Live Video Performance for Ambient Church's Mezame Festival

October 6, 2026

Last week, I returned to the Ambient Church extended universe to provide live visuals for a concert at Church of Saint Luke & Saint Matthew in Brooklyn, NY. This was part of a three-day festival called Mezame, which took place across multiple historic NYC venues. The show I performed at was headlined by Charlemagne Palestine, an old-school minimalist musician who played the church organ as a drone instrument, as well as performing on piano. The opening set was by Madeline Stepien, a contemporary experimental electronic musician whose semi-abstract soundscapes I accompanied with stark, monochromatic light-forms.

Brendan Bercik expertly projection-mapped the space, using two projectors stitched together to avoid the shadows cast by the church's huge, elaborate chandeliers. I was placed in the rear balcony with the projectors, so the videos and photos below are from that vantage. The audience, below and in front of me, had the projected imagery towering over them, which I imagine made for a more immersive experience — though harder to capture on camera.

I used a combination of analog and digital video generation and effects, with video oscillators, live-processed footage, and a digital feedback loop tuned for responsive live control. You can see the setup I used in the last photo in the image gallery below.

Many thanks to the folks at Ambient Church for inviting me and organizing this festival (clearly a huge undertaking), to Madeline Stepien for the audiovisual synergy, Brendan for the setup and mapping, and Arrien & friends for keeping me company in the booth and documenting. Also, I didn't have any direct contact with the venue, but I am grateful to the people who run the church for being open to hosting events like this in their fantastic space.

Also, I was pleased to run into my old friend, the poet Sparrow, at the early show.

Here are some short excerpts from Madeline Stepien's set (thanks Arrien for the videos):

And Charlemagne Palestine's organ/piano concert:

And here are some photos of the space, dark and light: