Designer Spotlight: Passive Kneeling & the 'unseen' nature of music's visual identity

As dance and electronic music becomes even more of a main stage spectacle, whether at the world’s biggest festivals or delivered to us through our phones, it becomes increasingly less music focused, and more visual.

Design, art and dance music have become synonymous in the minds of listeners, regularly recalling releases by their covers, labels by their logos and artists by their visual performance.

In this series, we’re focused on the designers, artists and VJs responsible for creating the image, the spectacle and the worlds that exist around the music we love.

Tom Vanderzeil (he/him), better known as Passive Kneeling, is a Naarm-based director, VJ and designer, known for his work with artists like Bag Raiders, Bayang The Bushranger and many more. His work, which blends the worlds of classic video games with more modern psy and ‘online’ oriented imagery, has taken him from behind the camera, to warehouse dance floors, and some of the world’s biggest stages.

Q: What was the first piece of music related material you ever designed for? How did you find yourself doing it?

PK: I started VJ’ing as many other VJ’s in Australia started; Psytrance.

I spent a lot of time going to doofs and sitting in on other VJ’s sets, namely Will Little (Lumena). He definitely opened a lot of doors for me and how to actually apply my art to work. From that I learned the basics and my first big show was for Innerspace pres. Wata Igarashi.

Learning the collagey process of VDMX and how to set up a DIY gig from scratch built the foundation for how I approach a lot of my work. My first real music video/music related piece was for my dear friend Thibaud Kessel. I’d been doing live VJing for a while but growing up I was always obsessed with music videos, I just never thought I had the skill set to actually do it. Thibaud got me to do an insanely long 7 minute music video. I shot it during COVID while all the streets were empty, highlighting how isolated everyone was feeling at that time. It was for the most part just me, my bike and a camera. Still one of my favourite things I’ve ever made.

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Q: Is design an important part of interacting with music for you? Why or why not?

PK: I’ve always loved being a part of music but from the other side. Growing up I was surrounded by really insane producers and even tried my hand a bit at making some stuff myself.

S/O to Jacques Emery, Jasper Powrie, Jay Cooper and Christian Anthony. Being around them was constantly inspiring.

Music inspires me to make basically everything I do and I feel much more connected to it by designing art for it. At some point in my early twenties while I was going to lots of raves, I realised I’d much rather be working than partying.

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Q: Could you give us a rundown of some of your recent pieces of work & where they’ve taken you?

PK: More recently I’ve been learning 3D (Blender) and have had an absolute blast using those new skills with the programs I’m already familiar with. Recently I’ve been directing/shooting/editing a lot of music videos which has kinda been for the last few years what I’ve been doing the most.

I love executing an artist's vision or adding some of my world to theirs. Recently I’ve been working closely with Bag Raiders and did a full re-design of their visuals earlier in the year. Through that I’ve been fortunate enough to do some really big shows with them and been touring throughout Australia.

Q: You’ve recently been on tour across South East Asia. What is your role as someone who is on tour?

PK: The Stinga Tour in Vietnam was in my opinion one of the best things I’ve ever done. It was an amalgamation of all the skills I’ve been working on for the last few years and overall just such a profoundly positive experience. My role was tour manager, videographer and VJ. Balancing those three things was a struggle at times but I gained so much from it.

I distinctly remember during the last show at Noxx Citi in Hanoi, I was running up and down the stairs from the VJ booth to make sure the show was running smoothly and the artists were taken care of whilst also filming and operating the visuals. Was quite a crazy night. I floated the idea late last year and eventually through many emails and instagram DM’s we had a tour organised by July. I’d love to make it a yearly thing to further bridge the connection between Australia and Asia, but organising a tour in foreign country particularly with rappers is quite a task.

Q: Are there any elements you consistently revisit in your work?

PK: If you are familiar with my work you’ll know that I do hop around a bunch of aesthetics and techniques. Analog video and video synthesis has always been a huge part of my work. It’s evolved a lot since I first started but that's one thing I’ve consistently used for years.

I love just working with old cameras and analog video as it's such an improvisational process. Things never work the way you want them to and if you get something good it's most of the time just by chance. I love the experimentation of hooking up a bunch of modules together and layering effects to see what new looks I can come up with.

Apart from that you’ll see a big inspiration from video games in my work, namely Half Life, World of Warcraft, SSBM and Halo. The art from those games still holds up to this day and I find one of the best ways to get better is to try and recreate something as timeless as those game aesthetics. You’ll also see a particular cup across all my music videos I’ve shot from last year onwards.

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Q: Do you have a favourite bit of art that you've designed? If so, what about it makes it stand out to you among your body of work?

PK: It changes pretty consistently from time to time. Recently for live DJing I worked on a visual set for 700Feel which I think was one of the best sets I’ve ever done. Because I’ve been working with them on things since the very beginning of their project, we really understand how eachother works. We worked on this new black metal aesthetic and I was able to integrate it with my new 3D work and video synth process.

The whole EASTERN MARGINS x 4A X VIVID show was some of the best clips I’ve made. It came at such a good time as I was getting more confident with Blender and the artists on the lineup I knew really well.

Q: Looking ahead, what do you envision for the future of dance & electronic music design, and are there any new directions or techniques you're excited to explore in your upcoming projects?

PK: Going forward I’d love to see a landscape in electronic and dance music that has a narrative. Seeing a story being told through the promotion of an event, the kinds of artists booked, the visuals at the show and the sounds being played. It’d be amazing to see all those things come together in a collaborative way.

I’m excited to improve my 3D skills and finally find the time to work on a large project for myself. I’ve got plenty of ideas booked up for other people but it’d be nice to finally get around to executing my vision for myself.

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Find Passive Kneeling via his Instagram.

Jack Colquhoun is Mixmag ANZ's Managing Editor, find him on Instagram.