Denver-based visual artist David Schunemann, or more familiarly known as Actualize Visuals has been diligently cultivating his most progressive body of work to date. Carefully collaborating and decorating stages across the country summer after summer, Actualize has become a household name amongst the wider fandom of digital visual artists and designers.
Directly influenced by painters, 3-D sculptors, animators, and live performance, David aims to create an act that not only accompanies top-tier musical artists, but adds an undeniable depth to every experience. Building off of natural moments of hype, the vibe, and his own take on relevant art in the adjacent scene, he builds an unforgettable dive through vivid dreamscapes, ardent colors, and creative movement. While the pool of visual artists and VJ’s has steadily grown in both size and manifest talent across the last five years, David’s work continues to speak volumes about the sheer tenacity behind his confidence.
Appropriately, The Rust took advantage of an opportunity to sit down at a downtown Denver cafe and speak about the Actualize vision, perspective, and manifestations.
The Rust: Where do you hail from, and where are you now?
David Schunemann: I am a transplant to Denver, a brand new transplant. I am from Boston. I was born in the Boston area and then moved up to New Hampshire when I was like 8, and then lived there till like 3 or 4 years ago and moved back down to boston. Lived there for a while, but now I am here.
The Rust: What brought you to Denver?
David: Mainly music and art.
The Rust: Where did it all begin? How did this project get started?”
David: I guess just going to a lot of events. I started going to shows in 2016, electronic shows, and I just was like automatically addicted. It was the craziest shit I had ever seen. As soon as I went to my first electronic music festival I was like, “I've seen bands play before but it's not like this.” The stage production in general is crazy. My first festival was Mystery Land in 2016. It was at the original Woodstock grounds actually.
The Rust: Wow, in upstate NY? That's a legendary venue.
David: Yeah, it only happened for like 3 years, then someone bought it and fucked it all up. So it’s not a thing anymore, but it was amazing when I went. After that I just started going to as many music festivals and shows as I could go to. Then after about a year of going to non-stop events. I simply needed to know how it all worked, I needed to understand what's happening here. I started like looking shit up online, diving into it, trying to figure out what was actually going on. The video mixing thing I thought was super cool. I kinda tried DJ-ing a little, but once I realized you can do the same thing with video, it was over. Essentially, just mixing video, you can do it even crazier than you can mix audio. You can have infinite layers, run effects through everything, and route shit different places. The effects are not just limited echo and delay, you can do literally everything. Fuck, you can stack as much as you want until you build something insane.
The Rust: Did that start by combining your audio with your video? What's your speciality?
David: Yeah! What I specialize in is like building custom effect stacks (in Resolume). So I will take tons of different effects and stack them on top of each other in a way that makes something really cool and unique. Then you can go into each of those effects and make different parameters audio reactive or whatever you want. So when the bass hits the whole thing or fine tuned parts will wiggle or shake, change color, or flex.
The Rust: I love that subtle movement in visuals, especially on a big stage or screen.
David: Yeah, not the whole thing. Just very fine tuned. The fact that you can do it live and on the spot with any piece of video content, picture, anything. Just completely blew my mind. As soon as I realized you can do that, I was all in. Playing with it like everyday. Friends would come over and put on music. I'd be like “Yo, check this out.” I would end up sitting there while my friends are just chilling.
The Rust: So it was basically all consuming for you?
David: Insanely.
The Rust: Your first festival was in 2016; it's now 2022. When did you start making your own visuals?
David: 2017, pretty much right away. I have been doing it full time for like 4-5 years now.
The Rust: What did you go to school for?
David: I went to school for software engineering actually. I was working software engineering jobs while I was going to all these festivals. So that was kinda funding everything. Then I got laid off in 2018. I got another job and I had been working that job for a couple years and doing visuals on the side. Then I got laid off again at the beginning of the pandemic, and I was like, “Alright, I don't really want to do this anyway. There is probably a reason I keep getting laid off.”
So after that I was like, “fuck it.” Whether I make money doing this or not, I'll figure that part out later.
The Rust: Completely. I love that train of thought. Fuck it, might as well make art. Can I ask how old you are?
David: 30. So I started going to festivals around 25.
The Rust: Where does the name come from?
David: When I first started I thought about it a lot. Like, what I wanted my name to be…. something. Because I wanted it to be something that kind of reflected what I was doing, then also sound cool you know. It literally came to me at a G Jones show. He is one of my biggest inspirations. Visually and also musically because it is so experimental. He is just trying things no one else thinks to try.
The Rust: He’s earned his reputation through and through.
David: Yeah, so I was getting my mind blown and someone came up to me and told me he did all his own visuals for that tour. I was like, “How? How does someone even have the time?”
What's my excuse? So he had all these visuals with eyes. And there it was... Like “Actual” “EYES”.... Actualize. All he did was actualize the eyes. I was cracking up. In the beginning my name was Actual Eyes. I quickly realized I didn't want to make eye-based content. Then someone messed it up on a flier and put Actualize and it stuck. It looks way cooler and had my motivations all wrapped up in it. So it's also a reminder to myself to just do it. Just wake up and do it.
The Rust: “What’s your excuse?”
David: Yes, exactly. If G Jones can make all his own shit, touring, making music, and incredible visuals. “What's your excuse??
The Rust: Is that how you approach art? Just hit the ground running?
David: Yes. pretty much. Just do it, make art.
The Rust: You spoke earlier live sets. Do you do all your visual sets live?
David: Oh yeah, definitely.
The Rust: Like mixing the movements and textures? Interacting with them?
David: Yes, all live. A lot of it is literally being made on the spot. It's not like I prerender a whole lot of content. Like, I have content that I have either made, bought, or been given over the years. But what I do live is run it through all these custom effect stacks so it looks like something totally different. Then I can switch between the different effect stacks, layer them on top of each other. Speed it up, slow it down, change the colors. Put trails on it, make it vibrate, shake or whatever combination. So basically, I just like playing with it. Listening to the music and playing with the toys that I have and trying to match the speed and the vibe, the colors of the stage and everything.
The Rust: It's like you're reacting, even playing with the musician(s).
David: Yes, exactly. It's amazing practice doing it live. It makes me a better VJ everyday.
The Rust: So I normally ask musicians this but how do you describe your art? To a layman, what’s your style?
David: Man, it's tough because there are not really well defined genres within visuals. Psychedelic, for sure. Effects-based, psychedelic, geometric, live experiential art, I guess. I like music and art experiences, so [my art is] where those two meet.
The Rust: What can we expect from you this summer?
David: Gotta keep an eye out to find out, but more than one line up should be dropping here in the next week or so.
Alongside some of the most high-profile visual artists in his field, David hopes to captivate audiences in the same way he was captivated back on the fields of upstate New York. The future is clearly set, and David's mission above all else is the successful progression of art, music, and this particular creative culture. For those of us that get to attend music festivals this summer, Actualize will be one to set your alarms for; a sight for your actual eyes.
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