The Artist Behind Aphex Twin’s Glitchy, Brain-Melting Videos
Revealing the daily rituals of the designer known only as Weirdcore.
How would AI see the world while on psychedelic drugs? That’s just one of the bizarre hypotheticals that informed the pulsating, glitchy, and CGI-packed video for Aphex Twin’s T69 Collapse track. The artist behind the romping visuals goes by Weirdcore, preferring to remain anonymous as he creates mind-altering visuals from his suburban London home.
Weirdcore started out as a graphic designer, building websites and DVD menus in Soho. In the early aughts, he began a side hustle DJing in clubs and creating live-performance visuals. “I’m very into experimental music, in whatever form that is,” he says. “The downside of that is that there’s not many artists in that experimental kind of spectrum that has much cash to spend. But eventually it did land me getting to work with the most well-paid experimental artist.” His collaboration with Aphex Twin has led to gigs with other bold-name recording artists, including Miley Cyrus, Gwen Stefani, Mos Def, M.I.A., and Radiohead.
The father of two, he toggles between parenting duties and designing trippy visuals for his celebrity clientele. Here, he talks to us about the importance of getting away from screens, using his artistic license, and of course, the music he listens to while he works.
Morning routine
I hope I don’t sound like a total middle-aged man now because I’ve got kids. I do the school run, and then, I like doing a jog, because I find that, if the day before I can’t figure out how to design something, in the morning I kind of figure stuff out. If I’m away from my desk and my screen and running, I kind of see the problem from a different perspective. I remember when I used to skate in my teens, I’d try and try and try to do a new trick and wouldn’t be able to do it, but then the next time I’d try, I’d be able to do it. After my run, I do transcendental meditation for 20 minutes.
Standing up
I work standing up. It’s not until the afternoon that I allow myself to sit down, so I still carry on with the exercise by standing up working. Do I sound like a total middle-aged man now?
Afternoon, interrupted
My son, who’s 10 now, can walk home from school by himself. But my daughter is seven, so I’ve got to go pick her up at half three. That does break up my day, so then I have to work later, after dinner, until two or three in the morning. You know, I’m a one-man band, and I try and get a lot of stuff done. I mean, the thing that I can say is, since I’ve had kids for ten years, I have absolutely no sympathy for people who haven’t got kids that complain that they’ve got no time to do stuff.
Artistic liberties
I find it’s either the artists who have no money or the ones that are really established that let you get on with the thing the most. The middle-ground artists that kind of still haven’t quite hit the big time are so fussy, like really hard to work with. I find the ones that are really established are just like, “Oh, yeah, whatever.’ If they know that I’m going to do something good, they’ll just let me get on with it.
In-house critic
My wife sees the stuff I do, because she keeps nagging me to like take out the bin. Then from her comments, like, “Oh, that looks really disgusting,” I know if I’m on the right track. When she does like stuff, which is quite unusual, I know that it is going to be liked by everyone.
Letting the mind wander
I find when i’m on holiday I get loads of inspiration. So if I know that I’ve got a project after the holidays, I really try to get as much info about it before I go, because I’ll probably figure stuff out whilst I’m away.
Mentors
When I first moved to London, I was really into this videographer called Naohiro Ukawa. But I think the person that really put me in the direction I’ve been in since 2000 is this guy I knew when he was studying at St. Martins, in London, named Jody Hudson-Powell. His style was punk rock, bold, and kind of in-your-face when everything else was trying to be all pretty and polished. He doesn’t actually do video anymore; he does more design. Another bunch of people is Semiconductor Films. Their style is very much a massive inspiration.
Playlist
What I listen to changes, but what I’m listening to now is Le Dom, which I’d describe as quite prism-y. I’m also into Kindohm, Rian Treanor, and Gábor Lázár. I’ve been into what I would call kind of experimental pop like Smerz. They are pretty amazing, kind of like really experimental R&B but Scandinavian. I’m also very into Charli XCX. She’s kind of like ’80s pop, kind of like Bananarama but kind of now. I really like Sophie as well. She’s like a real bridge between super ultra pop, almost like K-pop-sounding, but super experimental at the same time.
Playing favorites
I particularly like the piece I did for Miley Cyrus, because everyone likes it. I find a lot of my work is very Marmite — people either like it or don’t. Because my two main clients over the years have been Aphex and Miley, there’s not that many people that actually really like both — they’re either drawn to the Miley or the Aphex kind of thing. But I find, regardless of the fact that Miley is so pop, everyone really likes that piece.
Magenta is a publication of Huge.
