Over three months in 2024, VJ Suave crossed China as Amber Kuo’s special guest on The Other Side of Hope, the tour by the band Mola Oddity, drawing live visuals behind the band from Shanghai to Chengdu.
Spring in China
The tour opened on March 29 at Bandai Namco Shanghai – Dream Hall and closed in late May, passing through Sofun Livehouse in Shenzhen, Tai Space in Guangzhou, 1701 Livehouse Max in Nanjing, Damai 66 in Hangzhou, Fulang Livehouse in Beijing and the Zhenghuo Art Center in Chengdu. Between the shows came the festivals: the Strawberry Music Festival in Fuzhou in early April and again in Hangzhou in May, and the Chun You Music Festival in Chengdu, on an open-air stage beneath a hand-drawn rainbow.
The animations
Every animation was hand-drawn and animated in 2D specifically to carry the arc of the entire show, by Paulo Stoker and Ygor Marotta, with assistance from Lucas Fiacadori. Different backdrops — with characters, rainbows, animals and other elements, all made for these shows — move across the LED panel in time with the music.
The club nights
Running parallel to the concert and festival tour was a second circuit: the LOFi MOSH nights, 9 Days of Dreamcore Aquarium, which took the project to ALL Club in Shanghai, LOOPY in Hangzhou, OIL in Shenzhen, Pillbox in Beijing and AXIS in Chengdu.
Across those nights, VJ Suave collaborated with Renata Chebel on spontaneous visuals, mixing the material created for the tour with glitches from a modular video synthesizer. Because the club sets were more electronic, the visuals were rethought and improvised live, a language distinct from that of the concert show.
The documentary in the video above was directed by Renata Chebel.
