You’ll know live visualism has arrived when visualists regularly “headline” the way music does. But if you’re tired of waiting, look no further than Western Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh’s spectacular Via Festival this week is doing it right.

See what they’re doing for a great example of what’s possible when visualists and musicians meet — and, since the vast majority of you likely can’t make it to Pittsburgh this week, we’ve put together some videos from the VIA folks to give you a cross section of this work.

We’ve covered Abstract Birds/Quayola’s retina-tingling visuals here before, from Montréal’s Elektra Festival. Now, they’re coupled with Four Tet, a meeting of talents that also attracted the attention of New York’s Creator’s Project event also this month.

Previously, on that group:
Impossible Architectures, in Real-Time Music Visualizations by Abstract Birds (vvvv)
Partitura: Spectacular Real-time Visualization of Music, and Thinking in 1D

The whole lineup includes this kind of work, though, at once technologically stunning and creatively inspiring, from some of the best live visual artists around (and a few of them Friends of the Site, to boot). VIA Festival lines it up for CDM:

Anton Marini/Vade integrating the Kinect for Zombi
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/antonmarini.php

Daniel Iglesia’s live 3D visuals for noise stalwarts Wolf Eyes
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/danieliglesia.php

Rui Periera (Splaf 7) takes on FaltyDL
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/splaf7.php

Thunder Horse Video stage design and blinding lights for Trans Am, Brenmar and Light Asylum
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/thv.php

Aurora Halal’s psychedelic/throwback touch for Protect-U and Blondes
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/aurorahalal.php

Bicycle Orchestra from CMU’s CODELab students + workshops exploring hacking/tangible interaction
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/rewire.php
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/codelab.php

Roving sound projects “Bass Rally” and “Heal the World”
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/bassrallyII.php
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/mattbarton.php

Dan Wilcox & Heather Knight robot Q&A

Video artist screenings/re-mix projects in collab with Vimeo & Pittsburgh Filmmakers
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/sl0ppysec0nds.php
http://www.via-pgh.com/artists/phenomena.php

And just on the side, lots of Pgh kids making the VJ moves, trying out all different kinds of stuff for other performances.

There’s great music, as well, from FaltyDL to araabMUZIK.

For now, let’s watch — not quite what you’ll see at VIA, but some favorite videos from some of these artists:

More:
http://vimeo.com/album/1700382

http://www.via-pgh.com/