Over the years we been lucky to have some amazing pioneers in the field of live visuals join us for artist interviews to share their experiences – now added to that list is Stuart Warren-Hill, who has been working at pushing the boundaries of what is possible and continues to do so with his latest projects. Today we will find out a bit about his infamous history and get a glimpse into where he is taking things next.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Stuart Warren-Hill.
I am an inventor, Music Producer and VJ for over 30 years. I'm founder of Hexstatic and since 2008 founder/owner of Holotronica Ltd. I am the inventor of Hologauze a lightweight highly transparent scrim for creating large scale hologram effects.
2. What tools do you work with? What has this changed over the last 30+ years that you've been working with music and visuals? What has stayed the same?
In the early years working with Coldcut and beginning Hexstatic, I created Natural rhythms trilogy which included the award-winning AV track ‘Timber’. I created these using video samples and editing them in Adobe Premier. It was a very early version of Adobe Premier; and I used it like it was a drum machine with timing markers as a guide.
When we did the Coldcut World Tour 1998 we used Coldcuts own Vjamm software to play clips out. It’s a common myth that VJamm was used to create Timber, but software was still being developed at the same time as I was editing Timber in Premier. Video clips from Timber were added to Vjamm for its first release, which I think must have led to the confusion. Due to the success of Timber I was able to get a recording deal with Coldcuts label Ninjatune. We then created a ‘Rewind‘, a CDROM AV album. At Hexstatic shows we started using Vidvox Prophet (instead of VHS tape). It was a real saviour for me as I didn’t want to buy a PC to use VJamm and wanted to stay Apple Mac based.
So I’ve been using VDMX since its early release and I use it VJing of course, but I also use it for my Holotronica shows where I mix 3D HD videos and sound. Early versions of the Holotronica show were stereoscopic 3D quartz composer compositions through VDMX midi triggered from Ableton live. I use VDMX daily to demonstrate Hologauze in our demo suite/studio in Bristol UK.
3. Tell us all about Holotronica and Hologauze!
In 2005 Hexstatic released Masterview, my first attempt at making a 2D/3D album. Unfortunately I was unable to make a 3D video for every track, but it is a fun experimental album with free anaglyph red blue 3D glasses. I felt that there were some different styles on the album, the two tracks ‘Pulse' and 'That Track' stood out, as they were unique, sculptural 3D reacting to music. This gave me the idea to create a 3D album under a different name ‘Holotronica’ and to give this style a new lease of life as a solo project. After making the music with analogue synths I had collected, I collaborated on quite a few videos with Tom Wall from Blinking Lab and Holotronica was released in 2014 on 3D Bluray, CD/DVD with Anaglyph red blue glasses and Vinyl.
A few years prior to this, in 2009, I won the Musion Academy award for Holographic performance. The prize included a Musion Eyeliner Hologram Peppers ghost system show, so the following year I had a show at BFI Southbank London. Then another show performing Stereoscopic 3D at National Film Theatre London. In 2013 I had a show at Koko London, which is when I hit on the idea of inventing a scrim that would retain polarisation for 3D, as well as being highly transparent. I managed to pull together a test screen, glasses and projectors and the show. It was a great success. As far as I know this effect had not been done before, 3 dimensional visuals reacting to music floating in the air, coming out over the audience in front of you. Imagine it’s like an invisible 3D Imax/cinema screen.
After a year and a half of development and demonstrations word of mouth spread around the industry. Finally, in September 2014 I released Hologauze with two very high-profile shows: Lord of the Dance at the London Palladium and Eric Prydz EPIC3 show at Madison Square Gardens in New York.
Both shows were fantastic, and proved that Hologauze could be used to create the illusion of a hologram person on stage. It also that Hologauze could create 3D images without the use of 3D polarised glasses. So, the screen had a much wider market than I originally thought. Hologauze is mainly used for 2D projection these days, but has the potential to go to whole new dimensions if you wish.
Because Hologauze is the first of its kind, it was picked up and used for some other notable productions, such as Beyonce’s Tidal performance and her amazing performance at the Grammy Awards when she was pregnant. Also Lady Gaga at the Grammy Awards was something special: real time visuals emanated from LED rings on her fingers, like digital smoke forming David Bowie’s head above her. We also have some very exciting projects in the pipeline, but can’t talk about them unfortunately!
4. What suggestions do you have for people who are interested in getting started with working in 3D but not really sure where to get started?
I feel that YouTube is a brilliant resource; I learnt about 3D by scouring the internet and watching YouTube tutorials.
3D is quite a minefield as there are so many different formats. But I feel 3D is still where it’s at, even though the mainstream has decided to let it drift away. I notice new TVs are not 3D ready anymore which is such a shame. A good point is my 3D work ignores the rules laid down in 3D feature films. So if you come and see a Holotronica 3D show you will get a much more immersive 3D experience than you will at the Cinema.
Thanks again too Stuart for this interview! Be sure to visit https://www.holotronica.com/ to learn more about 3D project screens and check out some of the other amazing Hologauze related projects!