Universal Everything Lifeforms Show

Soundtrack for Show at 180 The Strand


 
 

A major showcase of Universal Everything works showing from 12th October - 18th December 2022 at 180 The Strand in London. I am delighted to have soundtracked every piece in the exhibition. In addition to remixing several existing pieces for the space, I also worked on several new pieces;  Primordial, Maison Automone, Live Forever and Into The Sun.

Commissioned by 180 Studios, Lifeforms is a collection of characterful and generative moving image artworks inhabiting the vast spaces of 180 Studios at 180 The Strand, London. 


Constantly unique, Lifeforms is an amalgam of installations that mirror and shift with time and the public’s interactions. No visitor will see the same show twice.

This exhibition brings together 14 ‘lifeforms’, existing in individual habitats created by Ab Rogers Design. Universal Everything’s biggest UK solo show to date fuses architecture, projection, generative video, sound and interaction to spawn vibrant ever-evolving characters. Looping video experiences create curiously mesmerising parades of future humans, micro-organisms and plants – a subterranean world of hyperreal lifeforms.

Premiering three new works, Primordial, Maison Autonome, and Into the Sun, Lifeforms embraces and subverts the power of emerging technologies, from high-end visual effects and real-time game engines to physics simulations and computer vision. Through stylised body movements, diverse appearances and mass behaviours, digital soulful life emerges.

The artworks draw from the history of visual culture – from the Futurists’ attempt to depict the body in motion to Eadweard Muybridge’s sequential 19th century film experiences. 

The lifeforms in this exhibition are often made with generative software. “It's compelling and surprising because it’s always fresh. It's off doing its own thing and evolves beyond what we create in the studio”. 

What's interesting is how we, the audience, project meaning and personality onto the work. UE design their own computational systems that grow characters, plants or abstract lifeforms – yet personalities emerge by themselves.

Lifeforms Artworks and Room Numbers

  1. Primordial (World Premiere)

  2. Infinity (2022) (UK Premiere)

  3. Walking City

  4. Future You

  5. Machine Learning

  6. Maison Autonome (World Premiere)

  7. Supreme Believers

  8. Superconsumers (UK Premiere)

  9. Transfiguration (2020)

  10. Live Forever (World Premiere)

  11. Into the Sun (World Premiere)

  12. Voxel Posse

  13. Nature Always Wins (UK Premiere)

  14. Communion (2020)

 


Simon Pyke - Music for Lifeforms

Music from the Universal Everything - Lifeforms exhibition, 180 The Strand, London 2022

Listen now


Credits

Artistic Direction and Production by Universal Everything 
Curated by Universal Everything in collaboration with 180 Studios
Commissioned by 180 Studios 
Exhibition Design: Ab Rogers Design
Graphic Design: Universal Everything, Asuka Kawabata and Ab Rogers Design
Lighting Design: Beam Lighting Design Ltd 
Exhibition Installation: Sam Forster Associates Ltd 
Media Installation: London Audio Visual and Fold Sound 
Exhibition Text: Francesca Gavin 
Media Partner: Fact magazine
Communications agency: Bolton and Quinn 

We have calculated the display of artworks will use 7500kWh of electricity, the resulting 2 tonnes of CO2 emissions (2tCO2e) have been carbon offset with solar-aid.org

Universal Everything

Creative Director: Matt Pyke
Executive Producer: Claire Spencer Cook
Design and Animation: Chris Perry, Joe Street, Matt Frodsham
Lead Interactive Designer: Chris Mullany
Sound Designer: Simon Pyke
Creative Developer: Adam Samson
Senior Producer: Amalie Englesson
Studio Manager: Simon Thompson
Studio Technician: Spike Thompson
PR and Marketing: Sam O’Brien, Kat Hall 
Interactive Creative Director: Joel Gethin Lewis
Creative Director: Sam Renwick