Image Credit: Rob Sheridan

For an experienced live production artist like Rob Sheridan, it takes an enticing opportunity to catch his attention. Having worked with major acts like legendary industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, Sheridan has a great eye for designing unforgettable concert experiences, collaborating with artists in the process to deliver on the experience they want to build. Despite his extensive live visual design background, however, he's kept a lower profile recently, having started a family and a new clothing brand. That all changed when Rob was presented with the chance to work with another revered rock act: Pearl Jam.

"There’s a short list of musicians I’d drop everything and rewire a year of my family’s entire life to make art with," says Sheridan on his personal Tumblr. "And Eddie Vedder is absolutely one of them."  Sheridan has long admired the band, citing their music as a major influence while growing up in their shared hometown of Seattle. Ahead of their tour for their new album, Dark Matter, the band sought to refine the vision of their live experience. As they collaborated, Sheridan and Vedder immediately understood their shared concept, using the album's themes as inspiration for a more tactile experience.

One of the distinct concepts envisioned was a more "analog" experience, something that could stand out as a part of the band's performance, but not overshadow them. At the same time, they wanted to build a unique experience that set itself apart from common live performance fixtures. "All of that just felt like the wrong thing to me for Pearl Jam," Sheridan explains. "Pearl Jam isn’t a bright, cold LED screen; it’s a warm, incandescent light." To achieve this one-of-a-kind set piece, Sheridan worked with his wife Stephanie, also an accomplished visual designer, to set up an experimentation "lab". From there, the production team began working through visual concepts.

Using high-speed capture, the visual experience highlights the otherwise-hidden experiences in the world around us. Image Credit: Rob Sheridan

Using a high-speed camera, the production team captured a series of high-fidelity chemical reactions and spatial light interactions, achieving a level of quality that explores the minute detail of otherwise mundane scientific processes. This imagery is displayed on a 155-foot-by-35-foot projector screen, acting as a canvas for the experience.

The result is a stunning observation of phenomena, one that intertwines perfectly with the theme of the album. Dark Matter centers around the typically intangible forces in the universe, telling the story of how each microscopic interaction forms our understanding of the world. In combination with these visuals, Pearl Jam's live show stands apart as an ever-forward initiative to deliver unique, immersive experiences.