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Tasman Richardson has been working with appropriated footage since the 90s and the “Jawa” style he developed has been adopted and imitated by a significant number of VJs and video artists. He works with potent sounds and images from commercial culture, which he cuts into small fragments and rhythmically reassembles.

Richardson’s remix methods are rigorous and quite specific – designed to evoke a distinct emotional reaction from viewers. Jawa videos follow set standards regarding the number of frames that can be used in different cuts. There's also rules on how clips of particular durations should be combined. The clips are arranged rhythmically, but the visual and musical impact of the work are always operating simultaneously – neither ever takes priority over the other. In a Jawa video, the images you see are always accompanied by their original audio sources. Click here if you'd like to read Richardson's Jawa manifesto, which outlines his remixing influences and principles.

As you watch a Jawa video it becomes impossible to mentally organize all of its rapid stimulus. Powerfully familiar images from mass culture replace each other so quickly that your brain gives up trying to sort them into any kind of narrative logic. The unrelenting rhythms and flashes of audiovisual stimulus create an overwhelming and numbing effect that is very hard to describe. Maybe it’s like watching your house burn down with fireworks going off in the background.

Below are some youtube embeds of Tasman’s work, but if you’d like to see the videos in higher quality, you can visit his website at www.tasmanrichardson.com/video.htm

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