James Holden & Melissa Santamaría^UK+MX

James Holden

James Holden already feels like a contemporary classic. In two decades of experience, he’s made his commitment to connection and experimentation resonate in each path explored. As a studio producer, DJ, audio engineer, band mate, tinker, coder, collaborator and label manager, Holden assembles sounds and ways of doing that expand the narrative of electronica and club music to spaces of interconnection, imagination and new possibilities. And his new album, Imagine this is a high dimensional space of all possibilities (Border Community, 2023), is a whole multiverse that expands, in every detail, that Holden sensibility to integrate the analog and the digital, the real and the unreal, IDM with jazz and psychedelia with rave in a complete audiovisual utopia.

This 2023 also marks Holden's return to the stage. Live, the energy of Imagine this is a high dimensional space of all possibilities transmutes into a hypnotic and visceral journey, thanks to that powerful alchemy between sound devices that span eras and cultures, synths, code and 3D-printed machines of his own design, which induce that state of trance and wonder that takes us to that place of infinite possibilities imagined by Holden. Le Guess Who?, Green Man, Electropark and MIRA are just some of the festivals that have already ascended to the Holden Dimension this summer and that precede his long-awaited return to MUTEK MX for Edition 19.

Melissa Santamaría

In less than five years, the trajectory of the Mexican architect and artist was catapulted thanks to her mastery of programs such as Touchdesigner and processes that combine attentive listening, analog media and playfulness. With a wrapping, vibrant style that takes up naturalistic aspects from a very alien perspective, Melissa Santamaría's visual signature can be found accompanying an impressive diversity of musical acts ranging from Actress, Andy Stott, Flying Lotus and Ty Segall.

In addition to generative visuals in live performances, Melissa illustrates, designs and produces visual creativity for festivals, brands and projects of various kinds, always in symbiosis with the musical part. One of the most complex projects in which Melissa's creative range can be fully enjoyed is the visual design for the five volumes of Sufjan Stevens' album Convocations (2021).

English producer, DJ, engineer, coder and label manager James Holden, and Mexican architect and visual artist Melissa Santamaría.