PROJECTS
COLLABORATE
VISION
OUR VISION
Live Visual States
Imagine an age when we will fluently communicate via images, just like through speech. Projecting our fantasies and emotions for the others to see, and enjoying the immers flow of live visuals we receive as a response.

The live state of self-expression is a core element of our culture: free dance, improvisational music or free-style rap are just a few to mention. Yet, it is still impossible with images, animation or video, due to the time and skills involved in visual compositing.
Contemporary tendencies
Thanks to the recent development in interactive media, there are many new art-forms exploring live visuals: The evolution of Social Media pointing in the same direction as well. By encouraging users to create their own content and developing faster and easier publishing tools: We are getting closer and closer to real-time visual communication.
Fiction & theory
Fiction is an another important source of inspiration. From Gibson's Neuromancer to Hesse's Glass Bead Game there are many thoughtful description of future technologies and cultural games that are enriching our vision.

Through our research and software development we aim to connect these yet separated domains, and distill our concept & framework to contribute to this evolutionary field.

We can't tell, when will a fundamental breakthrough happen. What we can be sure, that year by year our culture, society & economy becomes more dynamic and visual. It breaks down the 'static chains' of old-technologies and textual systems. Any step towards a more live information flow will unlock new aspects of life and reality ... Panta Rhei (Heraclitus) . . .

Further essays and bibliography at our Research page.
ABOUT US
VJ Yourself was established by Andor Merks in 2009, East London. Merks started his research on interactive video and open-art in 2003. The same year he became a Video Jockey, utilizing his software experiments in the underground club scene.

Till 2009 his softwares were made for 'insiders': video artists & VJs. By establishing VJ Yourself, he put his audience in the focus. They are invited to participate in the creative process. Passive viewers become active collaborators, whose actions and inspiration play a vital role in the real-time 'actualization' of the art-work. The centuries old barrier between artist, art-work and audience is joyfully blurring away.

We pursue his vision parallel in theory and in practice:
Creative Apps
Our 'touch friendly' interactive concepts are also released for phones & tablets. Download, experiment and share your creations with us!  play more >
Events / Exhibitions
We love bringing our participatory visuals to unique events. Seeing people interacting with our art is a true inspiration for us and many times leads to meaningful conversations and lasting connections.  see more >
Collaboration
Basically our concepts are all about collaboration. Just by downloading our apps and feeding your inspirations in you are already part of the game. For visual-artists, musicians and other VJs there are more elaborate levels of involvement:  do more >
Basic Research
This is a transdisciplinary field. We integrate ideas from psychology, art philosophy, computing theory and gamification... Follow our research and dive into the books and videos that inspired us.  know more >
OUR HISTORY
2009 - 2012 2D version
Experimental development and participatory performances in London clubs, bars and galleries.
2013 - 2014 3D version
We switched to GPU rendered 3D graphics: using the Away3D engine (Adobe Air). The visuals became generative and music-reactive. The compositions were defined by our custom declarative language.

We participated on several art exhibitions and we organized open Open Calls to feature other artist's works inside our video installation.
2015. App & Team
Our focus shifting from clubbing and exhibitions to mobile apps and home-entertainment. Building a core team and a looser collaborator network became important.
2016. Unity + VR
The 5. version of the platform: Unity + C# + VR. Full rethink of our declarative language and generative geometries.