The Light Surgeons is a media arts studio and production company that creates moving image work, live performances, installations, and experiences that sit at the intersection of music, film, and creative technology. The studio was established in London as a limited company in 1995 and is led by artist, director, and creative producer Christopher Thomas Allen.

Allen brings together unique teams of creatives around each project the studio undertakes drawing on an extensive network of creative talents that work in the complementary fields of audio-visual production, post-production, and interaction design.

Through the collaboration of this network of award-winning artists, filmmakers, animators, designers, and software developers, the studio produces a diverse range of creative projects that blur the boundaries between art and design.

The Light Surgeons craft and tour groundbreaking performance and installation projects that combine in-depth research into human stories, subject matters, and themes that enlighten and move its audiences. They combine a passion for documentary filmmaking with the creation of original music and an eye for design that gives their work a unique style and feel.

Founder & Director

CHRISTOPHER THOMAS ALLEN

Artist, Film Maker, Creative Director & Producer

Christopher Thomas Allen is a media artist from London and the founder and director of The Light Surgeons. His work crosses various media and forms: producing and directing award-winning experimental films, animations, and music videos, creating large-scale installation projects for major cultural institutions and brands, graphic art and photography, and touring groundbreaking live multi-media performances internationally.

He is the central creative mind behind the studio, directing and producing various design and art projects, working with musicians, fashion designers, architects, furniture designers, and creative technologists. He forges creative audio-visual collaborations that fuse art, technology and research, continuing to explore new approaches to storytelling in multiple contexts and across the creative disciplines.

PROJECTS BY CHRISTOPHER THOMAS ALLEN

Collabrators

Many people’s hard work and creative talent have contributed to the studio’s various projects over the past 25 years.
The profiles below cover the key artists and contributors to the major projects documented on this website.

TIM COWIE

Audio Visual Artist, Director & Composer

Tim Cowie has contributed to a wide range of different projects at The Light Surgeons since 2004 in a variety of different ways; from filmmaking and motion graphics to creative direction and project development, from sound design to extensive music composition on film, installation, and live performance projects. His creative talents remain a major part of The Light Surgeons’ creative output. He works under the name Audio Dependent on music projects and his other creative work can also be found here: http://timcowie.com/

PROJECTS BY TIM COWIE

ALICE CERESOLE

Studio Manager & Producer

Alice worked at The Light Surgeons between 2004 and 2014 as studio manager, researcher and producer. Alice had a background in television and docs and was able to adapt to the huge variety of different work at the studio over 10 years. From the client facing commercial projects to the self initiated arts based projects, from one off events through to major permanent installations in major national museums. She has also for Territory Studio and Squint Opera studios. She is now a freelance Exec Producer

PROJECTS BY ALICE CERESOLE

JUDE GREENAWAY

Audio Visual Artist, Director & Composer

Born in London, Jude’s background is in fine art and animation. He has been a long time creative collaborator with the studio on a huge range of projects; from motion graphics, film direction, sound design. He has also been a major collaborator on many of our live audio live performances. He releases music under the name Scanone on various labels, including his own imprint Yellow Machines and C7NEMA100.
More of his work can be found here:  Greenaway & Greenaway

PROJECTS BY JUDE GREENAWAY

JAMES PRICE

Audio Visual Artist, Director & Filmmaker

James has contributed to a wide range of projects, as director, camera man and editor, and collaborated as an artist on many installations and live audio-visual performance projects. After studying at the NFTS he worked for several years with artist and film maker Lenka Clayton creating experimental documentaries for Channel4. He is now an independent filmmaker and academic, work through his own production company:
Field Studies

PROJECTS BY JAMES PRICE

ANDY FLYWHEEL

Artist & Director

Andy Flywheel was the original Co-founder and a partner in The Light Surgeons Ltd until 2001 when he left to pursue his own career and now works in mental health services and care. Andy’s background was in film and analog projections. He was instrumental in the development of The Light Surgeons original signature fusion of analogue film visuals in the mid 90’s. He remains the grand master of the 16mm film loop and has recently come back to perform a new live cinema piece “The Consensual Hallucination” in 2024.

PROJECTS BY ANDY FLYWHEEL

BREDE KORSMO

Artist, Filmmaker & Music Producer

Born in Norway, based in Rio, Brazil, Brede is a multi disciplinary artist with a background in graffiti and screen printing who developed a rich multi-layered approach to digital moving image work and began working with the studio on the early 2000’s. He has contributed to a wide range of different projects through his print and moving image work. Brede’s work can be found here: fetishprints & wickedwaxpictures

PROJECTS BY BREDE KORSMO

PAUL O’CONNOR

Photographer & Designer

Paul is a founding member of The Light Surgeons, establishing the name in partnership with Christopher Thomas Allen while they where studying together at Portsmouth University. When Paul left the UK, he set up a sister company under the same name in Dublin in Ireland. He now works as a photographer and web designer from a base on the west coast of Ireland. More of his work can be viewed at his company site Judo Design, and photographic works can be found here: 
http://www.pauloconnor.org

PROJECTS BY PAUL O’CONNOR

ROb RAINBOW

Artist & Filmmaker

Rob Rainbow is an experienced artist who works with photographic, print and time-based processes. Themes of local-ness, community and accessibility are central to his practice and this influence has been central to many of the collaborative and co-created projects within The Light Surgeons over a period of around 10 years. He now goes by the name Robert Pyecroft-Rainbow and teaches photography at the University Of East London.

PROJECTS BY ROBERT PYECROFT-RAINBOW

MALCOLM LITSON

Audio Visual Artist

Based in London, Malcolm Litson is an audio- visual artist and the founder of the We Are Not Content collective. He is a prolific painter and electronic music producer, working under the name Bitvert and has released some of his tracks on Random Records. You can find out more about his work here: https://bitvert.org/

More of his music is available here: http://soundcloud.com/bitvert

PROJECTS BY MALCOLM LITSON

ANNIE jael KWAN

Producer & Curator

Born in Singapore, Annie trained in theatre arts, film and cultural theory at Goldsmiths College and obtained a postgraduate qualification in Law. Annie has worked as producer and project manager on numerous commercial and arts projects, working from initial concepts to delivery for corporate clients and arts commissioners from 2005 untill 2015. Annie is now working as an independent curator and researcher based in London and working between the UK, Europe
https://anniejaelkwan.com/

PROJECTS BY ANNIE KWAN

DAVE BAUM

Director & Audio Visual Artist

Born in Reading and making the short journey to London in 2005 Dave has directed, designed and animated various projects at The Light Surgeons over the last 5-6 years. He is experienced in many aspects of film production, from directing to camera work and editing. When he’s not making visual art or films he can be found trying not to fall off his motorbike at various racing circuits around the UK. More of Dave’s work can be found here: https://davebaum.co.uk/

PROJECTS BY DAVE BAUM

SIMON BERTHEUX

Filmmaker & Artist

Simon is a media artist from the Netherlands who came to do an internship at The Light Surgeons in 2012. He has a passion for film and installation based projects and helped deliver the Body Adorned Exhibition at the Horniman museum that year. He is now working as a commercial director and film creative in Amsterdam to our best knowledge. More of his personal projects can be found on:
https://www.behance.net/SimonBertheux

PROJECTS BY SIMON BERETHEUX

MARTIN BANKS

Artist & Filmaker

A visual artist with a background in production for events and Vjing, his creative input to Light Surgeons includes film making and animation. He continues to work in areas of video production, design and nonsensical artistic creations. He’s now based in Australia pursing amongst other things his accidental and directionless project Notes To People.

PROJECTS BY MARTIN BANKS

MARK BLACKBURN

Artist, Illustrator & Composer

Mark ‘Blackie’ Blackburn, the Earl of Mortlake, took a musical interlude from working on various live concert visuals projects with TLS to form the downtempo audio outfit Kinobe in 1999. He now lives on the south coast, making babies, playing records and drawing pictures which you can see more of here:
http://web.me.com/wildandpeaceful

PROJECTS BY MARK BLACKBURN

ANDY FIRMAN

Photographer & Designer

Now based in Dublin, Andy works on technical production for a range of different live events. He was an original member of The Light Surgeons in the UK before migrating to Ireland.
He is a talented artist who has worked on countless visual productions and specializes in touring performance operations.

PROJECTS BY ANDY FIRMAN

BEN ALLEN

DJ & Music Producer

Born in London, based in Portland Maine, Ben’s background is in music production and DJing. He released several albums under the Dynamic Syncopation (DSP) name in the UK on Ninja Tune before leaving to live in the USA. He has contributed audio production work on various projects in the early days of the studio, as well as collaborating as a scratch DJ on live AV performances APB and True Fictions .

PROJECTS BY BEN ALLEN

MARK MCRAE

Musican & Composer

Born in London and now based in sunny southern Italy via a stint in Berlin, Mark is a prolific musician and award winning composer we collaborated with on our True Fictions live AV performance project. His personal projects include session work for various bands and writing and composing music for film and advertising. You can find more of his work here: http://markmcrae.co.uk/

PROJECTS BY MARK MCRAE

TOM WALL

Director, Animator & Audio-Visual Artist

Tom has directed and contributed animations to various video productions for the studio over the years. He oftern works in collaboration with his partner Satako Wall through their studio practice BlinkinLab. They have both produced many of CGI lead animations for our music related projects. More of his excellent work can be found here: www.blinkinlab.com

PROJECTS BY TOM WALL

TOBY HARRIS

Audio-Visual Artist & Developer

Toby is an audio visual artist who works under the name Spark from a studio in London. He has produced a huge amount of different visual productions from arts to commercial clients.
He has help direct and produced several different creative projects at The Light Surgeons and have made a short film about live cinema which you can watch here. You can find more of his work on his website: http://sparkav.co.uk/

PROJECTS BY TOBY HARRIS

HELEN OMAND

Research Producer & Editor

Helen has worked on several short films, installation and AV performance projects at the studio since 2007. With a background in TV production, Helen worked as a freelance artist, researcher, filmmaker and editor. Helen works in arts in health and community arts in East London, She is a practising art therapist and academic at UCL and Goldsmiths. Her personal website can be found here:
https://cargocollective.com/helenomand

PROJECTS BY HELEN OMAND

TIM GFRERER

Interaction Designer & Creative Coder

Tim Gfrerer is a designer, coder and writer who creates narrative experiences, collaborating across disciplines. With an academic background in graphic design and new media, and over a decade of experience in journalism and creative production for radio, he strives to explore the human condition as it is reflected in our now and future. More of his own projects can be found here:
poniesandlight.co.uk,
oo43.com

PROJECTS BY TIM GFRERER

JAMES GEORGE

Media Artist & Software Developer

James George is a media artist and software developer based in Brooklyn, New York. He partnered with us on the implementation of the bespoke software and generative visuals for our National Maritime Museum Voyager’s installation through his previous company Flightphase. He now runs a wildly successful volumentric software company called Scatter in NYC. His personal projects can be found here:
http://www.jamesgeorge.org/

PROJECTS BY JAMES GEORGE

MITCHY BWOY

Graphic Designer & Artist

Mitchy Bwoy is a prolific graphic designer and illustrator who is a music and culture obsessive. He tirelessly supports and communicates the best of what he feels contemporary life has to offer. His vast portfolio of work spans music and clothing design but he continues to innovate & diversify.
He has contributed to various video projects here over the years and also shared our studio space. More of his work can be found here: http://mitchybwoy.com/

PROJECTS BY MITCHY BWOY

Olivier Ruellet

OLIVIER RUELLET

Media Artist, Animator & Web Developer

Olivier passed away in New York in January 2011. He was a very kind and passionate artist who’s life and energy will live on in all those who knew him. He was a prolific multimedia artist with a extensive knowledge of CGI animation and passion for creative programming. During our short time working with him he had contributed to several projects including the rebuilding of our website. Many of his inspired projects an be viewed on his website: http://ctrl-n.net

PROJECTS BY OLIVIER RUELLET