SUBCULTURE FESTIVAL 2018

For Music First's Subculture Festival, which showcases electronic artists on Dublin's Music First label, MNVR Creative Director Richard De Souza’s design concept unified elements from each Music First artist into a single immersive visual narrative: “Different sci-fi tropes and pop culture references are a common theme of all Music First artists.” For the festival, De Souza envisioned a massive interactive simulation — a Skynet-like web of code surrounding a hidden AI manipulating reality. At the heart of it all stood the “Core Stage,” a brutalist supercomputer constructed entirely from LED screens.

To meet the tight schedule, De Souza built most of the content in real time with Notch: “Producing eight audio-visual intros and seven hours of show content left no time for traditional rendering. Most 3D work was procedural in Notch, while 2D assets and effects were created in Resolume.”

For the artist intros, De Souza re-topologized, UV-mapped, and rigged a high-poly model in 3ds Max to create a base animation, then exported it to Notch for texturing, secondary animation, and lighting with HDR reflections. Audio stems from Roger Ye of Sensualise drove the visuals, controlling eye movement, glow effects, camera shake, and digital glitches: “Audio-driven animation let me easily swap tracks without re-keyframing everything.”

Throughout programming, Notch also served as a pre-visualization tool. Using NDI output from Resolume projected onto a 3D model of the stage, De Souza could refine designs in real time without complex rendering steps.

The final result — eight dynamic, artist-specific segments — featured lifelike AI animations that captivated audiences and earned De Souza widespread acclaim as a career highlight.