Mike is an artist we could feature every month! His work pushes the boundaries of both our imaginations and the digital technology he uses. It was no surprise that after Creative Review saw his potential (not to mention us humble lot at Steal-life featuring him last summer), the British Council would include his name on the elite list of designers and filmmakers chosen to represent Manchester for the Sensurround Manchester tour through Bombay, Caracas, Venezuela and Cape Town.

The British Council invited Mike, Hekone and A Jackson's band Meam from Skam Records to feature.

"The British council were looking for animators in Manchester, they approached me and I showed them what we were doing with Meam and Skam. Then they asked if we would be interested in the tour."

The whole project was more than just a tour though as Mike explains

“They had collated and commissioned a variety of short films based around Manchester which were to sit along side the live events. It was an interesting crossover of styles from various Manchester artists both visual and musical and a chance for me to see seven different countries!”

The interesting thing about touring visuals is the difference between how visuals are seen - either still like during an exhibition or as a recording played linear to an audience, like a film say, with no performance outside the content on screen.

Music on the other hand is synonymous with live performance, you wouldn’t go to hear a recording and even when you do, a DJ will be putting it together skilfully with an element of performance. So how was it for an artist and filmmaker being thrust into the spotlight of a live performance discipline?

“It doesn’t really feel like being in the spotlight, performing imagery you're able to tuck yourself away at the back, it’s like being the drummer in a band.”

But were the artists able to develop the show along the way and visually jam with the musicians?

“It varied at most events. I tried to incorporate footage and elements of the other places we’d been to along the way, combined with animations for existing tracks we were using. The Manchester gig at the end of the project was built up of all places we had visited over the tour. Doing the edit of all the artists featured and the diverse variety of places was great, if a lot of work, Mark Thomas and I put together a 15 min piece of all the work.”

It seems that when great minds think alike, their fifteen minutes of fame is not far away. Even if it is a lot of work!

Mike will be carrying on his work with Skam and Meam and he’ll be getting back into some macro work for the next Bola album whilst trying to acquire a microscope for some huge print works.

But after slipping back into routine one thing is for sure, after the
experience of this tour, Mike and his new found collaborator, Mark Thomas both more than make sense around.

http://www.skam.co.uk
http://www.britishcouncil.com/
http://www.futuresonic.com