Holly McGowan and Sofya Staune met each other at GSA where they began VJing together as VAJ. Power. I met up with them on their 2nd birthday, just before the launch of their agency, to talk about how they’ve progressed since then, the challenges they face, and how they see the future of clubbing. I started by asking them how it all began.

Holly: ‘We felt a bit let down by art school, so wanted to be creative away from the sterile, academic way they approached creativity there’. Sofya agrees; ‘Fine art could go too far into the void with reference and cross-reference, I just wanted to make something that looks nice and reflects how I feel… The club scene is seen as commercial, but actually, I think its a very creative and political space, whereas a gallery is almost always white, cis, het people where there's not much spontaneity.’

Both Holly and Sofya were always into music, both playing and producing ‘We were both falling in love with grime at the time [VAJ. Power started], and wanted to play music that had this heavy bass’. Holly tells me ‘alot of dj’s felt like they needed to play clubbier tracks but actually, this heavier, aggressive music made me feel powerful.’ In the beginning ‘we had no idea what we were doing, but we had this idea to bring this new sound to the art school’.

The visuals that they create follow the music, matching it thematically. Holly says ‘Left-field bass is a darker genre so we stick to darker visuals.’ Sofya has audio-visual synesthesia so can ‘see music as colour’. She says it's hard to explain because ‘its so natural to me, but it helps me with the VJing… I feel colours and textures and they just pop in my mind’

The images they use often focus around cyborgs and bodies, I ask them if they are influenced by the Cyborg manifesto and "the utopian dream of the hope for a monstrous world without gender", but they are keen to move away from academia. Holly says, ‘We both identify as non-binary; Judith Butler and Donna Haraway and Ursula LeGuin are gods and have influenced a lot of what we do and our imagery and bodily autonomy. But we’re aiming to create a space that is safe and genuine, where something nice could happen.’ Sofya adds that in photos from the nights ‘Everyone in the crowd seems to be having an almost religious experience, just a space to enjoy music and visuals’.

To help create this space they’ve set up an agency to address some of the issues they’ve encountered. Holly tells me that ‘the deeper we got into music, the more problems we saw with the way people were treated’. The agency aims to address these issues, emphasising fairness and filling a gap as ‘there aren’t really any start-up agencies here. A lot of artists are signed to London labels and they don’t know the specifics of the Glasgow scene.’

They also hold workshops on 3D animation and mixing illustrations; a way of sharing skills, helping people out with advice and ‘not being precious’ about your work: the complete opposite to their experience at art school. Having this space where it’s ok to make something bad reignites creativity. Sofya says ‘We usually have 4-5 people who bring their work together’ to be used on a night, making it a really collaborative and open space.

Central to their nights is ensuring safer spaces, and building a community from the ground up is a big part of this. They tell me this can be hard since ‘when we’ve spoken to venues they really don’t want to promote safer spaces because they think it affects their demographic and their business strategy... the broader problem is that safer spaces are not built into the venues, so one night is safer space and another is not. This puts the pressure on the promoters, not the venue staff.’

‘We want people to feel comfortable coming up to us and reporting behaviour that makes them uncomfortable: there will always be problems in clubs, because drunk people! But the start of addressing that problem is people feeling safe enough to come up to you and get them kicked out. The more it’s spoken about and the more it’s carried through and not just used as a marketing tool the better; it should be a given, not a promotional tool!’

With a busy year ahead of them VAJ. Power’s predictions for Glasgow are positive: ‘More interesting nights, more venues opening, less male-centric, white-centric nights, more equal pay and more respect!’ With the work they are already doing, Sofya and Holly will be a big part of this change.