Here’s the latest from visualist superstars UnitedVisualArtists. UVA is “producers, directors and designers of performance video, environmental graphics and real-time software and for a variety of media.” They combine “art direction, production design and software engineering.” Oh, and they’re really light sculptors. And installation/media artists. And live performance visualists.

Their most recent performance collaboration is with Chemical Brothers. The visuals, as with all of their work, rely on their custom-built software Dragonfly. Dragonfly is not only able to generate visuals, but can conceive how those visuals fit into three-dimensional space, instead of being constrained to a basic video out / single, two-dimensional frame. It’s flexible enough that it works on their light installations, as well. Here, it pumps out more conventional (though lovely) generative visuals. Click here if you’re lazy, but even better is the higher-quality version on their site.

More on the Chem Bros:

We were commissioned by the ICA as part of their 60th anniversary celebrations to produce a special one-off live collaboration with The Chemical Brothers in Trafalgar Square. The project was supported by Becks, and filmed for later transmission by Channel 4. We augmented the Chemicals’ touring set (designed by Tom Lesh, with visuals by Flat Nose George;) with a constellation of powerful lights around the square, and created a set of generative, realtime graphics for the show finale — the tracks Hold Tight London and crowdpleasers Leave Home and Block Rockin’ Beats.

What’s really impressive about their work is their ability to pursue rigorous minimalism and technical sophistication at the same time, without ever feeling cold or opposed to the sensory experience of the material. It’s something you might miss if you just see one of their light sculptures, but this sense of their aesthetic vision really emerges as you look at the whole body of their designs. And in case you haven’t been following UVA, there’s more. A lot more.

Via Wiley Wiggins’ blog, I’ve learned that Doc Baily passed away in April. Doc is perhaps best known for the breathtaking visuals he created to represent the sentient planet in Steven Soderbergh’s film Solaris, which were generated at extremely high resolution–for film, remember–in Spore, the software he wrote. I was very moved by Solaris and inspired by the cinematography and the visuals to push my own nascent work. Watch some video of Doc’s work, especially this clip from Xtacism by Doc Baily and John Buchanan, 2005, and many more. Here are some screenshots of Doc’s work I particularly like, which link on to the galleries on imagesavant.com. Read Doc’s words and those of his colleagues on friends on the Center for Visual Music’s memorial page.

For participatory art in a similar vein, I highly recommend Spot Draves’ Electric Sheep, which is (much more than) a beautiful, abstract screensaver.