In August 2011, I was presented with an incredible opportunity: Possible Productions approached me regarding an upcoming project with Bionic League for Deadmau5’s 2011/2012 tour, Meowingtons Hax. Based in Los Angeles, Possible Productions is an art and design practice that seamlessly blends filmmaking, fine art, and computer science to tell compelling stories.

For this project, Possible was tasked with designing and creating the entire visual experience for Deadmau5’s show. I met with Michael Figge and Alex Afzali from Possible, who shared their vision for the tour’s visuals and expressed their desire for the content to be tightly synchronized with the music.

Here’s where it got interesting: while there was usually a setlist for the show, Deadmau5 often deviated from it and mixed on the fly, which would disrupt the sync of Possible’s pre-rendered visual content. They needed a solution that would allow the visuals to adapt in real-time. And they needed it within a week—five days, to be precise, which is an extraordinarily short timeline for production-level software.

Although the challenge was daunting, I accepted it without hesitation. I’m passionate about electronic music—abstract, experimental, glitch, dance—and it’s a constant source of inspiration for me.

After meeting with Figge and Alex, I brainstormed several creative solutions. It quickly became clear that my role wasn’t to create new visuals from scratch but to design a system that could dynamically modify and augment Possible’s pre-existing content in real-time. I decided to build an application that would generate visual masks for the pre-rendered content, allowing it to feel in sync with the show’s live audio. Additionally, Possible wanted the application to be MIDI-mappable, enabling Deadmau5 to control visual elements live via buttons and faders. My application also had to support pixel mapping to fit perfectly across Deadmau5’s stage setup, which included two stealth LED wedges, an LED back wall, nine small LED-covered cubes, and the main cube, each face of which was a large LED display.

I chose to develop the application using openFrameworks, as it provided the flexibility and performance needed for the task. At that time, I was comfortable with openFrameworks but didn’t have the libraries and addons I now rely on. Over that intense week of design and development, I built the early versions of several of my now core tools, including ofxUI, ofxLayers, ofxMidiMapper, ofxBeatDetector, and ofxGenerative.

The resulting application, named Rezanator, featured five visual layers or compositions, each with a distinct aesthetic. Rezanator was designed to run one layer at a time, allowing Possible to switch layers as needed during the show.

  • Black Out: Used to completely mute or hide visuals, ideal for breakdowns before a drop.

  • White Out: A pass-through layer displaying all pre-rendered content. These two layers alone enabled Possible to create live strobe effects using MIDI-mapped controls.

  • Dynamic Mask: Generated simple squares and rectangles that oscillated in size and phase, allowing for various real-time visual effects.

  • Generative Mask: Composed of particles arranged in concentric circles that responded to the mouse’s position, pushing particles in the z-direction and allowing for intricate, real-time visual interactions.

  • Audio Reactive: This was the most complex and rewarding to develop. I wanted to create visuals that would move across the cube’s faces in response to the music, making it appear as though the visuals were being driven by the bass. Using ofxBeatDetector, I built a system that detected kicks and translated the audio data into force vectors that propelled visual elements across the stage’s pixel-mapped surfaces.

Integrating my application into Possible’s setup was the final step. I used ofxSyphon to send the visuals out, allowing for easy mixing and manipulation. I also included a fullscreen mode to support high-quality output capture using devices like Blackmagic or Matrox capture cards.

After five intense days of coding, testing, and iterating, I delivered a solution that surpassed expectations. I developed an entire suite of tools and addons that have since become staples in my creative workflow, such as ofxUI and ofxLayers.

In the end, Possible Productions created an incredible visual experience for Deadmau5’s tour, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. Thank you to Possible, Bionic League, Deadmau5, and VJ Fader for connecting me with this opportunity.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes video from Possible Productions:

Agency: Possible Productions
Designer & Developer: Reza Ali      
Client: Deadmau5
Output: Custom Software (C++, openFrameworks)
Year: 2011