Vidvox: The Light Surgeons are often considered to be one of the pioneers of live visuals, your performances have been huge inspiration for a new generation of visual artists and VJs. How did the Light Surgeons get their start with live visuals? What are your backgrounds? Allen: I founded the Light Surgeons while I was studying design in Portsmouth along with a few friends. I began doing visual back in 92 at a club night called Steps Ahead that my brother started, who now records as Dynamic Syncopation (DSP) on Ninja Tune. That was at the gardening club back in the days of funk, soul and hip-hop. Acid Jazz had just start happening in London and I wanted to create a sort off visual form of hip-hop that drew on my own graffiti and graphic design references. After leaving Portsmouth I teamed up with another guy called Andy Flywheel and founded our own night along with DJ Rob Da Bank called Sunday Best. We did this every Sunday for a year or so and then moved to east London when we started doing Ninja's Stealth nights and many other events in the Blue Note. TLS has been a ongoing create collaboration now for ten years between my self and many other artists. Currently there is a core of four plus other specialists depending on the patient. Surgeons currently in operation are: Jude Greenaway (30) who also records as Scanone and provides lots of audio material as well as editing and animation work. Rob Rainbow (32) lateral skills cover all aspects of TLS but is especially adept conceptually. Alice Ceresole (33) or Mrs Food, the research producer who takes care of business. VV: You've toured internationally with live music acts like DJ Food, Unkle, and Propellerheads. The LS collective also prepares and performs a lot of it's own music accompaniment. The end result is always a tight fusion of music and film that leaves the audience dazzled. What is the creative process of creating a complete A/V performance? How do you prepare for a show? CA: Well our whole process is very organic, It starts with an idea and we all start to sculpt it as a collective collage, through a series of preset sequences in slide, 16mm film and video we all try to communicate a narrative. Once we have a spine we then start to improvise over it with sound, AV clips and happy accidents. Preparation involves wash hands and plenty of cotton bud's. VV: You guys are known for using a wide range of gear at your shows, combining video, 16mm projections, and photography across multiple screens.. whatever best suits your needs. What is your current rig like now and how has it changed over time? How has Prophet and now GRID2 changed the way you've performed? CA: The rig keeps growing, it use to be purely a 16mm and slide set up but now we use every thing. I never do a show with just my laptop but Grid is great as a simple tool for adding a more synced element over other sources. Being able to prepare QuickTime movies and manipulate them live is a fuck of a lot quicker than making 16mm film loops, you just can't wear them round our neck. VV: In addition to live visuals, The Light Surgeons are also well known for their sound and light installations. Most recently was The Living Room exhibition. Care to tell us a little about that? CA: Yeah, it was an idea that I had after doing an experiment using multiple cameras for a installation for designer Ron Arad. We shot all these panoramas of this set and projected them back into this space to create this effect of being there, a sort of DV VR. We'd been doing a lot of documentary film projects and a thought the living room would be an interesting subject matter for a gallery show. I've never really felt I fitted into the whole art space thing so it was also an attempt to make people at home in a gallery. It was really interesting show that looked at how the TV has replaced the fire and peoples obsessions with collections and objects. Part print, part sculpture and part video installation it really was an immersive experience and we hope to exhibit it again next year in a museum in London. VV: Do you find that your experiences working with live visuals affect the way you approach your installations? CA: Yes, our though we haven't really gone as far as I'd like. We haven't really developed the whole Midi thing yet, so it would be interesting to make a more interactive installation. Personally I see my live visual shows as installations, as time based scupltures, just not in the dogma of the art gallery. We are audio visual architects of sound and light after all. VV: Tour live documentary APB [all points between] was a big step forward in the field of live movie making. Do you think this idea of story telling through live A/V performances is gaining more acceptance? CA: I think it is and always has been our nature to tell stories, communicate with each other via what ever surrounds us. We are now surrounded in sound, images, design and architecture. All these can be brought to the forum of AV performances. Fuck acceptance this is the future. VV: Are we still in the infant / experimental stage of this art form? CA: Yes, in some ways we are at the beginning off something totally new but that is just and extension of what's already been. VV: Any insights into the future of story telling through this medium? CA: I'm very excited about publishing DVD's and the internet, two mediums we haven't really explored with TLS's work. Will live stuff its about developing the TLS AV band approach and writing more "songs" if you can call them that. The DVJ's are going to open this AV scene up in a more commercial way but I hope this time round the artists get a better deal than in the days of the "record" industry. VV: Anything planned for the future? CA: I'm thinking making more AV tracks and doing more live shows, digital films and DVD projects. Spending time home chilling and try my hand at writing a script that might develop as a AV theatre production. Render more stuff. Getting some cats. Brew up some tea and start to cook some food. Boot up GRID PRO.