A rich combination of sound and live images can transport us into multi-dimensional worlds. Blurring the lines between performance and installation, audiovisual artists create immersive, sensory spaces through an interpretation of music. Over the decades, the form has evolved from slide projectors and strobe lights into real-time animations and AI-powered visuals, with even more cutting-edge displays to come in years ahead. As part of Audio Technica's longstanding commitment to create affordable, high-quality audio, we asked three London-based artists to capture the brand's 'Audio for All' philosophy in a minute-long production. Below, read up on their creative process and approach to digital aesthetics.

Mungo

Tell us about yourself and what you do

I’m Mungo. I'm a mostly digital artist and AV performer.

How did you develop your creative style?

I overthink inspiration so I can freestyle production, essentially. When something inspires me, it usually comes in the form of a feeling. I try to work out exactly what, specifically, has given me that feeling; gradually sanding it down so it’s just that. For example, I see a car I like, what do I like about it? Is it the vents in the hood? Is it how the shape of the rims catch the light? I’ll remove elements that don’t give me that feeling until I’m left with what does. Eventually, I end up with a load of abstract elements that give me that same feeling. I just do this so I feel like I understand my mind better and as a means of conjuring the confidence to completely vibe what I’m creating when I actually do it. I think we make stuff that’s far more sincere and is able to convey something much more real when we’re not consciously thinking about it.

What are your inspirations?

Visually, Sanna Kannisto’s plant and bug studies, and Andreas Nicolas Fischer’s cover art for EGYPTRIXX. They feel like some good examples. I came across these in college, which is a pretty formative time generally, but their work feels pretty influential and relevant to mine today. They made me ask myself questions, the answers of which I seem to apply in most projects now. I was really obsessed with how they incorporated the apparatus used to present the shot in the actual composition of the shot itself. It forced me to reconsider that apparatus, equipment, etc, as something worth more than just it’s practical use. It was now something that had an aesthetic value. I liked the contrast they provided for one thing, whether it was the KS3 chemistry stands Kannisto used to display her subjects, or the CG studio lights used to illuminate the floating abstract mass in Ficha’s cover art, they seemed to provide a valuable contrast that complimented the subject in a really unique way. I’m also very interested generally in how things look when they don’t have to look nice: building sites, scaffolding, exposed wires.

Mungo's response to Audio For All

My favourite place to walk around and just look at things is Tottenham Hale station. I think because things like scaffolding and temporary construction stuff is made so it can be assembled and reassembled very quickly and easily, so it’s very easy to work out how everything connects to each other. I like to follow the wires and see where they're coming from, or see how the bits of scaffolding connect. Musically, I feel like club music is always a great place to find creativity and inspiration. I think part of that is the fact that club music has practical and constant rules that the music has to answer to. In that sense, there are still hoops it has to jump through and when you know that, it's really interesting when someone finds a new, different way to jump through those hoops. I also think it works as a way of keeping it from being too pretentious. 'Pretentious’ here is just a lazy way of me saying it can work as a safeguard from things being different purely for the sake of being so, it forces a minimal level of cohesion. MIND CLUB and quest?onmarq’s music feel like good examples of this. They all jump through these same hoops but in a completely idiosyncratic and original way.

When did you start merging art and sound?

I've always been into drawing but not music. I actually remember hating all music until I was about ten. Eventually though, I started DJ’ing when I was about 13. Everyone's got a mate with a mixtape coming out, a night they’re putting on, etc, so merging art and sound came about really organically. I just did work for my mates. I loved those jobs the most because I genuinely felt I knew these ‘clients’ well enough to actually visualise the things they wanted to see in these artworks. When you’re both on the same page like that, it becomes way more fun. No art exists in a vacuum. Things have context which give significance and I've always understood that but I was never that academic. At school, every now and again, when I could actually be bothered, I’d try to shoehorn some academic context into my work. Something to try and attach a few marks worth of meaning, or ‘deepness’ but I always felt dirty doing it. I didn’t really understand what I was on about, every bit of research was an afterthought to try and force what I made through the hoops. But that all changed when I started visualising music. Suddenly, there was a context, there was a meaning to me. There was a person who had put loads of love and time into something sincerely and THAT was what I had to communicate. It suddenly made perfect sense. Friends and music are two things that will always be a constant in my life.

What music genre or style best reflects your work?

I love this question, and I hate my answer. Honestly, my Souncloud likes. If I say anything else, it will be wrong by the time you read this. Just go on my Soundcloud and see what I listen to.

Tell us about the spaces you have performed or exhibited.

The Tate Modern looks very sick on my website and playing larger venues is usually an amazing, singular experience. Generally though, I tend to prefer smaller, more intimate venues. Partly because I feel weird If I haven't been able to meet everyone working there before the show, and also because I like to familiarise myself with the space as much as possible.

How is the live environment enhanced by your work?

This feels like a really daft thing to say as an AV artist but a lot of times it’s not. Visuals can very often be an unwelcome distraction from the music. All the things that tend to lock our minds into visuals will take us into our heads and out of our bodies. I think if you’re performing an AV show, you should treat it very differently from a DJ set. The audience should go in expecting that. I say that because there seems to be a harmful ethos that ‘DJ set > DJ set + visuals’ when they are two elementally different experiences.

How does the combination of Art+Sound open up opportunities to use different spaces or venues and attract new audiences?

It’s nice to see how far online events have come since the first few lockdowns started. Bquestia Soundsystem is a great example, they’re based in Peru but I played one of their parties last month from my bedroom. I would avoid comparing digital raves to IRL ones because they are fundamentally so different, but there’s still a genuine sense of community at these online parties. Even as things open up again, it feels like we are just stretching the surface of the potential right now and I’m so excited to see where that technology goes in the near future.

L’Aubaine

Tell us about yourself and what you do

My name is Laurie Bender aka L’Aubaine. I’m from Geneva, Switzerland, I’ve been living in London since 2010. Before that, I was in Barcelona where I started doing live visuals in 2005. While studying a master degree in Digital Arts, I got interested in real-time performances and exploring different forms of narratives. I grew up in a multicultural environment and family (Swiss dad, Afro-American mum) shaping the way I see things and interact with the world. Spent my twenties in the vibrant squat and underground scene in Geneva (90’s - 2000s). Loving going out to concerts, raves, parties, etc, and listening to good music. I’m still very connected to the underground culture. It’s in that environment that I first experienced doing projection with painted slides, and later, I started seeing visuals in underground clubs. In 2005, I was one of the photographers at the Mapping Festival and in exchange, I received a VJ software license and that’s what got me started. I’m a live visual artist, AV artist. I do VJing, mixing in real-time, content that I’ve previously created. It’s an art form totally connected with sound. It’s predominantly a nightlife activity but not only. I have a day job working as freelance digital and motion designer. Trying to balance out time for my art and the feeding job.

How did you develop your creative style?

My creative style developed over the years, it’s a constant evolution, building on top of what I did. Since a young age, art has been strongly part of my life, with drawing, painting and photography, until I have left Geneva and switch to moving images and digital arts. I also do screen printing and cyanotypes (a cameraless photographic technique) to get away from my computer screen. I found it important to express myself through different mediums and techniques and all these techniques influence each other too. You can find some screen printed video frame on paper and some screen printed texture in my visuals. Exploring, experimenting and learning. I keep on learning new things, software, techniques, etc. For each project, I explore new areas, experiment and create new combinations of elements. It’s an art form totally connected to technology and moving fast. You have to keep updating your knowledge, which is very stimulating for me. In my visuals, I like mixing all type of techniques together, analogue and digital. 3D animations, 2D animations, hand-drawn animations, analogue video synths, paintings, videos, pattern design, graphics, etc. My work is organic, graphical and colourful. Each frame is a finish composition, like a painting or a photograph.

L’Aubaine's response to Audio For All

What are your inspirations?

I’m influence by many things, consciously and unconsciously. I enjoy visiting museums and art exhibitions. I like 19th - 20th century art, painting, photography, graphic design, pattern design, street art, indigenous and traditional arts, new media art. I also love animations and illustrations. I check the work of artists and designers, not only from my field. Staying curious and keeping my eyes and mind open is vital. Doing different types of activities, also helps to feed my creativity, like reading, walking, travelling, cooking, going out. Nature and fresh air are also inspiring. I take many photos and videos for reference, inspiration, and use some of the footage in my visuals.

When and why did you start merging art and sound?

I started working with visuals and sound when I was studying digital arts and at that time, I was doing the soundtrack for my own videos. After that, I’ve been mainly collaborating with producers/musicians/DJs for the audio and concentrating on the visual side and how to connect both mediums. Merging art and sound creates a new dimension and I found myself comfortable navigating in that specific area. It also joins my visual skills and I my love for music. Collaborating with audio artists, opens to new ideas, other ways of creating, different sensibility. It’s two worlds brought together. I’ve approached some producers to collaborate for a specific project, thinking their sound will fit nicely. For this video, I’ve asked Diarmo to produce a track. We’ve been collaborating for years, and we know each other's style and taste. Other times, it’s a producer or record label asking me to create a music video or do live visuals for an event.

How do both mediums influence each other?

Visual and sound are the perfect pair. They enhance and complete each other. Together, they create a sensorial experience, a new dimension. Often, the image follows the sound. Sometimes, it’s the other way around. The visual put an image to the sound, and the audio reactivity is magical, when the visual reacts to the sound. It’s also a dialogue between two art forms. Like a couple, you have to leave space to each other so they don’t fight!

What music genre or style best reflects your work?

I prefer electronic music in its wide spectrum. A 4/4 tempo. Most of my visuals are prepared for that type of tempo. The genre of music depends a lot of the type of event. If it’s a party or club night, I’ll prefer techno but I also like drum and bass, some deep house, electronic music from around the world, dub, etc. I’m open to different styles as long as not it’s too commercial and cheesy. If it’s a sitting event or a narrative piece, I will go for more ambient, electronica, jazz, world music, etc. A crucial aspect for me, more than the genre of music, is to feel connected to the music, to appreciate it, so I can be inspired for the visuals. There’s nothing worse than having to do visuals with terrible music and having to be there for hours.

Tell us about the spaces you have performed or exhibited.

Clubs, warehouse parties, outdoors festivals, audiovisual art and technology events and festivals. Different sized venues, from intimate to a 1000 people, but mainly in underground, grassroots events and venues. I’ve performed in several countries across Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, etc.) and the UK. I’ve also done live projection mapping on buildings, 360 degree projections in domes and multiscreen projections. In 2018, I performed at Royal Albert Hall (not in the main room) with Kate Simko and the London Electronic Orchestra. It is the most overground that I’ve been. Since March 2020, with the pandemic, events moved online. I’ve been performing for streamings, in-real time, and preparing visuals with pre-recorded DJ sets.

How is the live environment enhanced by your work?

The visuals add a layer to the sensorial experience combined with the music and the audience. VJing is also an art of improvising. Especially with DJ sets, you don’t know what is going to be played. You have to be quick, feel the music and make the visuals connect with the sound. It’s creative, fun and with some adrenaline rush. The live environment is very stimulating. The energy from the music, the crowd, the space, the atmosphere is something you can only experience in a live context. When you feel that synergy, it is totally magical. I appreciate the intangible aspect of the live experience. You can’t collect it.

How does the combination of Art+Sound open up opportunities to use different spaces or venues and attract new audiences?

There’s still a lot to explore. Art+Sound could be experience in many ways, in various venues and reaching all type of audience. It’s not exclusively for nightlife and electronic music. Visuals can be associated to any type of music and sound. It’s being used in opera, classical music, jazz, etc. And also in plays, contemporary dance, ballet, in fact any type of performing arts. It could be also used in exhibitions, in galleries and museums, as an art piece or an interactive installation. Nowadays, we can see more of that type of installations in public space, commercial spaces, transport hubs. Architectural projection mapping did a lot to reach a more diverse audience and introducing audio-visual art at a wide scale. It's a show in the public realm, reaching a wide array of people from all age groups. Any spaces could be used, as long as you can set up projectors and have some surfaces to project on. It’s what you offer that is the key aspect and who you want to reach. The quality of the content is crucial, not only the technical display.

Joëlle Snaith

Tell us about yourself and what you do

I’m an audiovisual artist working primarily in the field of real-time visuals and live performance where my focus is on exploring the relationship between sound and form. I also work as a product designer doing user experience and interaction design, visual design and prototyping.

How did you develop your creative style?

From the start I worked in black and white. I think this was a reaction or a rebellion to a lot of the visuals I was seeing at the time, which used many different colours without much thought or attention. I found the use of colour in this way distracted from the sound and overpowered it, whereas I wanted to enhance the sound with the visual and try to heighten the experience of listening to music by creating a symbiosis between the two. My process involves a more minimalist approach that uses colour sparingly. Importantly, the audio drives a lot of the animation and the visuals are synchronised to the audio so that details within the frequencies are amplified by the presence of a visual element. Ultimately, it was and still is a process of experimentation and iteration, where I go down a path without knowing exactly where I’ll end up. The destination is often unknown at the start and very much informed by what feels right with the music.

What are your inspirations?

Music is the main source of inspiration for my work and without it my work wouldn’t exist. I never start a project without having some audio first or at least considering the audio that will be used. I’m interested in visually communicating the feelings I have when I listen to music, and exploring the connection between what I’m hearing, feeling and seeing. The different emotions that you feel and the way music reflects in us how others are feeling play a big part in the development part of any piece. Another element is that I give up a lot of control to the machine. When you’re using frequencies to drive animations, you can get some really unexpected results and happy accidents. Typically, I’ll set up some constraints and rules but the final output is a collaboration between the machine, music and myself. I find this part really interesting and inspiring.

When and why did you start merging art and sound?

Growing up, music was very important for me emotionally, I was having a lot of problems at home, and music became a way of escaping that. I fell in love with the collective experience that you have when you’re part of a crowd and you’re all moving and dancing to the same beat. At the same time, I was working in advertising when I started my design career, doing a lot of mind numbing work. Spending my evenings and weekends learning software and making music videos to my favourite tracks became a creative outlet and a way of escaping the monotony of my day job at the time. So, I guess my audiovisual work started as a form of escapism, and as a way to channel some emotional turmoil but also formed the path to combining my love of music and design.

Joëlle's response to Audio For All

How do both mediums influence each other?

Sound waves, vibrations and frequencies directly influence my visual output. On an emotional level, the music I’m listening to has a connection to my state of mind, which affects how I interpret those feelings into something more tangible. And on a technical level, I’m using the frequency data to create movement and synchronising that movement to the audio in a very precise way. I believe visuals can enhance music or its message if done with intention and restraint. I feel that when sound and visual exist together and compliment one another, it can be very powerful and almost hypnotic because it finds you in this space where everything is in balance. One thing is not shouting for attention more than the other. I find when this balance is struck, it can become a form of therapy, transporting me to a different dimension.

What music genre or style best reflects your work?
I’ve always been drawn towards the darker and more melancholy side of music, and I tend to work mainly with electronic music artists across the spectrum of techno, experimental, ambient and bass music as well as the harder styles of drum and bass. I don’t think there’s any one genre or style that best reflects my work, but it does need to resonate on an emotional level. I’m allergic to anything cheesy or too happy, there has to be a certain dark energy that connects with me.

Tell us about the spaces you have performed or exhibited.
It ranges from club spaces like Village Underground for Re-Textured Festival to industrial spaces like Fabra I Coats for Mira Festival in Barcelona to the more intimate venues like The White Hotel in Manchester and Field Manoeuvres, which happens in a field in the English countryside. But FOLD in London is one of my favourite clubs in the world to perform visuals in. The attention to detail, from the lighting to the sound and the emphasis they place on high quality visuals is really unique and creates a full audiovisual sensory experience from the moment you enter the club. FOLD is actually crucial to my personal development as it exists as a creative space as well as a club and they put a lot of emphasis on nurturing the artists and giving you the tools to express yourself in the best way possible. It feels quite dystopian due to its location in an industrial wasteland and to me, it embodies this idea of collective escapism which has been a constant theme in my work. Aside from shows at clubs and music festivals, I also speak regularly at design festivals, specifically OFFF Festival and have performed on stage in front of a seated crowd after doing a talk. I do quite a lot of talks where I like to share insights into my tools and process and often, I’ll do a show either at the festival or at the after party. In terms of exhibitions, I’ve exhibited work at Athens Digital Arts Festival, Sónar Hong Kong and at small galleries or art spaces like the Ugly Duck in London.

How is the live environment enhanced by your work?

Live performance brings an element of spontaneity and improvisation, and provides the space to take the audience on a journey and on a bit of a trip. I love working in live environments where ultimately my goal is to create an atmosphere with sound and visual where it feels like they belong together. The tools and software I use allow me to manipulate the visuals in real time, and that flexibility combined with the rules and constraints I’ve defined beforehand means I can respond to the music in the moment, almost like I’m playing an instrument. Different frequencies determine different outcomes, and having a live audio input means I get different results each time, reinforcing this idea of giving up some control and allowing the audio to determine the visual output to a certain degree.

How does the combination of Art+Sound open up opportunities to use different spaces or venues and attract new audiences?

I think it creates new opportunities to develop immersive art experiences and installations that speak to multiple senses. Sound transcends language, and I believe sound can touch people deeply and can reflect in us how others are feeling. Bringing art and sound together, we can extract emotions and mirror those feelings, which in turn can bring us closer to the collective by communicating feelings that may have otherwise remained buried. What memories, emotions and sensations can we
invoke by combining audio and visual elements? There are so many people who have never experienced an audiovisual show at a club or a festival and to bring that experience to galleries or art spaces could be powerful. I also think it is fascinating how we as individuals experience the same piece of music differently to others, this is something that is interesting to explore as an artist.