Augmenting the music with live visuals: Kevin Freeney of Algorithm

Kevin Freeney’s work in music might be the last thing you think of, but it’s likely the first thing you’ll see at a festival, at a gig or online through a music video or promo.

Freeney is a visual artist and creative director with the Dublin-based company Algorithm. You may be familiar with his and Algorithm’s work if you attended any of the following events or venues recently: Metropolis, Body&Soul, Web Summit, Electric Picnic, District 8, Wah Wah Club or Habitat.

Algorithm works on stage design, visuals and animation, projection mapping, lighting, video production and more. If it can augment music, then there’s a good chance they’re involved.

Freeney works across nearly all of the aforementioned visual practices but got into making live visuals and VJing in 2010 while studying at NCAD. He was offered a licensed copy of the visual program Isadora in exchange for doing visuals at Block T’s launch in Smithfield, an event which was described to him as a “warehouse party”.

So began Freeney’s library of visual clips and techniques, utilised early on at club nights such as Junior Spesh and First Second and developed since.

“In the beginning there was definitely an element of me just having loads of fun playing mad videos to my friends and strangers and weaving abstract narratives to music, and being paid to do that was – and still is – an unbelievable opportunity.”

Mapping in other dimensions

Freeney explored digital video feedback and moved beyond projecting in a 2D space to incorporate projection mapping onto a 3D physical world after working with Dublin visual artists Slipdraft. Those techniques allowed Freeney to break free of the constraints of a boxed screen.

“If we remove the connection of film and video from projectors, we are seeing all sort of textures, digital animations and materials being projected onto any physical geometry. We can now make everything look like anything,” says Freeney. “Projection mapping is like an extended form of augmented reality.”

Clu’s A/V explorations

As one half of the A/V duo CLU, Freeney has developed a visual aesthetic for Sean Cooley’s experimental electronic music that that works with a palette of polychromatic neon colours, abstract textures and effects-driven computer-generated imagery. It’s a complementary collaboration, with equal weight given to both audio and visual aspects of the project. So far, their output has included two EPs, art gallery installations, festival shows, club gigs and music videos.

“I start the creative process with looking at the space or environment that the work will be seen or experienced through,” explains Freeney. “CLU is about self-exploration when it comes to the concepts. I loved making the viewer aware of the fourth wall and seeing how far I could develop that. Sean is always making sonic oddities and exploring new genres and realms of music. We’re a double helix – always trying to catch up with the other.”

A highlight of CLU's output is Mirrors, a music video featuring interpretive dancers on a set dancing to Cooley's electronic bass track. It was Freeney's opportunity to do more video directing.

“What’s interesting to me about music videos as opposed to live visuals is how the videos are perceived years later as a single piece of work. This is different to live visuals because visuals can be about creating a mood as much as it is about telling a narrative.”

From the abstract to Algorithm

Along with with the founding group of Cormac Murray, Daniel Staines, Lewis Byrne, Nick Linder and Olan Clarke, Freeney is a creative director of Algorithm, which was started to do stage design and creative production but soon incorporated all facets of visual and stage production. Last year, Algorithm did visuals for over 180 musicians, DJs and bands at venues, festivals and installations.

“We all have different aesthetics and approaches to visuals so it’s about how we manage and use those to everyone’s advantage. I love working at festivals because of the atmosphere and the feeling that everyone is in it together even 48 hours later – that’s something you don’t get in the Irish club scene.”

Grayscaling up to a wider audience

Up next for Freeney is Grayscale, a collaborative non-profit organisation that aims to bring A/V arts to a wider audience through its events, inspired by similar work at European festivals like Krakow’s Unsound, Manchester’s Future Everything and Turin’s Club to Club.

Building on the equal weight of music and visuals in the CLU project, each discipline is considered equal. Grayscale’s first event takes place in the ornate 18th-century Pillar room at Rotunda Hospital on Saturday featuring CLU, Mr Mitch and Rachel Noble.

As part of pushing the importance of and respect for visual art forwards, Freeney tells me that Algorithm are now utilising the Vive virtual reality headset so the team can draw and sculpt their work in a three-dimensional space, so it’s clearly developing from simple laptop to projector to screen mode.

“I’d like to think that even if I was living in Bali or a desert in Mexico that I’d still be making art, but if it’d be with a 20k lumen Barco Projector or an LED wall is a different story,” says Freeney.

For more on Grayscale, see eventbrite.ie/e/grayscale