I then emailed Joe, to get in touch about shadowing them prior to the event and to arrange my involvement the night of the event.
He replied quite fast, which I was happy about as I was eager at this point to organise the experience as soon as possible.
The next day, I called Joe and had a conversation about what work of theirs I was most interested in and discussed when I was free to help. We decided on me starting on 11/04/19 and shadowing them up until 19/04 - the night of their event.
I had a really good time working with existential pleasures, which is comprised of Fionn & Joe who are in charge of the visuals, and then James who responsible for the business side of things, booking acts, promotion and money. Then there is Patrick who is involved with business and also the existential pleasures resident DJ. They were all very welcoming, helpful and friendly and the night was a great success, my main duties on the night were to check people's tickets on the door, and sell them if they didn't already have one, and to assist with Fionn and Joe behind the visual counter if they needed any help, with the general running of the event. The experience before the event was mainly watching how they work, and giving the odd idea and inspiration in relation with the theme and running any errands. Below are some photographs from the night.
The week after the event, I got an email from Fionn, one of the designers to summarise what they are about as a company, how they work and a thanks for my help. This was very kind of them and I have kept in touch and hope to work on future projects with them. I am very keen to learn about the use of cinema 4d and moving image in general.
Existential Pleasures is an immersive club experience created from a keen interest in both art and design and a love of music. Existential pleasures was formed in 2017 by one industrial designer and one graphic designer. They started out purely creating audio reactive visuals for Dj’s which looked to create a strong backdrop when performed live. After performing these visuals for Dj’s such as Antal and Shanti Celeste they now move forward creating their own club nights using themes to enhancing the clubbing experience. A night in the summer of 2018 called “DYSTOPIA” was based on the themes involved in ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Enter the Void’ and transformed a back alley in Liverpool through use of props such as multiple old television sets and multiple projections. Tailoring to unusual themes makes the night inclusive and special, a multifaceted journey through music and visual stimulation.
The process for the events it to first deep dive into a theme. Once chosen research is created in and around this topic to try and put our own spin on it. Mainly we used Cinema 4d to create most visuals, Using objects and colour which we know can be projected during an event. These visuals are then put into a program called VDMX in which we can really transform to fit into the music the dj's will be playing.
We got an email from Becca a month before our event ‘Artificial Environments’ in which was going to be held in Leeds. We thought it would be a great help to get some of her own ideas on the theme as she had a very strong portfolio. After the briefing on the theme and style of the event over a Skype call we arranged for her to get started on collecting some research. The following week she came back with some excellent research that fitted the theme perfectly and was a great head start for us to get working from. We had arranged that she would shadow one of the designers, Joe, for a week and a half before the event to understand the basics of the software used in order to create the audio reactive visuals. Joe told me that Becca had a good compositional eye with great ideas for what would work well and she that was great to have around.
Cheers Becca!
Fionn
