London-based, French-born VJ and artist Pikilipita doesn’t touch laptops. He shows up at live visual gigs toting game systems. Having built mobile projects for the Game Boy Advanced and Linux-based GamePark GP2X, he’s now got a new machine: a Barbie-pink PlayStation 2.

Novelty this may be, but don’t think that PS24VJ can’t hack it as a real VJ app, allowing you to leave the laptop at home:

• Plays footages compressed with the Kouky video codec v16
• Supports two video layers
• Supports alpha channel
• Special effects and filters
• PAL video out signal

And because it supports up to two PlayStation controller inputs, two people can play at once. (One of the big problems with computers, I think, is that they’re entirely restricted to single-user metaphors.) Each VJ controls one video layer at a time.

Pikilipita is happy to share his creation with you, too, for a donation of whatever you think is appropriate. PS2 games don’t even require hacked systems, either, unlike DS or PSP homebrew software (which has proven a major pain for the homebrew music scene).

Pikilipita points CDM to the PSD2DEV network for more on how to develop for the system. I’m surprised at how well-documented this is:
PS2DEV PS2 Page (loaders, development toolchain, tutorials, sample code, demos)

What do you need to run them? He writes:

My systems works on any regular playstation 2, you don’t need a modified one. All you need is a special DVD called “swap magic 3.6″ (http://www.swapmagic3.com) to force booting on the USB port and that’s it!

On the USB port of the console, you insert a memory stick containing the software and the footages you want to use.

PS24VJ Project Page

Movies of the PS24VJ in action are available on his site:
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=18
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=17

Overview sheet:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-sheet-1.01.pdf

User’s manual:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-manual-1.00.pdf

If you’re near London, you can catch PS4VJ live at the AV Social. I’m super jealous:
British Film Institute AV Social

Here’s the latest from visualist superstars UnitedVisualArtists. UVA is “producers, directors and designers of performance video, environmental graphics and real-time software and for a variety of media.” They combine “art direction, production design and software engineering.” Oh, and they’re really light sculptors. And installation/media artists. And live performance visualists.

Their most recent performance collaboration is with Chemical Brothers. The visuals, as with all of their work, rely on their custom-built software Dragonfly. Dragonfly is not only able to generate visuals, but can conceive how those visuals fit into three-dimensional space, instead of being constrained to a basic video out / single, two-dimensional frame. It’s flexible enough that it works on their light installations, as well. Here, it pumps out more conventional (though lovely) generative visuals. Click here if you’re lazy, but even better is the higher-quality version on their site.

More on the Chem Bros:

We were commissioned by the ICA as part of their 60th anniversary celebrations to produce a special one-off live collaboration with The Chemical Brothers in Trafalgar Square. The project was supported by Becks, and filmed for later transmission by Channel 4. We augmented the Chemicals’ touring set (designed by Tom Lesh, with visuals by Flat Nose George;) with a constellation of powerful lights around the square, and created a set of generative, realtime graphics for the show finale — the tracks Hold Tight London and crowdpleasers Leave Home and Block Rockin’ Beats.

What’s really impressive about their work is their ability to pursue rigorous minimalism and technical sophistication at the same time, without ever feeling cold or opposed to the sensory experience of the material. It’s something you might miss if you just see one of their light sculptures, but this sense of their aesthetic vision really emerges as you look at the whole body of their designs. And in case you haven’t been following UVA, there’s more. A lot more.