Moire Bender

I recently found your site and the Light Show Index, and I think it’s an awesome collection! Thank you for putting it together, it’s very cool that you have had these Light Shows indexed for some time and I am very interested in submitting an entry for my show!

Moire Bender is a multimedia lightshow and video art project run by Anthony Diaz operating in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.

Diaz, as he is often referred to, has a background in drawing abstract forms and optical patterns. Having always had an affinity for live music, he began his journey through the LA underground playing in various bands, doing commissioned art for album covers, and vending prints and custom merchandise at shows.

Through networking with other bands and attending live shows regularly, he was exposed to the improvisational art form that is lightshow. Diaz eventually met lightshow artists Andrew Carnegie (Stranger Liquids), Taylor Leach (Slim Reaper lightshow), and Daniel Zuniga (Monovision) while vending at a desert party in 2017.

Using some on-the-fly techniques, the peers incorporated hand drawn transparencies and digitally scanned files of Diaz’s optical artworks to create an immersive visuals experience projected onto huge Joshua Tree boulders, a naturally unique projection surface. It was this spontaneous creation that made the potential for a unique lightshow clear.

The ideas brewed at home for years as his drawing work started to exemplify his fascination with moiré patterns. These drawings led to the eventual use of software to layer and rotate the patterns to enhance the optical effects.

To gain some experience in the field, he apprenticed under/collaborated with Andrew Carnegie’s solo video feedback lightshow and became an official member of Stranger Liquids, learning the ways of analog liquid light.

His first solo performance as Moire Bender was in 2019 at that same fateful Joshua Tree location where it all began, projecting on the same rocks. Other frequent collaborators include Slim Reaper Lightshow, Monovision, Lucki Aki (media production), Third Circle Visuals, Gnoblar, Synaesthetic Oil Spill, Color Dream Lightshow and Groove Cheese Productions.

Although Moire Bender originally began as a software based visuals show, the retro midnight scientist ethos quickly emerged as he incorporated video mixers and cameras, CRTs, holographic sheets & other lumia devices, circuit bent gear, polarized lenses & plastics, glass objects & objects, automated wheels, a semi modular video synth, and other assorted practical effects.

This medley of digital and analog instruments creates a hybridized workflow that transcends the limitations of the time periods pulled from. Moire Bender is primarily a two projector show, mainly using older beefy Sanyo projectors.

However, with collaborators he has run through more modern Epson projectors and has dabbled in TV wall installations. And in the absence of live music during the 2020 pandemic, he shifted focus to livestream and video content creation.

Notable acts projected for: Frankie and the Witchfingers, Sunset Rollercoaster, the Gaslamp Killer, Windows 96, Daedelus, Brandon Coleman, Cassowary, Kenny Segal, Luster, All Things Blue, The No. 44.

His best work (both drawing and video) is arguably done in the dead night of night, when the world is asleep.

For contact
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moirebender/

Anthony Diaz - November 2020