August 2016

Pettah Interchange is a celebration of alternative music, art and culture that has taken place annually since 2012 in abandoned and neglected urban spaces in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The venue this year was the Transworks House (built in 1908), which originally housed the Ceylon Public Works Department and later served as the City Traffic Police headquarters is one of the last remaining buildings of its kind in the area left in a neglected state, though it will soon be renovated to serve as the entrance and lobby of an international hotel.

As Artist-in-residence with Cyber Illusions, I helped design the lighting for much of the Transworks Building, including the bottom floor (the 'Office'), and the projection mapped Dome area. I used a hybrid Ableton Live & TouchDesigner system so I could rhythmically tap out melodic and harmonic musical elements as lighting gestures and loop them. This let me perform lighting in the 'Office' for over 7 hours of sets that included Sri Lankan artists Geve, Asvajit, and Nigel Perera, as well as NYMA from Berlin.