Selected Works
Chris Bird’s passion for live music and experiences has allowed him to work on a wide range of exciting and ground breaking projects with some of the worlds leading performance artists and brands. Here are just a few of those highlights from over the years…
1997 - The Prodigy, Fat of the Land. Chris was the first to tour using the very latest (as was then!) LCD video projectors, using them as part of a walk-on moment displaying a pre-recorded intro movie. Chris flew with the band across Europe as part of the core crew.
1999 - The Pet Shop Boys, Nightlife. Chris built a computer based media server, maybe one of the first ever, and developed a system to trigger and sync from the bands midi system. The tour was also the first to use 3D projection mapping techniques on the Zaha Hadid designed stage sculpture.
2001 - Leftfield, Rhythm and Stealth. Before forming a commercial partnership, Chris Bird and Matt Clark first worked on Leftfield’s seminal Rhythm and Stealth tour show design. Matt produced the concept stage design and visual content, with Chris being lead video editor and sequencer.
2003 - Massive Attack, 100th Window. Chris and Matt collaborated to deliver what was to become the first of many projects with Massive Attack. This ground breaking show was the first to use a real-time graphics engine that we custom built for the show. Mimicking a data display board, text and numbers triggered from the bands stage instruments would flood the ‘pixel perfect’LED screen. Chris toured with the band, editing the show content daily whilst also delivering the show in multiple languages.
2004 - Basement Jaxx, Kish Kash. Complimenting Basement Jaxx’s cut and paste album graphics and their musical style which heavily uses samples, UVA produced the show content and also enhanced their in-house real-time software to play video and images, with a range of customised real-time effects. Chris toured with the band and operated the rapidly evolving in-house hardware/software solution which eventually evolved into d3.
2005 - U2, Vertigo. Show Director Willie Williams originally contacted UVA to help create a single moment in the show, where an operator could secretly film people in the audience before incorporating them into the show using a custom real-time effect. However, the complex nature of the LED edged stage required a new approach to video mapping. Mosquito evolved into ‘dragonfly’, incorporating a real-time 3d stage visualiser. The touring crew was so impressed they commissioned us to build the first ‘dragonfly’ media servers which they took on tour around the world on tour.
2006 - United Visual Artists, Volume. After some experimentation with interaction, using 3d depth and motion detection cameras in an infrared flooded scene, UVA created the worlds first interactive volumetric installation. It was initially designed for the centre of the John Madejski garden in the centre of the V&A museum in London, but went on to tour the world, being exhibited in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and more. Music was specially created for us in collaboration with Onepointsix, Massive Attacks own Bristol based recording studio.
2008 - Covent Garden, Constellation. Following the success of ‘Volume’, UVA continued it’s exploration of interactive real-time volumetric displays. Being invited by Covent Garden in London to create the Christmas Lighting for the winter season. UVA designed, installed and managed over 500 custom built 360 degree viewable LED tubes suspended in an offset grid from the roofs of the three massive halls of the London market. An innovative gesture controlled lectern allowed visitors to influence the display in real-time.
2009 - Jay Z, The Blueprint III. UVA were invited by Jay-Z and his management team to create the stage design and visual content for his Blueprint III album tour.to coincide with. Working closely with the artist and his team, an LED backdrop resembling the city skyline of his hime New York was created, along with video content created specially for the unusual display.
2009 - U2, 360. U2’s long term creative director, Willie Williams, together with our industry friends Frederic Opsomer and the team at XL Video commissioned UVA to enhance the ever growing d3 platform in order to deliver the video content including live cameras to the proposed 360 screen. The screen was not a perfect cylinder, and furthermore, expanded vertically on a series of motors. This led UVA to create a series of innovative upgrades to d3 including cylindrical mapping and real-time motor feedback.
2010 - Ralph Lauren, 4D projection mapping. As often happened at UVA, project requirements drove the development of it’s tools and methodology. Ben Fender of Drive Productions approached UVA with a 3d projection mapping project, to be held simultaneously on Ralph Lauren’s HQ in both London and New York. UVA began the development af a set of innovative projection mapping tools within d3, allowing content to be virtually ‘projected’ within the 3d scene, then unwrapped onto a set of ‘feeds’ sent to the HD video projectors. The 4th dimension, was by the way, smell.
2011 - Red Hot Chili Peppers, I’m With You. Having seen Massive Attack’s concert on a recent tour RHCP bass player, Flea, asked their manager to contact UVA for them to apply some different thinking on their forthcoming tour stage design and content delivery. UVA brought together a range of recently developed real-time effects for both pre-recorded and live camera footage and provided an exciting new stage design for the band. Working closely with the band’s long time LD, Scott Holthaus, a new interface between the LD and video system was created using DMX.
2012 - Sprint, Does Your Phone Dream. Working with ad agency Leo Burnett on the mobile initiative for US telecom company, Sprint, UVA was challenged to create a sponsored courtesy-message that asked moviegoers to turn off their phones prior to the start of a movie. We shot the work without any computer-generated graphics and instead used a full-size art installation. Featuring an innovative perspective content mapping technique now considered standard in the industry.
2014 - Parley & G Star feat. Pharrell Williams. Ocean Night revealed the anticipated second RAW for the Oceans collection for the next S/S ’15 season. UVA created the runway lighting and real-time interactive projection on a custom rear-projection screen suspended above the runway. The space was later used for the after-show party at which Pharrell performed.
2014 - James Blake, The Colour in Anything. Collaborating with the artist, UVA composed graphic content programmed in real-time and choreographed alongside complex lighting sequences using audio triggers. The track The Colour in Anything featured a new technique UVA created using a 3D ’tracking pen’ with which Quentin Blake, responsible for the album artwork, sketched out various illustrations in the studio. His gestural movements were then used to create animated content to form part of the stage scenography.
2015 - Samsung, 360 Sound Experiment, London. Commissioned to create a physical installation as an experiment inspired by the qualities of Samsung’s Wireless Audio 360° speaker range, we designed a spatial instrument that enabled us to create architecture from light, drawn from a single sound source in the centre of the room.
The sound experiment featured in 30-second promo as well as a behind-the-scenes short film, which in its first 4 weeks on YouTube received over 1.4 million visits. Real-time sound analysis tools and custom d3 modules were created by Nocte. No CGI was used during the shoot, the visuals were created in real-time as a direct response to the sound.
2015 - Nike Rise, China. Nike teamed up with AKQA to inspire the next wave of basketball players to raise their game, putting them through their paces at the Nike Rise House of Mamba, Shanghai, where UVA created the world’s first interactive LED basketball court.
Thirty players were drafted from a region-wide search to be coached by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Nike Rise House of Mamba challenged and trained the final team using motion-tracking drills and reactive visualisation to create a pinnacle experience, teach the fundamentals of basketball and push the boundaries of sports training.
2016 - Cartier, Magicien, Tokyo. An experiential, spatial installation design for the launch of Cartier 'Magicien', the brand’s 2016 collection. The exhibition took over the Tokyo National Museum.
Light plays a key role in the design concept whilst the challenge lay in creating a contemporary yet subtle concept experience. Three key ‘expressions’ shaped the experience of entering the museum, the exhibition and negotiation rooms.
2022 - Prime Minister Modi, Audi Dome, Munich. Working alongside Ben Fender of Fender Inc Chris provided the initial projection simulation in Mapping Matter, determining effective projector positions, resolutions and brightness levels. He then went on to cover for Ben as Executive Producer for the event, whilst also acting as Stage Manager and Show Caller.
2022 - F1 Opening Ceremony, Jeddah, KSA. Chris was Executive Producer for Bild Studios at the F1 opening ceremony in Jeddah Saudi Arabia. Bild were originally bought on board to projection map over 100m of the race track right in front of the Kings Enclosure and just forward of the starting grid. They bought Chris on-board as EP to bring all the departments together, under the direction of Benchmark, including deliver the content and audio stream for the projections, and liaising with lighting, sound, rigging and pyro teams.
You can contact Chris Bird here