1. What does it feel like to be responsible for what hundreds of thousands of event attendees see for hours at a time every year? It’s a great feeling to have and with a lot of good energy, it’s enjoyable. It’s a group experience they’re all contributing to to make something special.

2. This may be too broad but, when a club kid sees what you’re able to do and likes it and wants to do it themselves, what advice would you give them about how to start? The best way to get started is to start experimenting with trial versions of performance software. There are trial versions of most commercial visual programs, with student discounts available as well. Plenty of opportunity to get your hands on the software & experiment with it. Get yourself a good laptop or desktop or whatever you can afford and start rocking. 

3. With all that you’ve done, what are you looking forward to in 2014/2015 that will challenge your team? I’m excited about incorporating architectural design with projection mapping & immersive lighting. I think there’s a lot of really amazing creative explorations to happen integrating these disciplines together.

4. How is the Infected Mushroom Tour going? It was absolutely astonishing New Year’s Eve. We are very happy with the Fungus Among Us Tour and thrilled to be a part of its ongoing performances.The set design and 3D projection mapping for this tour still have room to grow as well.

5. Do you have any pieces of software or specific hardware purchases your team has found consistently useful & worth purchasing if someone reading this was a part of a production company or visual artist? Anything video switching related have been the best purchases. Matrix routers / video input cards /output switches & disk arrays are super important. Anything that allows on the fly video switching. We’ve got about 150 tb of media right now. Secured in our offices on several servers of course. 6. While a lot of people discovered you from ISAM, what had you done that helped you stand out in the industry for the previous years of V-Squared’s existence? We have created many concert visual packages. One of the most notable was working with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Grier Govorko. We’ve also done some great work for 50 Cent & Beyonce, and a whole lot of Korn. We also collaborated heavily with another group of artists currently called Control Freak, previously artfag.

7. Are there any gigs you can’t get yet, but you’d totally do them if you could? Large scale commercial design and architectural mapping are gigs we are continually reaching for. We submitted a proposal in collaboration with Pearl Media to create content for a mapping of a historic iconic landmark. We’re thinking really big and we know we can do it. 8. Do you have anything to say about the direction of projection-mapping, both as an art and as a tech sector, as you see it evolving over the next 5 years? Perhaps about standards that will evolve, limitations that need to be addressed? There’s a lot of hardware & software that’s coming out of this sector doing true 3d projection mapping. D3 Technologies are very cool and innovative. I think that United Visual Artists, partnered with a technology company to create their own media server. It does pretty much every kind of mapping projection, hemispherical, planar mapping. Unwrapping images on all of these surfaces using dome & 3d projection & augmented reality. Companies are creating their own unique tools. Combinations of software programmers, graphic designers & engineers; that’s where the innovation is happening.

We just created our own visual performance app running inside of Touch Desginer, it’s a full media server application. The Anti-VJ collective have created their own tools to do mapping & they’ve done some amazingwork. That’s where it’s going, I got here, looked up at the Empire State Building and it is mapped. Like the bay lights project, where they mapped the whole bridge. LED Mapping is different than projection mapping, but it’s just as intricate and can be just as beautiful.

9. Are there any venues or management teams that really go above and beyond to treat you, your gear & your team well? We love Nathan Lim and Jake Udel of Third Brain Management. They’re just fantastic as is the team at Ultra Music Festival. Both of these teams are very supportive of visual art and have been wonderful clients. 10. Two part question: 1. What are you personally listening to these days that’s exciting you? 2. At V-Squared office parties, what kind of music gets played? At our office party, we had MysterySkull then DJ Destructo, Electro-house with vocals, then progressive/ghetto, whatever Destructo likes. I’ve been listening to Gui Boratto & Paul Kalk Brenner.