Video Projection marked a significant creative shift in my practice. I had long been fascinated by how media shapes audience psychology, but in the 1990s, the rise of accessible digital post-production tools opened up an entirely new terrain. For the first time, it became possible to manipulate the textures of sound and image with an immediacy that had previously required specialised studio facilities. The club and rave scene became an extraordinary immersive laboratory—an environment where sound, light, bodies and architecture fused into a continuous sensory field, and where experimental visual work could profoundly influence perception.
Working in these spaces meant pushing early desktop systems to their absolute limits. It had only just become possible to install video cards capable of recording and playing back broadcast-resolution footage (SD 768×576) in a home studio, yet I stretched this technology far beyond its intended boundaries. My process often involved nesting numerous image layers, embedding subtle cues within dense rhythmic patterns. Even generating a preview could take hours, making careful previsualisation essential—especially for sequences designed to pulse in synchrony with the music. Video projectors were still rare and unreliable, and some pieces were even transferred, somewhat roughly, onto 16mm film for projection in order to fill a room with moving light.
Despite relying heavily on digital tools, I resisted the harsh, synthetic aesthetic typical of early computer graphics. Coming from a background in film technology, I aimed to preserve a softness and depth of colour in which images could dissolve into one another, creating a more organic and enveloping visual atmosphere. The intention was not merely to accompany the music but to shape the space itself—to extend the sonic environment into a fully integrated, audiovisual field.
My grounding in psychology – particularly subliminal imagery, Gestalt theory and research into brainwave frequencies – played a central role in this work. The activating nature of dance music, when aligned with imagery pulsing at sympathetic frequencies, can generate states of deep entrainment. In a darkened club, surrounded by bodies and sound pressure, these visuals became part of a larger immersive world, capable of inducing entrancing, at times transformative, experiences. Yet maintaining balance was crucial: excessive beats and flashes risked tipping into uncomfortable stroboscopic effects. Refining the threshold between stimulation and overload became a defining part of my practice and foreshadowed techniques that would later appear in VJ software and real-time performance systems.
Collaborations with promoters often offered complete creative freedom, enabling me to treat each event as a site-specific immersive installation. Audience responses varied widely—some simply absorbed the atmosphere, while others described vivid, almost cinematic journeys shaped by the interplay of sound, image and environment. Working outside the constraints of cinema and gallery contexts was profoundly liberating, yet it was in these unconventional spaces that I deepened my understanding of moving-image craft and began laying the groundwork for the immersive work that followed.