Patrick CusackProduct DesignerDublin, Ireland

Slow Trance

03 / 12

Context
Creative collective
Team
To be confirmed
Expertise
Audiovisual Performance, Generative Visuals, Creative Collaboration
Year
2025
Slow Trance project

Overview

Slow Trance brought musicians and designers together to create a live audiovisual performance. Working as a collective, we combined music, moving image, and a shared visual identity to create an immersive experience for an audience in the room and online.

I joined to explore generative music visuals: images and motion that respond to sound and deepen the atmosphere of a performance. It became an opportunity to experiment with AI tools, learn a new creative process, and work towards a shared challenge—bringing it all together live on YouTube.

A shared creative space

The appeal of Slow Trance was the chance to make something together. Musicians and designers brought complementary skills and a willingness to experiment. Music, visuals, and branding developed alongside one another, giving us a shared world to build the performance around.

Pale, textured peaks emerging through mist in a Slow Trance visual study

Finding a visual language

I used Midjourney and Runway to explore generated images and video, while learning how to make moving visuals respond to music. The creative question was how those elements could work together: how an image could shift with sound, build atmosphere, and give the audience another way into the music.

A dark mountain peak surrounded by grey mist in a Slow Trance visual studyRippling black-and-white terrain in a Slow Trance visual study

Bringing the pieces together

We set ourselves a concrete goal: perform for a live audience and stream the experience on YouTube. Rehearsals gave us time to bring the music and visuals together, alongside work on the project’s branding. There was plenty to figure out behind the scenes, but each step served the same ambition—to make the sound and image feel like one performance.

RehearsalsImage placeholder — working together on music and visuals.
The visual identityImage placeholder — branding and performance artwork.

Live, in the room and online

The project culminated in a performance with a live audience, streamed simultaneously on YouTube. Music and responsive visuals came together in a shared, immersive experience. Getting it all to work live was a technical achievement, and the reward was seeing our separate contributions become something we could experience together.

Watch on YouTube

Learning through making

Slow Trance gave me a way to explore generative visuals through a real performance. I gained experience with AI image and video tools, a better understanding of how moving images can respond to sound, and the experience of taking a collective idea through to a live event. The most rewarding part was working with people whose skills complemented my own, and discovering what we could make together.