Sue Slagle (SUE-C) is a pioneering VJ and new media artist whose work redefines VJing as a form of live, performative cinema. Rather than treating visuals as a background layer in club contexts, she approaches them as a central artistic medium, creating what she describes as real-time cinema. In her performances, images are not simply played back but are constructed live, combining camera feeds, pre-recorded material, and generative processes into evolving visual compositions that unfold alongside sound.
A key aspect of SUE-C’s VJ practice is the idea of the setup as a hybrid visual instrument. Using tools such as Max/MSP and custom-built systems, she integrates live cameras, physical materials, and digital processing into a responsive performance environment. This allows her to “play” visuals with the same immediacy and sensitivity that a musician brings to sound. Her approach is highly improvisational, with visuals reacting in real time to music, performers, and the surrounding atmosphere, resulting in performances that are ephemeral and never exactly repeatable.
What distinguishes her aesthetic is the combination of analog and digital elements. She frequently incorporates handmade materials—such as drawings, photographs, fabrics, and everyday objects which are manipulated live and transformed through digital means.
Watch a 3-minute video about this approach if interested
This creates a visual language that feels organic, tactile, and layered, resisting the polished uniformity often associated with digital VJing. At the same time, her work often carries a narrative or conceptual dimension, moving beyond pure abstraction toward micro-stories, surreal compositions, or performative interactions that align her practice with experimental film and installation art.
An example that captures the physical and performative nature of her work is her “Wet Show” performance, documented on YouTube.
What is a Wet Show?
The history of VJing can be traced back to the expanded cinema and multimedia experiments of the 1960s, where artists began combining film, light, and live performance. Groups like USCO and The Joshua Light Show created immersive environments using projections, liquid light, and analog effects during concerts and happenings. These early “wet shows” referred to performances in which artists manipulated liquids such as oils, dyes, and water on glass plates under projectors to produce constantly shifting, organic visuals. The term “wet” distinguishes these fluid, hands-on techniques from later “dry” digital visuals. Over time, these analog practices evolved alongside video technology in the 1970s–90s, eventually leading to contemporary VJing, where artists perform visuals live using digital tools but often still draw inspiration from the tactile, improvisational nature of early wet shows.
In the above-mentioned wet show by SUE-C, she uses water as a central visual and material element, interacting with liquids, light, and projection in real time. The performance emphasizes the materiality of the image-making process, where distortion, reflection, and fluid movement become part of the live composition. It highlights her interest in blending body, medium, and environment, turning VJing into a multisensory act that exists between performance art and live cinema.
Overall, her VJ projects can be understood as a performative, improvisational, and materially grounded practice, one that transforms VJing from decorative visuals into a dynamic, cinematic art form created in the moment.
Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Since I like to experiment myself, I came up with my own wet show concept in which I want to reuse scans I took of graffiti in Graz. This could be combined with objects (trash) I find in Graz that align with the story that the Graffiti scans tell.
This would lead to further expanding my own style as well, using only visuals of my own databank.
I had an interesting discussion about this with Markus Zimmermann, as he always dreamt of being the kind of animator who is booked for their style, their artistic expression. No fuss, no redo this, redo that or change your color scheme. Clients know who they book and they would receive a “Rasmus project outcome” and that’s what they want (in theory). I believe I can achieve this, as I am observant, curious and playful, which are fundamentals for creating an “original style”.
