For CU Boulder’s 40.4 Festival—a spatial audio event named for its 40-speaker, 4-sub sound system—I collaborated with my friend Ryan to design generative visuals for his set. The show took place in a blackbox theatre with a 360° projection setup powered by six projectors.
The projection setup gave us a unique opportunity to create fully immersive environments. This allowed me to shift focus from traditional visuals to spatial elements—exploring density, texture, and atmosphere. Rather than illustrating specific objects, I focused on evoking a feeling through space and motion.
We developed the progression of the performance together, aiming to seamlessly blend the music with our environment. I built a reactive system in TouchDesigner, driven by signals from Ryan’s Ableton session, and output the visuals through Resolume. A third computer running BEAM, also synced to Ableton, controlled the wash lighting.