Hexstatic

Hexstatic, originally called Hex, gained prominence chiefly through their prize-winning visual work supporting the audio collage pioneers Coldcut. From the moment they produced the first computer-rendered pop video for Coldcut’s Christmas Break in 1990, the project has steadily erased distinctions separating music, multimedia, and computing. Graphic designers Robert Pepperell and Miles Visman launched Hex together with Coldcut’s Matt Black and Jonathan More. While crafting videos for Kevin Saunderson, Queen Latifah, and Spiritualized, the collective coded the video game High Banana in 1991. One year later they introduced their multimedia CD-ROM series through Global Chaos CDTV, fusing music, graphics, and games into a single package. Later titles such as Escape, Global Chaos, and Digital Love paved the way for 1994’s AntiStatic, issued simultaneously as CD-ROM, CD, and vinyl on Coldcut’s NTone Records.

Across the 1990s Hex supplied live visuals for Black and More’s performances, and Pepperell created the CD-ROM section of Coldcut’s 1997 album Let Us Play as well as the software deployed on their world tour. Following Pepperell and Visman’s exit, Stuart Warren Hill and Robin Brunson joined the lineup. Their debut Coldcut collaboration, the Timber video, earned awards for its inventive synchronization of looped footage to the music. In 2000 the pair delivered their own NTone album Rewind, a two-disc set merging CD-ROM and DVD functions into a fully synchronized music-video release. Hexstatic returned in 2003 with Listen & Learn, the second volume in Coldcut’s Solid Steel turntablist mix series. Master-View followed in 2004, again pairing a CD with a DVD. Their 2007 album When Robots Go Bad featured guest vocalists Ema J, Sabirajade, and MC Profisee.