Visitors in silhouette before a wall of white branching light in a concrete gallery
Wood Street GalleriesPittsburgh

A Strangeloop Studios Retrospective

Synaesthetic Systems

The exhibition

Strangeloop Studios builds the visuals that run behind live music.

Each show is a system: a set of instruments for light, played in the room against the music, night after night.

Synaesthetic Systems opens those systems up. Three works fill the second floor of Wood Street Galleries, and every one of them runs live, answering to the people in front of it and to the sound in the room.

Stand before the scrim and you appear on it in particles while a branching structure grows on the wall behind you. At the far wall the shows play inside a field of ink and light that moves with the music; take the controls of one and play it yourself, and the field answers.

The cameras in the room see where people are so the works can answer them. Nothing is recorded, saved or sent anywhere.

You are here
00

Feedback Corridor

Entry passage

Two screens in the entry passage, one camera on the wall across from them. The camera films its own screens, so each screen holds the passage again and again, inverting every time. Walk through and you appear in all of them.

Two 32" monitors, camera, real-time software

Try it

Walk slowly through the passage and keep an eye on the screens. Stop, turn, raise a hand: every copy of you does it too, one step deeper each time.

The system behind it

A camera pointed at a screen that shows the camera is the oldest loop in video. Here the software sits inside that loop, finding the edges in each pass and flipping light to dark, so the corridor keeps folding into itself, edge inside edge.

You are here
01

Mirror Wall

West end

Stand in front of the scrim and you appear on it at life size, drawn in a million particles. On the wall behind, a branching structure grows up from the spot where you stand.

Scrim, two projectors, camera, real-time software

Try it

Stand anywhere in front of the scrim and move. Raise your arms. Step to the side and your figure follows you; step back into the room and you settle in among the crowd. Each person grows a different structure.

The system behind it

A camera on the scrim's top pipe looks out into the room. The software finds each person, works out where they're standing on the floor, and draws their outline on the scrim straight in front of them, the way a mirror would. The structures on the wall root at those same spots, and the music in the room drives the particles.

You are here
02

The Shows

East end

The far wall holds the shows: footage, process and the people who made them. Around them a field of ink and light moves with the music in the room. Step up to the controller in front of a panel and that show's system is under your hands: four knobs, four faders, four buttons.

Two projectors, two MIDI controllers, real-time software, show footage

Try it

Turn a knob, push a fader, press a button on either controller. Watch the wall around the panel: every move you make sends ink up into the field.

The system behind it

Two projectors split the wall at the exit door, one for each half. The software listens to the room and moves the field around the panels with the music; the controllers play the same kind of instrument the studio plays from front of house.

Flying Lotus live visualsFlying Lotus2010 to now
Erykah Badu live visualsErykah Badu2012 to 2023
Kendrick Lamar live visualsKendrick Lamar2013 to 2018
Tokimonsta live visualsTokimonsta2015 to now
Bonobo live visualsBonobo2017 to 2019
The Weeknd live visualsThe Weeknd2018
Polia and Blastema performance visualsPolia & Blastema2022
BLACKPINK live visualsBLACKPINK2023

Program

Fri Nov 20, 2026Opening, during the Downtown Gallery Crawl
Sat Dec 12, afternoonResolume workshop with Strangeloop Studios at Tech25
Sat Dec 12, eveningPanel with Strangeloop Studios
Fri Jan 8, 2027Last day

Strangeloop Studios

Strangeloop Studios is an audio-visual studio in Los Angeles, founded by Ian Simon and David Wexler. Since 2010 the studio has built the visuals that run behind live music for Flying Lotus, Erykah Badu, Kendrick Lamar, Tokimonsta, Bonobo, The Weeknd and BLACKPINK.

Ian Simon

Co-founder and CEO of Strangeloop Studios.

David Wexler

Co-founder of Strangeloop Studios. Animator. Builds real-time, audio-driven motion for live performance and architectural projection. Cinematic lineage in the family of Haskell Wexler.

strangeloop-studios.com

Visit

WhereWood Street Galleries, 601 Wood Street, 2nd floor, Pittsburgh, PA
WhenNovember 20, 2026 to January 8, 2027
Hours and directionsPittsburgh Cultural Trust
Presented withThe Rising Artist Foundation