In this series, I explore the grassroots music scene, examining the key players, their roles, and the insights they can offer to Joyzine and its readers.
Movement81 are an electronic duo from Swansea, formed by fine artists Jason & Becky. Known for their originality and creative ambition, they’re fast emerging as one of the most exciting live acts on the scene. Drawing on influences from ’80s indie synth and ’90s dance, they craft a sound that spans uplifting melodic techno to introspective minimalism, brought to life through immersive audiovisual performances and multimedia installations. With their striking homemade modular light rig, Movement81 aren’t just a live act, they’re an experience you won’t want to miss.
What are the origins of the band?
We have been practicing as collaborative fine artists and installation artists for around 15 years and have always been drawn to creating immersive experiences for people. Our art installations often combine video, sound, and sculpture to transform spaces, so bringing those practices into music felt like a natural thing to do.
It’s got to be said that we weren’t initially making anything you’d call “musical” in the traditional sense – it was definitely more noise based – but we’ve always been fascinated by synthesis and electronic sound. Then, in 2019, after both completing our PhDs, we definitely felt like stepping back from the art and philosophy we’d been researching – it was a pretty intense project we’d been immersed in for four years. The timing of that with lockdown gave us some space to experiment just for fun, and we started jamming more musically, which gradually evolved into where we are now.
After from New Order (name of band), who are your influences?
That’s such an interesting question because our musical influences definitely overlap but come from slightly different generations. For Jason, New Order was the gateway into electronic music (hence the name Movement81) — seeing them play live at Swansea Top Rank Club in 1985, the opening sequence of Your Silent Face, the first track of the night, immediately creating a sense of awe and wonder, which sparked that interest in the sound of synthesizers.
Becky’s entry point came a bit later, with DJs like Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold, and Paul van Dyk shaping the soundtrack of her youth – House, Euphoric Dance, Trance, and Chillout, mixed with the rise of UK Garage. Maybe this is what you end up with when you mix early 80’s synth riffs, some electro, 90s dance, trance and a little garage for good measure. Beyond music, we’re equally inspired by contemporary installation and AV artists who push boundaries: Haroon Mirza, Nonotak, RyojiIkeda, UVA, Mike Nelson, Max Cooper, and Tundra. 180 Studios — a Brutalist landmark on London’s Strand, transformed by The Vinyl Factory in the mid-2010s into a leading hub for experimental art, film, music, fashion, and technology — has been hugely influential. For us, it felt like discovering a space we belong, and a recognition that this kind of work is both wanted and valued.
Your live sets are incredible, how long does it take to prepare for a show? (Tell
us the whole process, visuals etc…)
Playing live is so important for us. It’s where all the music, visuals and installation come together. The current live set and visuals started in discussions at the end of 2024, with the first performance using that set up in May 2025.
As artists, our practice always explores the human condition and our relationship with technology. The concept for this setup grew out of conversations about quantum computing — its mind-blowing speeds, the uncertainty it brings, and what that means for humanity as finite beings bound by one physical system in space and time.
With the rise of AI, we’ve been exploring a mix of original, generated, and appropriated imagery, weaving them together into layered visual narratives. For us, it’s a way of questioning what feels ‘real,’ what’s ‘produced,’ and what these distinctions mean when shaping experiences for people.
Usually each track carries a strong visual character in our minds, and we try to amplify that feeling for the audience, through synchronising the sound. We believe those senses go hand in hand — each heightening the other.
Each show is pretty much like making a site-specific work, as we need to adapt our setup to fit each venue, so we’re constantly building on and learning from each performance as we go along. Sometimes we’ll prep for a venue with a dual-screen setup, but when we get there the space doesn’t lend itself to that and we need to use a different configuration, so we try to make each setup as adaptable as possible – which takes quite a lot of iteration and development beforehand. It also means travelling with multiple projection and screen options!
Tell us about your modular light rig. And does it have a name?
We both find the aesthetic of quantum computers incredibly beautiful – as a sculptural form they are fascinating. So we thought, let’s just make one to house our eurorack modular synths! We designed and 3D printed the parts based on reference images, but also wanted to add LED lighting to make everything visible during the performance and to extend the visuals into a physical, sculptural element that controls what’s going on around it. Breathing and reacting to sounds and visuals to suggest it possesses some form of life or persona. The modular really fits with the aesthetic of quantum computers (so many wires!), so making a housing to elevate the Eurorack vertically means that we get to share the ‘liveness’ of the performance – constantly tweaking knobs, buttons and wires – we feel this visual element is really important for the audience. That’s not to say we don’t see computers as a live instrument though – we have a hybrid setup that allows us to bring everything together, controlling visuals and sounds through midi triggers to keep everything in sync. The main projections and quantum computer LEDs are controlled from a Mac Mini in Becky’s case, which are triggered using a mix of Ableton and MPC Live from Jason’s computer as well as MIDI controllers from both cases – some of these triggers are pre-programmed and some done ‘on the fly’.
We’re also conscious of the performative aspect — our ‘white outfits’ play into a scientific/futuristic aesthetic that ties the human element into the rig itself. The QC and screens come apart into sections which are then assembled at the venue to try to keep things easy to transport and relatively quick to set up – the cases are all set up inside so it’s just matter of taking the lids off and putting the legs on. We use Ethernet to DMX for the LEDs, HDMI or NDI out to projectors and then run it all on a closed network to try to keep everything as simple and contained as possible!
As for the name, we usually just call it the “QC” as it’s quicker than saying quantum computer! Maybe it deserves something more official!
Dream collab or festival gig?
We’d love to play a festival – it is a little tricky when the experience you are crafting relies on darkness for full effect, but with good enough screens and lighting we wouldn’t say no… waiting for the call from Glasto! Houghton feels like it would be a great fit, with its focus on architecture and immersive installations – it would be fun to develop a work for somewhere like that.
A collab with Mike Nelson would be amazing, just because it would be such a physical, embodied experience for the audience. Haroon Mirza is our hero so a collab with him would be special – he uses ‘electricity as a medium’ which is just such a fantastic way to approach artistic practice.
Have you got any shows coming up?
Yes! The next outing for the QC is the Machina Bristronica After-Party at Strange Brew in Bristol. It won’t be a full AV show (no projections this time) but the LEDs will be fully synced. We’ve been attending Machina (an electronic music and synthesizer festival in Bristol) since the beginning, and it’s always inspiring to connect with other electronic artists. Hopefully one day we’ll get to play the main stage…
We’re also supporting Ani Glass in Swansea on 7th November, and then at the end of November we’ll perform our next full AV set at Swansea Arena, which we’re working on developing into a more immersive experience for the audience. Our recent performance at CULTVR 360º Dome in Cardiff inspired us with some ideas and possibilities!
Looking ahead, we’re keen to play more London shows — nothing confirmed yet, but we are on the lookout. We’d love to play Electroniq at the legendary Dublin Castle, Lucida Records put on some brilliantly interesting acts.
In terms of art practice, we have a major exhibition opening at Elysium Gallery, Swansea, on 19th September. It features another version of the QC – this time with mirrors instead of synths, plus generative sound, projections and mapped LEDs sprawling through the space. The show is called Where the Lost Language of the Dead Begins, and it explores the process of AI learning from us while we try to learn from it – a shifting dialogue of sound, light, and fragmented language that reveals how AI reads us, sometimes incorrectly, offering back versions of ourselves we may not recognise, but now exist, nonetheless.
In that sense, the exhibition and the live shows aren’t separate — they both sync light, sound, and imagery so each element feeds into the others. Ultimately, it all comes back to the audience experience, engaging multiple senses – a narrative, a journey – something immersive to step into.
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Article by Mr Laurence
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