Trying to define what makes my work look different from other VJs is really hard for me especially because a lot of the time I'm not consciously aware of what I'm doing, or at least how I'm doing it. I work in a very intuitive way and often I'll watch a recording of a show and think "how the hell did I achieve that? " and then I'll have to go back to my rig and work out in retrospect this interesting effect I pulled off for further future use.

This is mainly because I came to Vjing from being a rock musician so I approach it from a more hands on performance point of view than a VJ say with a film or computing background. I play my video equipment like I would a guitar, on a much more visceral, subconscious level.

When the laptop boom meant that anybody who could blag a projector from work could call themselves a VJ, I took inspiration from a quote from David Bowie "The key to success is to look at what all your competition is doing, and head in the opposite direction".

The majority of VJs focus on their content, which is understandable, it is their ART, and for many the show is little more than a presentation of the masterpieces they've spent eons on in the studio creating - but for me my rock'n'roll roots are showing again: although I can and do create my own content well enough, I can't hope to match the output of people with motion graphics/media or fine art training. but what I can do is practice on my equipment until it becomes second nature, concentrate on real time composition and extracting every nuance and possibility from the act of mixing itself.

I feel my Vjing is less a technical process, and more like me leading the video in a dance, with all the possible moves available to my partner at my fingertips and under my toes.

All of the parameters for the Vjo effects are mapped to hardware controls via USB or midi so I'm using that pc as I would a hardware effects unit, in fact I only have one VGA monitor in the rig which I use to start up Vjo, then switch over to using for the VJamm machine. I use a Shuttle rather than a laptop, because (a) the bang for buck ratio is way better and you can upgrade easier, and (b) using Vjo as a live fx unit means having a composite capture card, and laptops only come equipped with firewire capture devices (firewire is unsuitable for live fx processing because the nature of the firewire compression/decompression leaves a one second lag).

Although pretty much all the FX I use are Freeframe ones rather than the native Vjo ones, Vjo is the only software that has no limit to the amount of effects I can use at one time. My choice of VJamm 2 as clip player is down to the low latency of triggering and its ability to use full PAL clips

Moving from clubwork to working with bands has been a natural progression for me, as I'm much more into working with other performers to augment and complement what they're doing and create a coherent show than just showcasing my own content. My focus on delivery rather than content has obvious benefits when working with unknown incoming video streams rather than pre-made footage, where you know what's coming next.

All this makes it sound like I'm making it up as I go along, which is far from the truth. When I'm working with an act where I have prior collaboration, or at least a set list in advance I create footage specific to each song, and spend many hours rehearsing with the material, trying out different combinations and methods of composition to find what works - but unfortunately the norm at festivals is for the bands and VJs to be booked separately, then the VJs are arbitrarily assigned to acts and DJ's often on the very day of the event. So the ability to jam along and respond to whatever music is happening is an absolute must, this being taken to extremes when playing with the Bays where all the musicians are improvising as well.

Working closely with the same cameraman all the time also has its advantages; over time we've built up a rapport that helps our skills complement each other to great effect.

Working with live video also has a very strong audience reaction, often a non VJ-savvy audience will assume that the whizzy stuff their seeing on the screens is merely playback, it has simply not occurred to a lot of people who are exposed to visuals in clubs and concerts that the video that they're watching is a live performance as much as the music. So for instance, when the pulsing kaleidoscopic spider web they're watching resolves itself into a shot down the neck of the guitar it has quite a wow factor.