Elaborate video art at concerts was once the purview of bands like U2, headlining global stadium tours.

“Now, technology is democratizing access to immersive visuals and allowing musicians to turn their shows into really unique experiences,” explains creative technologist Blair Neal, who has worked with the electronic pop duo Phantogram to produce performances using Microsoft’s Kinect sensor.

Neal and Phantogram recently collaborated on a special one-off performance at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Neal used the openFrameworks open-source C++ toolkit to custom craft an application for the Kinect motion sensor camera. The technology enabled him to generate images onto the band’s bodies while simultaneously showing a real-time projection map of their moving silhouettes on the stage background.

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Josh Carter, the guitarist and one of the vocalists for Phantogram says, “For us, it’s not just about the music. We’re very visual too and that helps make deeper connections with fans.”

Phantogram was formed in Greenwich, New York, in 2007 and consists of Carter and lead vocalist and keyboardist Sarah Barthel. The band’s name was inspired by an optical illusion in which two-dimensional images appear to be three-dimensional – so visuals are part of their DNA.

Neal is an artist and researcher who uses video and light as instruments to, in effect, plays along with bands. He and Phantogram share a philosophy on live shows in that they are always looking for special moments that deliver a sense of surprise and awe.

Barthel says, “We’d been working with Blair pretty much since we started as a band, but, for the Hollywood Forever show, we wanted to do something unique. The venue only does a few events per year and, of course, we’d never played a cemetery before.”

Neal continues, “We set out to make something magical with that ‘How exactly did they do that?’ experience for this show.”