“With Flying Colors” (2021 - present)
by Timothy “Ill Poetic” Gmeiner & Ben Guerrette
About: “With Flying Colors” (WFC) is a collaborative audiovisual performance by Timothy “Ill Poetic” Gmeiner and Ben Guerrette that explores the relationship between light and sound: a circle of fifths transformed into a 16 foot circle of lights. WFC traverses a spectrum of genres through live performance: from hip-hop, downtempo, funk, and soul to beat scene and ambient electronic via a synesthetic palette of colors, piano, voice, and synth. Catalyzed by curiosity, exploration and collaboration, ‘With Flying Colors’ is our attempt to bring synesthesia to life as something the experiencer, both singularly and communally, can reach out and touch.
Logistics: This performance is centered around two laptops synced through Ableton, allowing MIDI and other audio signal data to flow between laptops and trigger a series of 24 RGB LED lights on a 16’ x 16’ wooden circle modeled via Touch Designer and DMX control.
Tools used: rtpMIDI, Ableton Live 11, Touch Designer, Waves Plugin Series, Alesis49 keyboard, Akai APC40-mini, 24 LED Lights, UR22mkII Interface, Sennheiser e835 microphone, TC-Helicon Vocal Synth Pad, Behringer Xynyx 802 mixer, various percussive instruments.
More details below:
Additional performances have taken place in various found spaces, most notably Beat Box Record Shop in San Diego, CA (above), in which the circle was deconstructed and LED lights were positioned throughout the shop. The intention in this performance was to leverage existing artwork (posters, vinyl jackets, etc.) as part of an immersive performance, applying sound + lighting relationships accentuated with fog to present the natural aesthetic of the shop in a new lens.
‘With Flying Colors’ also performed inside of St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego, CA as part of Project [BLANK]’s 2023 “Working Title”, an event that highlights experimental and multimodal installations, performance and happenings of various artistic practices.
Timothy Gmeiner is an interdisciplinary artist and music producer. He is currently enrolled in UCSD’s Computer Music PhD program with a focus on spatialized and interactive audiovisual compositions in virtual spaces. He has toured internationally under the name "Ill Poetic" and garnered public acclaim for his releases from artists and publications such as King Britt, Portishead, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork.
Ben Guerrette is a music producer and installation artist who’s provided visuals at Coachella among other music events. He is currently the Creative Director at Pixite Apps, a creative product development company. The two collaborated on "Tetralume" in 2018, a light and sound performance built around a 13 foot tetrahedron and continue to create and perform under the name "With Flying Colors".
Contact: Timothy Gmeiner: tgmeiner@ucsd.edu | Ben Guerrette: ben.guerrette@gmail.com