A VJ performs images the way a DJ performs records: launching clips, layering effects, riding intensity with the music, reading the room. The title emerged from 1980s club culture and MTV’s on-air hosts, then settled on the live-visuals meaning.
The modern toolkit centers on software like Resolume mixed via MIDI controllers, feeding projectors and LED walls. The craft is timing and restraint as much as content: knowing the drop deserves everything and the verse deserves almost nothing.
Software like Photism automates a slice of the job, the audio-reactive layer, for artists without a visuals person. For the full landscape by rig, see our DJ visuals guide.