Wired for Wonder: In conversation with Studio Ocupus
Meet Yash Chandak, co-founder and creative director of Studio Ocupus. At the forefront of new media art and installation, they started out by pushing boundaries in the alternative music festival scene, using it as a playground for experimenting with cutting-edge technology and bold creative concepts. In this feature, we deep dive into their innovative work and the processes that bridge the digital and physical worlds.
Growing up, Yash found himself playing computer games and soon discovered Google Sketchup. It was architecture that initially sparked his interest in the creative fields. However, he ended up studying communication design at Pearl Academy, New Delhi where he became fascinated with new media art- exploring interactive creations beyond the rectangular screen.
Yash’s first interactive art exhibit at Pearl Academy
With the guidance of his mentor, Michael Dotolo, he was introduced to electronics, sensors, and sound, while Golan Levin and Daniel Shiffman were early inspirations. He picked up Processing and revisited math and geometry to complete an interactive installation for his graduation project.
“Before graduating, I attended a VR workshop in Bangalore organized by Avinash Kumar (Quicksand & Antariksha Studio), where I connected with super talented artists and designers,”Yash says.
Soon after , he joined Quicksand Goa as a design researcher while also learning about VJing and assisting Avinash at his live shows.
TouchDesigner platform screenshot from a collaborative installation between Ocupus and Non-Linear
During this time, I discovered TouchDesigner and dedicated my evenings to it, creating and sharing music visuals under the alias Cursorama, fueled by my love for electronic music.
In 2019, Yash moved to Mumbai to work with the Unbox Festival team and began freelancing. During this transition, he also joined his Romanian friends ‘Aural Eye’ on a VJing tour in Eastern Europe, working at psytrance festivals - Ozora( in Hungary) and Waha (in Romania). These experiences were truly awe-inspiring and fueled Yash’s passion in the field.
In 2019, when his collaboration with Spryx on a live AV tour called APEX was set to premiere at the Magnetic Fields Festival, a festival VJ dropped out at the last minute, giving Yash the opportunity to work on the projection mapping stage.
When the event industry halted in the pandemic year, Pablay - the stage tech producer at Magnetic Fields Festival who shared a mutual passion for projection mapping and electronic music visuals- reached out in an attempt to find new avenues of work.
“We were seeing the rising trend of virtual events around the world and jumped on.” Yash says.Learning Unreal Engine quickly and exploring virtual production led to their first commercial project which helped set the foundation for Ocupus in July 2020- despite not meeting in person until the end of the year.
AV collaboration with DJ FIlm, as part of an India Tour.
With a multidisciplinary team from diverse backgrounds including filmmaking, motion graphics, illustration, event production, , architecture and programming, Studio Ocupus links the digital realm with the physical, manifested through the use of video installations, sensor driven interactive art and visual translation of music.
The name Ocupus, combines 'ocular' and 'octopus,' inspired by the octopus's alienness and unique ability to rapidly change form and color. They are an excellence of visual elegance and communication.
Seeing the unsustainability of big cities and wanting a healthier lifestyle, they set up base in Goa- a place they both loved living in.
Studio Ocupus creating and running the visuals for Timelapse, a techno project by Sequel
A lot of our work revolves around blending visual design with code to create art and design systems, often presented through large format screens or projections. Understanding these mediums and their production aspects have been crucial.
The studio employs softwares like Touchdesigner for interactive and live event projects, Resolume for live video mixing, pixera as a media server and recently added MadMapper to their toolkit.
For 3D workflows they use Blender and Unreal Engine, while Adobe AE, PS, and AI remain crucial for traditional workflows.
For interactivity, they use cameras and sensors like Kinect, Leap Motion, and lidars to provide input for computers. These inputs are programmed into TouchDesigner or Unreal to create generative , audio-reactive visuals and more. For these projects, they have been working closely in collaboration with architect turned interactive media artist - Non-Linear (Dennis Peter).
one of the early commercial works in interactive art, for Adidas
Studio Ocupus have been producing some fantastic work with numerous artists. Their collaboration with Dualist Inquiry for the new album "When We Get There" has even made the rounds in Magnetic Fields Festival , Lollapalooza and other festivals
This album is about the passage of time and memories. Talking about the process of creating the visuals, Studio Ocupus says, “We zoned in on photogrammetry and Gaussian Splatting as a visual creation workflow. These processes allowed us to scan the world around and visualize it as point clouds, frozen in time and space, a perfect metaphor for the theme.”
Hundreds of locations around Goa were scanned, and taken into TouchDesigner and Blender for rendering audio reactive visuals. These were then edited together and set up on Resolume to play in sync during the live performance.
Test Scans from initial experiments for the project
Working with musicians, DJs or music festivals to visualize audio and mix them live for the stage backdrop involves taking in the audio input into TouchDesigner where it is analyzed and converted into numbers. This is then connected to visual parameters such as colors, shape, size, count, randomness etc to produce the results on screen.
Ocupus performing live visuals at Maushi Day Festival, Pune
Recordings from live VJing at Maushi Day Festival 2023
Another one of their projects include The Odia Literature Festival 2024- a grand scale projection mapping to celebrate the language and culture of the land. Studio Ocupus designed a narrative-driven show celebrating the Odia Script.
“We started by creating a 3D model of the building and adapted historical manuscripts, carvings, and patterns to its shape. We also worked with Aural Eye to create AI visuals inspired by Folk Arts like Pattachitra.” says Yash.
The project was executed on ground along with MSS world, who led the production for the projection, lights and sound.
The Ocupus team have also worked as technical consultants for installations at Serendipity Arts Festival. With a plethora of art installations across Panjim, the festival required meticulous planning for setup.
Ocupus were brought in to assess artists' needs and streamline production, ensuring that multimedia installations—such as screens, projectors, and sound equipment—were optimally set up for each unique space.
Working on a large scale experiences also adds in the element of collaborating with on-ground tech teams to achieve the desired results. Amandeep, the production head at Ocupus, brings in years of experience with on ground realities of events. For creating these experiences, the team manages numerous variables, including human error, tech issues and sometimes the weather, while adhering to immovable event deadlines.
Projection mapping at Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur
Ocupus finds much joy and excitement in their annual work at Magnetic Fields Festival. Yash says,” This playground allows us to test new techniques and apply our new learnings . This is also one of the most physically challenging work locations since we are up on the roof during the coldest hours of desert winter.”
We are evolving to explore new creative frontiers, with accelerated processes and emerging challenges.
Earlier this year, Ocupus had the chance to create their own AV show when Vivek Dudani from Social featured them on an episode of a new visually-driven event IP.
Inspired by AI’s visionary capabilities, they designed a sci-fi themed party - set in a futuristic lab where biotech experiments merge organic life with technology. They placed themselves at the front alongside the DJs, dressed as a visual band of scientists, and used various instruments like an analog liquid light show, live sketching, real-time Stable Diffusion, generative art, and video mixing.
Scene from their show ‘Deranged Life’ at Antisocial Mumbai
Working with Stable Diffusion over the past year has revealed a new specialization and disrupted some traditional methods at Studio Ocupus. This has also prompted the team to reframe the human role in creativity and the fundamental skills that will remain valuable.
Projection mapping visual created for Social Bellandur, using Stable Diffusion (AI)
Collaborating and working with other creators has been the best way to stay motivated! I’m always looking at work happening around the world, and trying to work with people who are pushing the game.
Their latest work is 'Forces of Nature' a multisensory interactive installation that immerses people into the serenity and fury of the natural world using multichannel video mapping over 14 projectors, ambisonic spatial sound, interactive floor tracking and a scent machine. This installation was hosted at Infocomm India in Mumbai, and was co-produced with their partners MSS World.
Concept render fort he show
As we conclude this feature with Studio Ocupus, we thank them for their time and wish them all the best for this installation and the many more projects to come. Until then, you can stay updated with their work on the channels below:
Studio Ocupus
