CREATORS CONNECT – ANDY COOPER FROM DRAW AND CODE
Hello everyone, KOJ here again. Welcome back to Creators Connect, where we take a dive into the minds of some of our city’s best and boldest creatives working across the music sector.
This month, I caught up with Andy Cooper from ‘Draw & Code’. Andy specialises in creating mind-bending experiences through a wide range of technological platforms. Although it may initially seem like music has very little to do with the world of augmented realities, you’re about to find out why it very much does…
Tell us about Draw and Code – what do you guys do?
We’re all about melting minds… creating beautiful experiences using technology as magic. Immersive and interactive experiences – that may include VR, AR, MR, projections and more. We use games technology and techniques in places you may not expect, to bubble up surprise and delight. Our clients include global brands, artists and events, so we get to play with how games and immersive tech inspire different audiences.
How did you get into this space?
I was already working with projection mapping before we established Draw & Code. Projection mapping is about transforming your environment into an animated world and is exactly the same concept as augmented reality. It was natural to take a look into AR too and we went from there. Now any technology is on the table – we take the latest tech and use it in imaginative ways.
Can you talk specifically about your work blending music and tech?
Draw & Code has worked on a few fascinating projects at the intersection of music and technology. Sony Music has been a regular client, perhaps our most notable work with them was an augmented reality experience for Pink Floyd. We took the band’s iconic album artwork and allowed fans to place it in their environment. We’ve also experimented with immersive in a gig setting as part of Manchester International Festival. During Skepta’s tech-infused shows at the Mayfield Depot, we created a trippy experience for select audience members who were given mixed reality glasses.
Our latest foray into the space is an exciting one we’ve been working on… a platform we’ve developed called Stage. It’s a VR experience that uses Move.ai’s motion capture tech to stream live or record movement on the stage at a concert, then allow fans to experience that same live gig in VR… as part of the same sweat and dialogue with the artist, just digitally. Meta contacted us to develop a mixed reality version of the experience for showcasing their Quest 3 headset. And now it really feels like you’re dropping the experience right into your living room. It’s a buzz to be creating a platform that’s challenging the norms of live touring…
How does music influence your work?
Music is so integral to everything we do as a business, everything that inspires me as an artist and motivates me as a human. I use music as a soundtrack to everything I do. It’s so integral to the world around us. Audio is much more than just the compliment to the visual of an experience. In our field, I’d say the audio aspect is crucial and yet is often overlooked until the end of a creation process. I always try to embed music into a creation process from the beginning and use that as a drive to what is delivered, as much as any visual mood board.
Tech and music sometimes clash; many say the destruction of the heyday of the music industry was due to tech – but how can both disciplines work in harmony with each other?
Being annoyed at tech in music is like getting wound up by Bob Dylan going electric in the 1960s. Music and tech have gone hand-in-hand for over a century. Recorded music was a cultural and communication revolution that changed our perception of ourselves. The music studio has housed so many innovations over the years – Abbey Road now hosts a tech incubator. The record pool was the original influencer marketing. Music video has pioneered the popularisation of short-form video. The iPod paved the way for the iPhone and all the changes that brought. I’m old enough to have gone to lots of gigs pre-phones and there were plenty of disinterested audiences back then too! Putting phones down doesn’t make the music or the venue better.
What artist or project have you seen recently that has bridged music and tech amazingly?
I recently experienced Kagami – a mixed reality performance by Ryuichi Sakamoto that uses Magic Leap mixed reality classes. It combined a virtual performance with a real venue and, crucially, a real audience. It felt like the coming together of a lot of concepts that fascinate me.
At the other end of the spectrum, Jeremy Bell’s ScrubBoard on YouTube is hands-on music technology how I like it. Punky, silly, expressive, ingenious. It’s a contraption for using cassette tapes as a turntablist would use a record to make music. Look it up!
Is there an artist you’d love to work with using your technology and why?
We’re really excited at the moment to work with new artists who are trying to push the boundaries of what can be done with experience, performance and fan engagement. That gives us a chance to push what we can do around what’s traditionally expected. I’d love to bring these short circuit chaos moments to an established artists’ huge audience engagement… to play with how we can flip expectations of fans. Aesop Rock is a great storyteller and would translate really well into visual and interactive mediums. You don’t just hear every word, you see them too.
Which 5 songs would be included in the soundtrack to your career?
1. The Flaming Lips – Okay, I’ll Admit That I Really Don’t Understand
Fledgling weird Andy was blown away by the concept The Flaming Lips played with early in their career called “The Boom Box Experiments” or “The Parking Lot Experiments”, involving cassette tapes being played at the same time for different parts of an instrumental across 50 cars in a car park.
2. The Dead Class – That All You Got
The first band I worked with in Liverpool and have permanently branded me, are the incredible punk band, The Dead Class. They’ve always been a powerhouse and incredibly driven. Always inspired by those guys. They were always up for trying whatever ridiculous ideas we had!
3. Gabriel Prokofiev – Concerto For Turntables – Adagietto – (feat DJ Yoda & Heritage Orchestra)
For one of Draw & Code’s first experiments into immersive tech and live performance, in 2012 we used AR against the performance of Wired Aerial Theatre for our show The Lava Bud. The music that inspired me throughout that process was from the ridiculous talent of Gabriel Prokofiev and his Concerto For Turntables.
4. Doseone & Boom Bip – Square
When John and I first travelled to California back in 2014 to make our stamp on the industry out there, it was a very crazy time… buzzing ideas and trippy connections. We were so green to that world and out of sheer passion and probably a decent dose of naivety, we just got stuck in. I was listening to a lot of the Oakland artist Doseone. It represents us really well. He’s always adapting and developing his music, he’s done amazing soundtracks to a heap of games now too.
5. Clinic – Fantasy Island – The Lamplighter
I’ve had a long relationship with the music of Clinic. They feel ethereal and relevant in any era… was the music of the summer last year, would always wander home and pop them on after work – this album in particular was a tropical island. Grab a glass of something cold, put on sunglasses and listen to this beauty…
Words by KOJ / @bigdaddykoj