Matt Pyke is something of a renaissance man. As founder and creative director of one of the UK’s most innovative digital art studios, Universal Everything, he is constantly striving to invent new and exciting forms of moving image, exploring both the tension between abstract and figurative forms, as well as the synthesis of image and sound. Recent commissions include the reimagining of the Sydney Opera House as a living mural, and the creation of a multi-sensory infinity room for Microsoft. Charlotte Rivers caught up with him to talk about what motivates his work and what he believes is the future of digital art.
first published in elephant magazine
MARCH 2017
The first thing I discover about Matt Pyke is that he divides his time between the Universal Everything studio in London, and a home studio in the Peak District, a vast and remote national park in the north of England. Given the work he creates this doesn’t immediately add up until he explains that the extremes in contrast of these two environments help enormously to fuel and expand his thinking. While London gives him an abundance of sensory stimulation, inspiration through modern architecture and a chance to meet with his collaborators, the Peak District gives him a working space free from distractions where he finds humility and inspiration in the vast landscapes that surround him, and that of course have remained unchanged for thousands of years.
Following eight years at Designers Republic Matt founded Universal Everything in 2004 and has since gone on to build a truly world renowned studio. Today, as a ‘digital art and design collective’ they specialise in creating multi-sensory experiences typically by bringing together the mediums of video, sound, light, architecture and interaction. It’s an approach that more often than not sees them combine humanity and technology with the aim of stimulating emotions, sensations and participation within the viewer. At the heart of much of Pyke’s output is the idea of anthropomorphism - bringing inanimate objects to life - which he and his team achieve by breathing life into screen-based digital forms through the creation of abstract faces, life-like movements and carefully crafted choreography. With each project they work on their aim is to combine these attributes in order to create digital forms that viewers can empathise with and connect with emotionally, and in some way make them feel like they are looking at a reflection of themselves.
They have worked with clients spanning the worlds of technology, music, art and culture, and from creating a jaw dropingly enormous billboard for Google in Times Square, to designing an interactive infinity room for Microsoft, to creating graphics for the OFFF Design Festival, to designing and developing Radiohead’s PolyFauna app, they work across many mediums and on all scales.
I know you were creative from a young age, drawing and making, but of course now you work very much in the digital sphere, can you talk about how you moved from one to the other?
I first used drawing as a way to invent things that have never existed before as with drawing you are not confined to the rules of physics, feasibility or scale. Over time new creation tools have emerged which enable more ambitious inventions to be rendered. After pencils came touchscreen tools, then 3D modelling and generative software, all of these are essentially super powerful extensions of the finger tip. Recurring themes are emerging though and the glimpses of beasts running through a forest in the I’ll Be Strong video we created for Public Release Recording in San Francisco very much mirror the optical perception effects of early paintings. Then there is the scratchy figurative line work of a sketchbook recognisable in the digital noise costume of the motion captured dancer we used in the Presence series of films we created for the Science Museum exhibition.
Do you only ever create digitally?
Well, we will always start a project with drawing, to first explore an idea and to present initial thinking. The fluidity of drawing gives a flow that digital visualisation cannot match. As for finished works, yes we have started to explore beyond the screen. How we can create compelling sensations of visual movement through physical mediums like lenticular printing, flexible materials and kinetic patterns, are all part of our research and development process now.
As a studio how do you work together?
Since the studios inception, we have always had a remote structure of working which is spread across individual studios. The contrast of regular gatherings versus solitary focus enables collaboration then concentration. Essentially, everyone stays focused whilst aligned in their thinking. The focus of much of our creative process is on research and development (R&D) first - exploring new technologies, materials and processes which then lead to new forms of audio, visual and physical experiences. As we all come from a design background we thrive off responding to a problem in a specific context, be it the behaviour of visitors in a space, the aesthetics of a brand, or the subject of the museum.
Is R&D central to a lot of your work?
Well, often R&D projects become the basis for our artworks, commissions and exhibitions yes. We always have around five R&D projects happening simultaneously, without a clear idea of their eventual home. For instance at the moment we are exploring a number of R&D projects for Apple TV, something that has the potential to be a beautiful new medium of expression. The quality of the canvas, the passive nature of the screen, there is a lot of potential for endlessly evolving screen works.
Much of your work is based on idea of exploring the tension between abstract and figurative forms and synthesising sound and image, how does that manifest?
It’s based upon the primal phenomenon of perception. How one can spot subtle animal movement in a windy forest, how a face can appear in an object giving it life. Our question is, how far can we abstract a form and it still convey meaning? The barely visible dancers of Presence, the sculptural typography of the OFFF Titles. When you strip visual creation down to the fundamentals of cognitive science, it gives you the opportunity to invent new ways of stimulating and surprising your eyes. In our work, the purpose of sound is equal to vision, they drive each other to form a sensory world. Often the sound informs the visual, stimulating movement. This holistic approach has expanded into more senses, like space and touch, from the physical installations we created for The Science Museum, to the 3D printed generative characters we created for Voxel Posse.
Even though you work primarily in digital art you still refer to your craft as ‘painting’ and ‘sculpting’,
can you elaborate?
The analogy to painting or sculpting refers to the fact that our process is malleable. We often don’t have any idea of the a final product we are aiming for. It begins with shaping and manipulating the materials - be it custom 3D software, motion capture technology or a new type of camera lens - and then waiting for that eureka moment to arrive.
This approach then obviously filters down into the development of the characters you create within your work as I know you are interested in bringing life and empathy into digital art, rather than keeping it cold and abstract… Yes, we are interested in the idea of anthropomorphism, bringing inanimate objects to life. We aim to breathe life into screen-based digital forms through choreography, abstract faces, organic growth and life-like movement. These combine to create a sense of empathy, an emotional connection to the viewer, something they can relate to, a reflection of themselves somehow.
I read an interview with you recently where you talk abut taking an idea and expressing it in a way that has never been seen before, and I wondered, are you always striving to be new, innovative and different?
And how do you go about achieving that?
It’s near impossible in todays world, practically everything has been done before, but we are still motivated by the pursuit of the new, hoping to discover something surprising, beautiful and smart which stimulates our pioneering nature. Once a discovery surprises us, we expect it will have a similar effect on the audience. This is not merely about the novelty of new-ness, its about adding something to the world, pushing culture forwards. An intrinsic trait of humanity is to explore new frontiers.
Of course one of the most revolutionary new technologies to emerge in recent years is 3D Printing.
Have you embraced its use?
We try to push the process of new technologies in unexpected directions and away from the industries intention. The possibility of 3D printing became a way to generate unique forms of life, every one an individual, and we used it in our work for Voxel Posse where we created a fleet of miniature vector robots. The robots looked like crystalline rocks that had sprouted legs and were yet another exploration into harnessing the most basic elements of the human form to infuse inanimate objects with the essence of life. Working with new materials and emerging technologies gives us the opportunity to explore new frontiers, free from established cliches, historical legacies and conservative expectations. This mix of freedom and uncertainty has a thrill to it.
And what other new or emerging technologies are currently within your sights?
Live streaming 360º cameras for VR, apps to turn your smart TV into a digital art display, kinetic surfaces for architecture, haptic screens enabling textured interfaces, building-wide digital assistants, there really is something new every day. However, the key is not to be seduced by the novelty. There has to be a purpose in its use.
We loved the visuals you created for the Sydney Opera House, as part of Vivid last year.
What was it like to work on a canvas of that shape and scale?
This was the first projection mapping project we accepted based upon the significance and the structural challenges of Sydney Opera House. We proposed the theme of a Living Mural and used the architecture of the building as a canvas to inform a series of hand drawn responses to the curves. We wanted the work to be a collective creation so we invited 22 animation artists from around the world to create work for the project using our guidelines. These guidelines gave each artist simple parameters to invent within - a black background, only two colours, and a key word e.g. rise, fall, power, softness and so on. This enabled a diverse display of expression combined into a coherent performance.
Given projects like the Sydney Opera House, how do you view digital art within the
context of the the wider art world?
The democratic, scalable nature of the digital medium means it cannot be scarce, and scarcity and desire is what drives the traditional, physical art world. This democratisation is what makes it thrilling. Anyone can engage with an artwork via online video or app, and anyone can become a creator, via a tool like the Together app, and anyone can become an owner of a unique artwork, like Lovebytes or the V&A generative postcards.
And what do you believe is the future of digital art?
I think it will be about screen based works which are self re-generating. Works that are continually evolving and acutely personalised. This constant change means the viewer remains engaged with the work every time they pass by. Traditional, static artworks have the potential to become invisible as the viewer becomes accustomed to them. With the emergence of flexible and freeform screen technology it means that any surface can become a screen, in turn meaning that any surface can become a canvas.
Where do you think the internet as a creative platform sits within this?
Creation is no longer in the hands of artists and designers, everyone is a creator now - through Instagram, digital music, Youtube. The key is in curation, a type of quality control which allows you to overcome choice paralysis and allow serendipitous discoveries to happen.
Thank you for your time Matt…
I’d like to finish by asking you this, in short how would you describe the work you create?
The answer this this is that it is an ongoing debate in the studio. We are stretched across many disciplines, and industries, but our practice distills down to this, ‘Inventing new forms of moving image for the screens of the future’.