*Knock knock*
Who’s there?
VU JA DE.
VU JA DE who??
VU JA DE, the obscure remix site that you probably forgot about… but never forgot about YOU.
So here I am—over a year from when you last heard from me—with a new video to share. It’s a visualizer for a Negativland song/sound collage/mindfuck called Megaphone Guy. 📣
More details to come, but for now I’ll just drop the link and cross my fingers hoping it’s worth 110 seconds of your time.
You back? Whaddya think? Have I gone mad?? Probably.
If this video made you feel something, I’d love to hear what. And hey, why not get a friend’s take on it? Here's the link if you’d like to do something with it... 😅
Hang tight for some background in the next email. But for anyone who cares: read on to learn what the hell has been up with VU JA DE.
🔔 VU JA DE came to life—as a website and newsletter—in March 2020. If that month rings a bell, it’s probably because that’s roughly when the COVID-19 pandemic became a tangible, real-life thing for you (as it did for me).
🪓 A global health crisis, materializing at precisely the same time as my tiny blog website thingy. What did this mean? For starters, it was an excuse to stay indoors reading, thinking, and squinting at screens. And as someone who can be nearly impossible to tear away from Adobe Premiere, I’ll assure you my lockdown experience played out pretty much as depicted in #WorkFromHome (minus the axe…?), which was the website’s first video installment.
💍 All in all, COVID’s first wave could’ve dealt me far worse hands than a VU JA DE honeymoon. This 6-month bout of lockdown restlessness gave me a reason to make visuals like Monkey Business & How To Beat The Algorithm, and reads like You Have A Right to Refrain from Silence (which dealt a hit of validation when it was printed in Current Resident’s publication, The Jungle). Lastly, the project that sent me down the remix rabbit hole—DREAM—was selected in a few small film festivals.
⏭️ But then came a new phase. My day job got busier, I picked up some freelance work, and gradually my honeymoon came to a close. The newsletter remained dormant for an ever-so-daunting span of time (of which I was certainly more anxious than you).
⏰ But today at last, that clock is back to zero. I can’t promise it won’t start counting back up again, nor can I promise a consistent content schedule. But I can assure you that VU JA DE isn’t going away. And to prove it, I’ll share the latest creation: a music video inspired by my remix idols, Negativland. Please enjoy Megaphone Guy. 📣
See you next time :)