Record cover for Jean Robert Saintil‘s Release “Kitten On A Hot Tin Roof” on MePlus1

A typology of rap videos and an attempt to construct the most generic Rap and R&B video out of many. Musical genres are always heavily codified and rap seems to be one of the most extreme ones, each video has similar if not identical subjects, the same light, the same cars, the same girls, the same dance moves etc. I am fascinated by their highly aesthetic visual displays of objects. Through their likeness they seem to be almost ‘classic’, just as classic theater or opera. I am also fascinated by their focus on objects and how they portray them in a very aesthetic and often minimal way, which reminds me of techniques used mainly in art.

Music by Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor – 04 – IV.
Commissioned by Grok Institute for the “En Avant” show.

25 3-D Renderings for 25 books selected for the catalogue of one of the most prestigious awards for Book Design in the world, the “Most Beautiful Swiss Books”. Done in collaboration with Carl Burgess from More Soon.

Laurenz Brunner, the designer of the catalogue, approached me with his idea to present the books for this years edition through 3D renderings. The renderings allude to Vanitas paintings, while playing with classic clichés of computer generated imagery such as checkerboard and green screen backgrounds.

Credits:

Creative Direction: Laurenz Brunner
3D Design and Rendering: Thomas Traum & Carl Burgess (More Soon)

Get Physical Music from Berlin asked me to provide the visual backdrop for their big label night during the Winter Music Conference 2010 in Miami. With only a few days time to work on visuals for over 7 hours I opted for minimal and effective visuals which work well in loops and are easily enriched through sound reactive real time effects. The party was a great success with many naming it their favourite of the conference.

We are really proud to have worked on the cover of release 001 on the NMBRS label, one of my favorite music labels, in collaboration with Remote Location.

I already worked on JJMarshall Associates’ first website and was called up to give it refresh by re-thinking parts of the structure and add more visual punch where needed. I really like the fresh take on the generic lightbox, by hiding the info page and show the images underneath.

http://jjmarshallassociates.com/

Created for the 2010 Red Bull Music Academy in London, 5 Projectors with 10K lumen each, back projected on five huge screens, framing two stages with artists from Warp records and Ninja Tune. All five screens were treated as one huge mega canvas, powered by a custom application written by Minivegas and Field.

Directed by Minivegas, Design by Quayola and Thomas Traum, Development by Minivegas and Field, produced by Nexus Productions and OneDotZero Industuries, 3D Sound System by Illustrious . All bits shown in above video designed by Thomas Traum.

Some more footage here at youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTwn_rUT4Gg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ363yEGQEs&feature=related

Together with Matt Pyke from Universal Everything I worked on one animation for a series of reveal films created by Universal Everything for the relaunch of AOL. Wolf Ollins NYC oversaw the global AOL identity relaunch. Wolf Ollins liked this animation so much they used it on their frontpage, see screenshot below.

Commissioned by Wolff Olins NYC
Creative Direction – Matt Pyke at Universal Everything
Animation – Thomas Eberwein
Sound – Simon Pyke

‘Butter Star Galactica’ is a game I worked on in collaboration with Remote Location & Mike Tucker to promote the new Hudson Mohawke LP ‘Butter’ on Warp Records. Aim of the game is to navigate a small chunk of butter upwards through 3 fantastical worlds (Safari, Warp Tunnel & The Space Butter Hyper Club) in order to get home safely to Mother Butter via a pussy nebula and other oddities. Each level unlocks free downloads from the album, and you can log your name on the Butter leaderboard to get a chance of winning more prizes.

http://hudsonmohawke.com/butterstargalactica/

Universal Everything invited me to work on the live visuals for M.A.N.D.Y, a seminal House / Techno act from Germany, co-founders of the Get Physical label. We wanted to produce something which works in a very sculptural and minimal way, defined by a few simple creative parameters such as everything is aligned and revolves around a spine in the center of the screen. We produced over 30 minutes of 3d and filmed clips for an one hour show.

Since our first show together at Coachella in May 2009 we continued to work together and did more live shows in the United States and Europe. We continue to evolve the visual set by adding more realtime effects and perfect syncing with their live set.

Credits:
Creative Direction – Matt Pyke at Universal Everything
Animation, Code, Live Setup – Thomas Traum