Tangled is an audiovisual piece I made for the Expo Pavilion arts program in Sunderland, UK, along with its companion piece, Dust. It was shown from February 2025 through March 2026 on the pavilion’s 20×5 meter semi-transparent LED screen, as part of a program curated by Debra Stewardson.
I created the music and visuals together, so the two are deeply intertwined. Different layers of the music are isolated and analyzed to drive the motion of different visual elements. As a result, everything on screen moves with a sound, in an abstract dance of color and form.
The piece opens with a roiling mesh curling to the music, built from the same kind of waves often used for oceans in video games. From there it zooms into the center of a sphere of ribbons, which undulate in jagged patterns. Later, swirling blue and green trails come from a flocking simulation inspired by Craig Reynolds’ Boids. Together in one 3D space, these elements feel like a whimsical, mysterious machine that keeps shifting with the music. Like Dust, Tangled was programmed in TouchDesigner and rendered in real time in a single take.