clearly doing obvious DJ tasks like cueing up, beat-matching, scratching etc and so yeah it’s quite clear our hands are full actually doing stuff.

Is there any new technology on the horizon that you are really keen to get your hands on?

GRAHAM: A teleport, save all that traveling to gigs - wouldn’t that be great?!!

TOLLY: We’ve just been given the brand new Pioneer SVM-1000 audio/video mixer that over the last couple of years we were involved with the development of, working on early designs, testing the prototypes, brainstorming ideas for filters etc. It’s a bit big, but a nice piece of kit and should really help push the whole AV thing to a much wider audience.

I’ve noticed there is a lot of focus on the DJ magazine poll of the top 20 VJs, which has rated you very highly for several years now. Obviously it’s been very helpful for you, do you think it’s beneficial to the wider scene, or just the people who appear on it?

TOLLY: Well, both really.

GRAHAM: Yeah I agree. Over the last four years we’ve been lucky enough to have come number one twice and also number two twice. I think it gives great validation to the genre in the wider music business and because the poll is voted on by the readers of DJ Magazine, it is public recognition for individual acts and artists - and that can only be a good thing.

Robin Brunson from Hexstatic raised some questions about some the artists in the poll not really being from the VJing scene, is that true/do you think it’s a problem?

GRAHAM: Well, the VJ poll’s always included artists who work with both video and music, no matter what their background. Realistically, do artists in the poll all have to come from “the VJing scene” as defined by a particular person? I don’t think so. Personally if we had anything to do with the poll, which we don’t, I would also be very open about who could be included. In the DJ poll, there are fantastically skilled scratch DJs up against some guy playing cheesy House off his laptop - but they’re all in the same poll…!

TOLLY: Part of the problem I always think with so called “scenes” is that people like them to be some kind of exclusive club, which in reality they’re simply not. Particularly VJing - which is an ever growing movement encompassing a whole plethora of approaches to visuals and their performance.

I was interested to discover that someone has discovered a way of making Serato work with video. What do you think the consequences of that are likely to be?

GRAHAM: Hopefully that more DJs will get into using video! It’ll be a stepping stone to the next level though, as the big question is ‘what video content are DJs going to play?’ If it simply means DJs just play music videos and don’t get into producing AV, that’s not very progressive and runs the risk of not going anywhere.

Have you got any broader predictions for the visuals ‘scene’? Is it getting bigger or more influential?

GRAHAM: Yes, it’s certainly getting bigger, new artists are appearing all the time, and it’s definitely influencing mainstream media - particularly TV advertising and music videos. As Tolly just said, it’s now a growing field encompassing a whole range of approaches to performing visuals, and those styles will just migrate outwards.

Can you tell us a little bit about the current Optronica festival that you are doing in Paris?

GRAHAM: The exhibition is actually organised by Françoise Lamy here, one of the festival directors of Optronica. It’s at Le Cube and runs for six months till July and features interactive installations and video work from loads of AV artists doing great stuff, developing their own software and so on; like U.S. artist Brian Kane from total AV pioneers EBN and French band Ez3kiel who are doing some great stuff audiovisually. We’ll have an installation there too called Sportive, that we recently created for the Adidas “Art in Sport” exhibition in China for this years 2008 Beijing Olympics. So if anyone is going to Paris over the next few months, go and check the whole thing out!

Any other projects you’ve got coming up?

TOLLY: Next up is another movie remix for one of the Hollywood studios, for a new action movie coming out. We’re creating a web viral for the films promo campaign. We’re also playing at South by Southwest in March, the big music showcase in Austin, Texas - that should be amazing.

GRAHAM: And more on the art tip, fitting it around other projects and gigs, we’re working on our new live cinema project ‘Sampling the Culture’ about the isolated Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, which this year becomes the World’s newest democracy. It’s a very closed off country that not many people have ever been allowed to go to, let alone film there. They only allowed television seven years ago and most of the country still has no electricity. We spent time there last year, filming ancient dance rituals in a monastery with Buddhist monks in the mountains. Absolutely incredible place.

TOLLY: …and it should be finished by the summer, as we’re doing a big event in Liverpool later this year as part of the 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations.

GRAHAM: And with gigs, we’ve got a series of dates coming up in the States and in Europe - particularly looking forward to Prague, as we’ve not played there before. And dates in Tokyo, Shanghai and in Bangkok again.

Click here for Addictive TV’s choice of up-and-coming artists on the scene.