What we are doing is really just a part of the shamanistic tradition of taking the tribe on a trip to another world, so that when they return they bring a different sense of relativity and perspective on their lives. With the arrival of powerful desktop video tools in the last few years, Mapes has been able to create works that he believes have a truly profound effect on audiences. Mapes explains that, unlike conventional movies and TV shows, the lab's live shows strive to set off a figurative foreground element such as a 3-D model or video image, in a torrent of often bedazzling ground elements, such as layers of pyschedelic graphics. The lab has compiled databanks of original graphics, ancient symbols, video footage, 3-D models, and sampled elements that it adds to the mix at its live performances to set a certain pace or stir up a certain group mood. It is, of course, all too easy to belittle this pronounced goal of the VJs of the club scene - to provide visual potions that mystically bring different groups together and break down barriers.
Most people view the gatherings as little more than retro-psychedelic drug and dance fests.
While that may indeed be the case, for the VJ this very perception poses the greatest challenge. Synergy creates floating, cycling graphics layered with images like entranced tribal drummers and graceful dancers pulled from Hollywood musicals. The result is a truly soothing experience. Grant looks forward to the day when he can take this concept of synergy to the next level by using infrared devices or some similiar technology to enable the crowd to trigger the visuals, raising the tempo of transitions or patterns or other aspects of the visual experience. While the day of audience-driven visuals may still be a few years away, the spread of these intoxicating VJ brews is imminent.