At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Squidsoup blends orchestral music, stained-glass light, and AI workflows
- Squidsoup describes their practice as making immersive experiences where sound, light, and spatial design are inseparable.
- They recount the challenge of choreographing an installation alongside a conductor and a period orchestra for 'Echoes of Hill and Horizon.'
- Visual inspiration comes from Gloucester Cathedral stained glass, recreated through overlapping red and blue light clusters tied conceptually to Thomas Tallis’s music.
- They frame technology (LEDs, software, electronics) as a material medium—“paints”—that artists historically dialogue with.
- Claude is used to bypass clunky interfaces and convert complex node-based modeling into higher-level tools that the whole team can use, bridging technical and artistic perspectives.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasImmersive work is fundamentally about space, not just visuals or audio.
Squidsoup emphasizes designing how people feel and relate within a shared environment, aiming for an experience where the technology disappears behind perception and presence.
Live orchestral integration requires choreography comparable to performance itself.
Working with a conductor and orchestra means the installation must be precisely timed and responsive, effectively “following the conductor” as tightly as the musicians do.
Historical and architectural context can guide modern light design choices.
They echo Gloucester Cathedral’s stained glass by intertwining red and blue clusters, aligning the palette with the Tallis piece’s heritage and setting.
Treating software and electronics as ‘materials’ strengthens creative exploration.
By framing LEDs, code, and hardware as “paints,” the team positions experimentation with their constraints and affordances as core artistic practice.
Claude can function as an interface layer that reduces technical friction.
They use Claude to get around cumbersome UI workflows and to make existing software do specific tasks faster, streamlining iteration.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesWe do sound, we do light, and above all, we do space.
— Squidsoup
We've never worked with an orchestra before, let alone, um, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which is a period orchestra. So from our point of view, it was an immense challenge.
— Squidsoup
Within the tradition of arts practice, artists actually have always been in dialogue with the medium, and we see ourselves as being exactly within that tradition.
— Squidsoup
But it also opens up those tools to the rest of the team, and it's acting as a collaborator that sits between us of a very technical point of view and an artistic point of view and finding-
— Squidsoup
Our goal is always to scale up to a point where you're not paying any attention to the technology at all. You're just looking at this wonderful light and sound in space. You are relating to the people in that space with you.
— Squidsoup
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
