Live Visual Systems and Custom Controllers
Designing and building live performance systems, hacked hardware, analog video tools, and custom control interfaces for real-time visuals.
This project brings together a long-running body of live visual performance work, custom controller experiments, hacked hardware, analog video systems, and software tools I built or modified to control visuals in real time.
Artist pass from Decibel Festival, one of multiple years performing across multiple nights and venues at the festival in Seattle.
The work often happened in live event settings, sometimes with musicians or artists I had not met before the night of the performance. That meant the systems had to be flexible, readable under pressure, and usable while responding to unfamiliar sound, pacing, and audience energy.
The work sat somewhere between performance, interaction design, media systems, and hardware experimentation. Much of the footage I performed with was material I shot myself, then edited into clips, loops, textures, and fragments for live use. I also pulled ideas and source material from many areas of video, filmmaking, animation, and experimental media, including 2D and 3D animation I created myself, heavily edited footage, camera experiments, analog video processes, and generated imagery.
Live visuals performed behind Carl Craig and Mary Anne Hobbs at Decibel Festival, real-time improvisation synced to the music.
I designed, built, modified, tested, and performed with these systems.
- Creating live visual setups for events and performances
- Designing control systems for triggering, mixing, and manipulating visuals
- Building software patches for real-time video control
- Creating motion graphics and source material for live manipulation
- Repurposing commodity hardware into custom controllers
- Rewiring buttons and adapting existing enclosures for performance use
- Working with vintage video mixers, video enhancers, and analog signal chains
- Modifying or circuit-bending video hardware to create unexpected visual behavior
- Experimenting with analog video feedback, signal instability, and glitch behavior
- Testing touch targets, button layouts, and control mappings in live or performance-like conditions
- Coordinating visual output with sound, movement, projection, and event context
- Performing live visuals with artists, sometimes without prior rehearsal or shared planning
- Creating 2D and 3D animated source material for live performance
- Heavily editing video footage into clips, loops, textures, and fragments for live mixing
Live visual performance has a different kind of usability problem than a normal product interface. The performer is often working in a dark space, with loud sound, limited time, shifting equipment, and changing social context. The interface needs to be understandable without much thought. Controls need to be reachable, memorable, and forgiving. The system needs to support improvisation without becoming chaotic.
In many cases, the challenge was also technical. I was connecting mismatched hardware and software, working across analog and digital video systems, adapting old gear, and finding ways to make unstable signals behave well enough to perform with.
Sometimes the instability was part of the material. Feedback, glitches, degraded signals, timing errors, and analog texture were not only problems to solve. They could become part of the performance.
Custom controllers built for live visual performance, hacked and rewired hardware repurposed as real-time input devices for the performance software.
The systems were shaped by the practical needs of live performance. I needed to trigger clips, switch sources, manipulate imagery, create feedback, route video signals, and respond to sound in real time. That meant designing for speed and feel. A control that worked well in a studio might not work well in a venue. Large buttons, visible feedback, physical spacing, and simple mappings mattered because the system had to be usable while performing.
Much of the footage I performed with was shot by me, then edited into clips, loops, textures, and short visual fragments that could be mixed live. I also created 2D and 3D animated material, heavily edited footage into new source clips, and pulled ideas from many areas of video, filmmaking, motion graphics, analog video, and experimental media. Some material was edited or animated in tools like Final Cut Pro, After Effects, and Apple Motion. Other work was generated or manipulated in real time using Isadora, Max/MSP/Jitter, TouchDesigner, and related media software. The source material and the performance system were connected. I was not only making videos to play back. I was building systems that could layer, trigger, distort, re-time, mix, and reshape those visuals while the performance was happening. One of my main editing and mixing styles was something I called "grunge," after the music style. I would often push footage too bright, too dark, or into a less dominant part of the image so it could sit inside a larger mix. The goal was not always to show a clean clip clearly. It was often to make the footage become texture, atmosphere, rhythm, or light.
One modified children's toy laptop became a custom live visuals controller. I removed the original electronics, added a PSOne LCD, and rewired the buttons to function as a USB keyboard. The result was a 40-button clip launcher for live visuals. That project involved reverse-engineering button connections, rewiring controls, integrating a display, and adapting the enclosure into something that could work as a real input device.
I also explored ways to move visual control away from standard desktop setups. The Nintendo DS control concept (DSLemur) looked at how a handheld gaming device could become a wireless touch controller for visuals. I designed slider, knob, sequencer, and screen-based layouts around the DS hardware constraints. Monome-related work explored button-grid construction, soldering, illuminated buttons, and physical interface layout. These experiments were part of a larger interest in how different control surfaces change the way a performer thinks and acts.
Some projects used vintage video mixers, video enhancers, circuit-bent devices, self-modified video gear, feedback loops, and digital media software as part of the performance system. I experimented with how signals could be routed, layered, distorted, stabilized, or intentionally pushed into instability. In some cases, the artifacts became the point: feedback, glitches, degraded signals, timing errors, and analog texture became part of the visual language.
Many performances involved live collaboration with artists I had not met before the event. That required a different kind of design thinking. The system had to let me respond quickly to structure, mood, tempo, volume, and audience energy. I could not rely on a fixed timeline or perfect rehearsal. I needed a setup that supported listening, reacting, layering, and making decisions in the moment. That shaped how I thought about control mappings, fallbacks, presets, visual categories, and the balance between planned material and improvisation.
The interfaces had to work in dark, loud, time-sensitive environments. Controls needed to be simple, physical, and quick to understand.
The shape, spacing, buttons, screens, and physical feel of the hardware affected how the visuals could be performed.
Because many events involved artists I had not met before, the visual systems needed to support improvisation instead of only fixed sequences.
Glitch, feedback, signal loss, timing errors, and analog artifacts became part of the visual vocabulary, not just technical problems.
Live performance was part of the testing process. Each event revealed which controls were useful, which mappings were too fragile, and which parts of the system needed to be simplified.
Heavy stylization applied to live video capture input, processed through analog signal chain and real-time effects.
This body of work produced a series of live visual systems, hacked controllers, software patches, hardware experiments, and performance setups.
The work included modified input devices, analog and digital video systems, custom live visual tools, Nintendo DS controller concepts, Monome-related button-grid experiments, glitch and feedback workflows, and event-based performance systems.
More importantly, it gave me a long-running practice in designing interaction systems that had to work in real time. These were not polished product interfaces, but they were still deeply concerned with usability, feedback, constraints, and human behavior.
The work also created a large personal library of footage, animations, textures, camera experiments, and processed video material that could be reused, remixed, and transformed across performances.
This work shaped how I think about interaction design. It taught me that an interface is not only what appears on a screen. It can be a hacked toy laptop, a button grid, a stylus controller, a video mixer, a physical switch, a projection surface, or a set of rules that help someone respond to a live situation.
It also taught me to design for real context. A system that seems clear in a quiet room can fail in a venue. Labels may not be readable. Small controls may be useless. Too many options can slow down performance. The best setup is often the one that gives you enough control without demanding too much attention.
The work also reinforced the value of prototyping through use. Live systems improve when they are used live. Performance reveals friction quickly.
Home setup for video experimentation: vintage video mixers, analog signal chain, custom controllers, and real-time visual output.