Dustin Klein

Biography

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Ever since I was young, I’ve been driven to communicate the natural patterns of nature and geometry through filmmaking. This passion led me to pursue a degree, which I completed in 2009, and shortly thereafter, I began working as an animator. While learning animation, I started creating live visuals to music that I was making, and by 2011, I had fallen in love with designing light shows—and I haven’t stopped since.

I discovered projection mapping in 2012 and began primarily working at concerts and music festivals, as well as creating art installations for public spaces. Over the next five years, I honed my projection mapping and lighting design skills while working extensively with the North Carolina-based band The Mantras, and by creating stages and installations for annual events like FloydFest, Rootwire Festival, Hyperion Festival, Kinnection Campout, Mantrabash, and Mellow Mushrooms in Virginia.

In 2017, I took over as the full-time lighting and video designer for the band Papadosio, debuting a five-diamond projection-mapped, audio-reactive setup where each band member had a dedicated screen that reacted solely to them. In 2019, I expanded this setup for a performance at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. In both 2017 and 2018, I joined the projection mapping team at the Electric Forest Festival, creating over 40 outdoor projection-mapped installations and visuals on one stage over the course of a month.

In February 2020, after returning home from my first international stage at the Envision Festival in Costa Rica, the Covid crisis dismantled the concert industry as we knew it. Out of work and inspired by the racial justice protests in Richmond, Virginia, I directed my projectors to aid in the removal of Confederate monuments in the city. The projections went viral, and my good friend and I spent much of the year using this online traction to broadcast positive messaging in support of the protest. Imagery from this period was captured and hailed as one of the “most influential works of protest art since World War II,” and was featured as National Geographic's 2020 Photo of the Year. At the end of 2020, we founded Reclaiming the Monument, with a mission to use the medium of light to promote positivity, the arts, equity, and justice through public art.

In 2021, Reclaiming the Monument was awarded a grant from the Mellon Foundation for a series of public art events called Recontextualizing Richmond, held over 2022 and into 2023. I served as the Technical Director of the project, overseeing the logistics and creation of many art installations over four multi-day public events in Richmond. Separately, Reclaiming the Monument projection-mapped the Washington National Cathedral for Juneteenth in 2022.

While working with Reclaiming the Monument, I continued to design shows as concerts restarted post-Covid. In 2021, I designed my second Red Rocks show with Papadosio, mapping the backdrop of the rocks with two large 31K projectors. Designer Andy Cass was impressed by the effect and invited me to replicate it in collaboration with him for two nights of Billy and the Kids (featuring Bill Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead and Billy Strings). Additionally, that summer at Red Rocks, Brown Note Productions asked me to calibrate projectors for Portugal. The Man.

Also in 2021, Papadosio invited me to projection map The Caverns—a unique musical venue in a cave in Pelham, TN. This rock projection mapping show evolved into an annual festival for the next two years, featuring a fully immersive projection-mapped cave.

Over the past two years, Reclaiming the Monument has created several installations for clients including Virginia Commonwealth University, The Richmond Forum, and the National Parks Service. We have also spawned a non-profit, Collaborative Arts, which seeks to bring public art opportunities to Richmond, VA. I currently serve on the board.

I remain the full-time lighting and video director for Papadosio and will be creating several art installations and stages at music festivals this summer. I am always looking for new projects that ignite my passion. Please reach out if you want to connect and collaborate!

Dustin Klein
Videometry Visuals