VJ Sustenance mixes digitised collection @Allsorts Online, December 1

Video jockey Lynne Sanderson, aka VJ Sustenance, will mix the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) collection at the Allsorts Online Forum on December 1, demonstrating yet another application for digitised collections. The Adelaide-based artist will draw links between art and technology during the Allsorts Online Forum wrap-up party by mashing-up the digital images and responding to the classic 19th Century library interior. The event will be set in the beautiful late-Victorian Mortlock Chamber at the State Library of South Australia. Lynne gives a little insight into the art of a video jockey and her approach to the cultural heritage collection.



What style of work do you make as a video jockey? What influences your own artwork?
My visual style is primarily photographic. I used layered and effected video concentrating on movement and tempo. I shoot most of the video that I use. The footage could be either something I shot on the street in Berlin or Adelaide or models shot in a controlled studio situation. Graphical elements also appear in my mixes, blended and affected throughout the mix. Sometimes I use royalty free archival footage. I have a large bank of loops that I draw from.

Often I will shift between thematic frameworks, changing with shifts in aspects of the music. I have recently been doing audiovisual performances with my physical controller the v-tar. It looks like a flying v guitar and it is custom built so that I can trigger audio and visual on cue, without sitting at a computer. This has allowed me to start experimenting with the performative aspect of my work.

There are many influences on my artwork. From other audiovisual artists such as Ryoji Ikeda, Severed Heads and Hexstatic to music video and movies to small things such as a particular movement or motion or something I might see happen in the street. I also take a lot of inspiration being immersed in music and sound. Then there are the unexplained accidents that can occur when I am playing with the software patches I have created. I am also highly influenced by the action of play.


A rear screen projector will be set-up in the Mortlock Chamber, at the State Library of South Australia, where VJ Lynne Sanderson will mix ANAT’s collection.

Your background is installation art, how did you move into vjing?
I have always done both… I actually started my career in the early 1990s showing slides (a kind of early vjing before the technology was ready) with a techno band. It was after that that I started exhibiting my artwork in galleries and then moved into installation works. I was still developing my club video works in parallel to the gallery works. I enjoy showing my work to different cross-sections of people. I get a different feedback from playing live than from installing an artwork in a gallery. Ultimately though, I like to involve others in my artistic process, whether it is people playing with my installations or enjoying a beat driven visual mix.


Allsorts Online and CAN is looking forward to watching you mix part of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) collection on December 1 at the State Library of South Australia. How will you approach this project?
I have been given some moving images from ANAT’s collection. These have been cut up… and I am experimenting with manipulating them live. I am interested to see what comes out after they go through my software and are re-contextualised.

What type of material will you be mixing? What idea will you try to convey as you mash-up the work?
I will be mixing a selection of ANAT’s archive over a period of years. This will include some documentation of workshops that they have run and artists moving image works that have been included in their magazine Filter. There will also be some documentation of artists’ installations.

I enjoy improvising when I vj… So I will be listening to the music and mixing the works together with a certain tempo and motion. I will play with the material and see what happens. Ideas will be revealed.

VJ Sustenance @ Persian Garden Adelaide Festival 2006 from vj sustenance on Vimeo.

What potential do you see for your own work as cultural heritage organisations digitise more of their collections?
This the first time I have mixed other artists works. It is a bit of a different mindset than using my own video footage and animations. In the process of working on the project, I see a lot of potential to have access to rare early film footage or images. I have been wondering what would happen if you merged/mashed two or more famous artists works together. It poses the question.. Are you creating a new artwork from doing this?


As the world digitises to preserve and share, will you start using new material that you had not considered before (ie CCTV footage, plates from rare illustrated books)?
Possibly… it depends on what sort of access is granted to use these artworks and what I might be working on conceptually.

What opportunities do you see for collecting institutions in using digitised material?
It would be great to be an artist–in-residence in a cultural institution and have access to various famous works to create something new from something old.



Allsorts Online: the collecting sector, academia, the arts and the media
Event: Allsorts Online Forum
Date: December 1
Venue: State Library of South Australia, Adelaide
Cost: Free
Time: 8.30am – 5pm + Drinks
Registration: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/189943/canforum

Event: Allsorts Online Masterclasses
Date: December 2
Venue: Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) and the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus)
Cost: $250 per 3-hour session
Time: 9am – Noon, 1pm – 4pm
Registration: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/189943/canforum

Image caption: High heeled shoe on tricycle, `Liquorice Allsorts’, designed by Ross Wallace, used in `Parade of Icons’ Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Closing Ceremony, Sydney 2000. Collection: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Part of the Sydney 2000 Games Collection. Gift of the New South Wales Government, 2001.

Leave a Reply