Taking Chances (and Blurring Senses) with @strangelooptv
To see more of Dave’s work, check out @strangelooptv on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.
Dave Wexler, aka Strangeloop (@strangelooptv), merges images of organic geometry and esoteric symbols through technological filters, resulting in hypnotizing live shows. “The future is synesthetic,” Dave says, “it’s the senses getting blurred in different ways. There’s almost a truth that gets revealed when you have a synesthetic experience.”
Dave got his start as the head visual artist for LA beat king Flying Lotus and his label Brainfeeder. Together with artist Timeboy, Dave created the FlyLo’s current tour visuals, a mesmerizing array of layered projections on multiple screens that build with the music not on a computerized sync, but by Dave’s triggers. “It’s really a collaborative, improvisatory experience that produces some really incredible results,” Dave says.
His visuals for The Weeknd’s “The Madness” tour were time-coded to particular songs in the setlist, ensuring everything goes smoothly every night, but it still allowed room for creativity, employing similar multi-layered screens like the FlyLo show. “They took a lot of chances, which I thought was great,” he says. “Both technically and aesthetically, you see this thing, and it’s just really groundbreaking.”
His vision and adaptability brought him work with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Flume, Erykah Badu and more, but nothing compares to the nine months he spent on tour with Skrillex in 2012. “It was an incredible era to do visuals for him because I felt like it was the arrival of his superstardom,” Dave says. “It’s all based around the music and that’s the heart of it, but you’re the most visible part of whatever is occurring. You have 100-foot [30-meter] LED walls and you’re blasting people with content and strobes.”
––Kat Bein for Instagram @music
