Another guest post from James, this time he’s exploring the art and music community of Dundee with party starters ‘Contour’ and their visual partners ‘Genomic Visuals’. 

Friday the 14^th of February was a big night for the art school community in Dundee, even after the Thursday’s Nasty Nights fundraiser for the 4^th year Fine Art students. It saw both the 1^st birthday party for Contour and the opening of Genomic Visuals Studios. It’s been an amazing year for these guys so to bring you all up to speed here’s the background.

It all started back in November 2012, the end of the world was nigh but that wasn’t stopping a team of mates from Duncan of Jordanstone cutting their teeth at the Small Town Club.

This first night at the Reading Rooms for Gmilller and Slice, now Contour residents, and Genomic Visuals, with their now iconic 3D Dome projector screen, was the blue print for what would become a bit of an unstoppable force in the club scene in Dundee.

Thursday 14^th of February saw the sold out launch night for Contour, a night of heavy, unadulterated, raw electronic music from residents Slice, Gmiller and Slouch, with the best visual show in town courtesy of Genomic Visuals.

It’s not often there is a queue from the gates of the Reading Rooms down to the end of the garden, as the door staff are very efficient at getting people through the door and into the party, but Thursday nights with Contour were a different story. 300 or so hyped heads would appear to dance until close and the parties never disappointed.

This continued up until the summer break where traditionally the clubs in Dundee quieten down when the students are on holiday, but even so Contour put on some good parties and moved to a Friday night. Although in the interim they had teamed up with Rooms regulars Crayon to put on High Sheen’s Ben Martin it wasn’t until May that the guys got round to booking their first guest, Glasgow’s Harvey Kartel.

A collaboration with Perth’s Twisted Kaleidoscope for a summer BBQ party was up next, before a few more residents’ parties brought them in the blink of an eye to October and their guest, School Records’ Paleman. All-round club legend DJ Harri brought their year to an end, which brings us up to date with the recent 1^st birthday party.

Alongside all this mayhem the Genomic Visuals team have constantly been evolving their work and coming up with wonderful new shapes and visual treats to keep the eyes of the crowd as entertained as their ears. They have also been hard at work with other events and venues including Twisted Kaleidoscope at The Ice Factory and The Rhumba’s Festival house, giving them the opportunity to fine tune their ideas, culminating in their most recent creation, a giant 3D projector screen made out of balloons!

To celebrate their year Genomic Visuals opened their studio for a pre party event before Contour where they exhibited some of their new works and some of their good friends also. The space is fantastic and there are now more studio events in the pipeline.

Did you make it along to the Conotur 1st birthday, or check out the studio of Genomic Visuals? Let us know what you thought!

J O’H
UKB