Burneverything: Mister Saturday Light

These are the shapes of Mister Saturday Night: pulsing orbs, trembling waves and that blissful moon rising overhead. The rhythmic projections that illuminate the dance floor emanate from the mind – and MacBook – of a gent named Sam. Despite his general preference to shine lights rather than stand in them, we felt it was only right to offer up a proper introduction to Mister Saturday Light.

Mister Saturday Night: Name and known aliases?

Sam: Sam. Sam Burneverything. And more rarely – Lord Eye Licker: Hunter of the Mythical Florescent Brown.

MSN: Place of origin?

S: Yorkshire, England then a long time in Liverpool, where we started an art and design studio called burneverything. Now here in New York.

MSN: How do you view your role at Mister Saturday?

S: I think my role is to complement the music and hopefully enhance the experience. Mister Saturday Night is always a great party – hopefully I can add another dynamic through the light shows.
I think light shows can be really great for music – I grew up listening to a lot of psychedelia and I was always interested in how visuals were used to add to the power of the performances. I certainly don’t think visuals are a necessity for live shows or parties, but often they can help certain situations. I produce visuals for a number of electronic artists in the UK where it may be one or two musicians behind laptops and for a live experience I think the audience is sometimes more entertained with the addition of visuals. I’ve also been working with a psych-rock band called Mugstar for the last few years and we’ve been really focused on trying to bombard the senses aurally and visually.

MSN: How would you describe the Mister’s visual aesthetic?

S: I really got in to making small simple animation loops and then using these in a “monotonous” way that hopefully creates a trance-like feel. I use a lot of black and white, so the images become less like films and more like lighting effects. I then play in time to the music (hopefully!) and build up patterns of these loops. I produce all the loops and content and tend not to use any found footage and I also do a lot of illustration work, so these form the basis of the content. I like the mixture of abstract and more literal graphics. Bit of spinning, bit of flashing – seems to work I hope…

MSN: Best Mister moment, thus far?

S: Mister Saturday has been an amazing experience this year – my first. Amazing music, great parties, people and locations. Harvey at Market Hotel was one of my all-time favorite club experiences.