ABSTRACT
Live Visual performers rely on technologically enabled workflows to realise their art to such a degree that technology is as much their medium as light. This is evident throughout Live Visuals practice: from the pre-production of motion graphics to the design of control interfaces through to the selection of media-diffusion systems. This chapter will argue that artistic aesthetics converge into trends when a critical mass of artists appropriate technologies in similar ways. Within Live Visual performance practice, aesthetics are profoundly coupled to technological processes and inventions. The term ‘live’ in Live Visual performance emphasises that it is art created for and in the presence of an audience: the rendering of the artwork happens in real time as an ephemeral experience shared between performer and audience. The level of spontaneity that a performer strives for will vary, but in all cases the presence of the audience impacts on the performance that is realised. This chapter will discuss how the aesthetics of Live Visuals are a function of three components: artist, technology and audience.
