Hey there! 👋 I’m monkey, a.k.a. gorillatactics. I mix live video, and I play games on Twitch three nights most weeks. The two have been feeding each other for a long time: the VJ work started around 1998, and the channel in 2013. The moniker has been mine for decades. The gorillatactics half arrived once the Internet filled up with other simian imposters.
I’ve enjoyed streaming because of the community and opportunity to share creative outlets. Of course, I also enjoy gaming, so it’s a natural convergence to be able to share that personal experiences with other people who share the same values. Being able to share those experiences, creativity, and have some fun together brings joy to me and I hope it does for those who decide to follow along. 🤟
Live visuals
What’s a VJ? VJs are to video roughly what a DJ is to records, except that the medium is video instead of audio, still mixed live and beatmatched to the music. I’ve been doing it for over 25 years, starting on analogue equipment with dual VHS decks, Commodore 64 1701 CRT monitor, a cheap wedding video mixer (which I still have), a VGA to RCA scan converter (for PC input), and a heavy PC tower running Cthulhu, DancerDNA, Arkaos, and early Resolume (1.0+). Lugging all of that around to shows certainly built character.
Today, my influences remain gritty analogue, noisy static of 80s television, cerebral documentaries, glitchy anime, music videos, and classic horror, alongside VJ loops and generative content. I also still utilize a working VCR and CRT in the rig, but mostly only to archive and capture found footage.
I run Resolume on a laptop and merge external sources through a Roland V-1HD mixer. Source loops are rendered as seamless cycles rather than clips with a hidden cut, so they can run indefinitely under a live mix. My mixing style, however, blurs the lines between seamless and chaotic.
Read more about the gear, the software, and the broadcast infrastructure.
Gaming + streaming
I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember, starting on an NES in the 80s and ending up on PC, with modern consoles still in the rotation. The types of games I play varies, but I enjoy both solo and multiplayer games, FPS, narrative, RPG, survival + crafting sandboxes, simulation, open-world action, co-op, puzzle, roguelite, and some horror and platformers. I’ve built a backlog of games on gaming platforms such as Steam and Epic, and have a long list that I am working through.
Streaming grew out of that rather than the other way round. I would be playing games anyway, and found that combining my video hobby with gaming meant I can do both fun things at the same time! Not everything I play ends up on stream, and not every stream is a game.
Interests
Games
I don't start many games a second time, so the ones I keep coming back to must have something in common. I love a big world I can be inside for a while, whether that's somewhere open like Fallout or Cyberpunk or a system like Kerbal Space Program or Elite Dangerous, where most of the fun is working out how the thing actually runs. I'll also give hours to a story that earns them, which is what Baldur's Gate 3, The Banner Saga, and most of Bioshock did for me. Outer Wilds and Subnautica stuck for a different reason: your progress is what you've figured out rather than what you're carrying, and you only really get to feel that once. The co-op games are here because of the people, honestly. Those are the ones friends will still load up years later.
Baldur's Gate 3 · The Banner Saga · Fallout · GTA V · Borderlands · Cyberpunk 2077 · Elite Dangerous · Outer Wilds · Portal · Unpacking · PEAK · Megabonk · Dredge · Rainbow Six Siege · PUBG · Far Cry · Subnautica · V Rising · Kerbal Space Program · Bioshock
Music
Most of what I listen to is drum and bass, especially the liquid and deep end of it. When I want something slower I'll drop into downtempo. Underneath that there's a lot of 80s new wave and post punk, a fair bit of 90s alternative, some industrial, and some dub and reggae. When I'm VJing I often beatmatch to dnb, jungle, house, techno, and world bass, but have a pretty broad array of interests.
London Elektricity · Alix Perez · Doc Scott · Photek · Calibre · Spectrasoul · Logistics · Om Unit · Plastician · Bonobo · Thievery Corporation · Massive Attack · The Cure · Depeche Mode · The Smiths · Bob Marley · Steel Pulse · Nirvana · Weezer · Pixies · Sublime · Nine Inch Nails
Chat & elsewhere
Everyone’s welcome, and the people are the real reason I share this channel. The house rules and the chat commands live on the stream page.
Going-live pings land in Discord (opens in a new tab) and Bluesky (opens in a new tab) along with other social feeds. The full set of channels is in the footer of any page.