VJ Fest Istanbul

Realtime video-music festival
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From Club Visuals to Festival Stages: Istanbul's Audiovisual Scene

15 Jun 2016 · by Ece Varol (Workshops & Community) · VJ Culture

Istanbul's live-visuals scene did not start on a festival stage. It started in clubs and small venues around Beyoglu and Istiklal, where VJs projected onto whatever wall would hold an image. Our venues page still reads like a map of that scene: Hazzo Pulo Pasaji, the foot of Galata Tower, Tarlabasi, Peyote.

From those nights grew a festival, and from the festival grew a network. The links page connects out to the sister festivals and communities we traded artists and ideas with across Europe, and the press archive tracks how the local media started paying attention.

The through-line is realtime

Whether it was a club back-room or the 2011 stage at club Mute, the thing that stayed constant was realtime performance: images made live, in the room, in response to the music. You can still watch a lot of it on video in the gallery.

That is the scene this festival came from, and the one it tried to give back to.