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Optical Sisters
Jun Ofusa: VJ, Director, Teacher
Kensuke Suzuki: VJ, Director, Teacher
Kiyomi Fuke: Photographer
The Optical Sisters live and work in Tokyo, Japan
Scenery of a VJ
There are two kinds of people living in Tokyo.
There are the native people on one hand and the people who moved here on the other.
Many gather from various provinces in Japan and migrate to Tokyo.
People who have just come to Tokyo are usually pleased with the extension of the scenery as perceived on their television back home.
At the same time they feel that there is no whereabouts in Tokyo.
This feeling is important for us –the native people, too.
Of course we are familiar with the scenery of Tokyo, much like a person in any other major city.
But Tokyo is a place where the town, as well as the people are subject to constant changes.
In this respect, the scenery in its current state may suddenly arouse a sense of incompatibility.
Or we somehow adapt to feel familiar in what ought to be foolish, because of its constant changing.
We, the Optical Sisters, have created an image of Tokyo based on these kinds of experiences.
To emphasize these distinctive perspectives, we have in addition filmed the sceneries of various countries around the world. These movies are at the core of our VJ-play. [...]
[...]
Recently we are putting a lot effort into doing sessions with young VJs.
There is a lot of simple VJ software in Japan. Moreover, the machine parts especially for VJs are readily available on the market.
The number of those who want to become a VJ from their teens has increased.
However, we are thinking that they might encounter two problems:
The first one can be summed up by: "Savings are few. "
When a lot of young VJs are playing for about an hour, their material is exhausted.
From our point of view, they should try harder to find their own style.
The second one is that there is no outlet.
Especially, when there are not so many things played at a club. The organizers often don’t care if there are two or more VJs playing during the same event.
In our events, our only tools are video mixers and projectors.
Often less experienced Vjs bring their computers and tapes, and the try to play with too many machines at the same time.
The images that come out of these quite different sources and are put together on the same music have to be projected to about ten screens simultaneously.
Our advice to young VJs would be, to focus more on the quality of their visual material, rather than trying to impress with too much technology.
(Text by Jun Ofusa)
