Hello! Thanks for coming out.

I’m Deborah Johnson — also known as CandyStations — a multimedia artist, designer, educator, and visual librettist. I create multifaceted visuals for stage and screen by weaving analog and digital processes, lovingly steeped in research and rigor.

I’ve collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Sufjan Stevens,
Sarah Kirkland Snider, Sofi Tukker, M83, Annie B. Parson, Tamar-kali, Ray LaMontagne, Kronos Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, and Wilco — with performances at Lincoln Center, Coachella, Disney Concert Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Museum of Modern Art, MASS MoCA, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, The Fillmore, and Wiener Konzerthaus.

I’ve produced site-specific performances and installations at SXSW, Lighthouse ArtSpace, Sundance, 92Y Tribeca, MoMA, Chicago’s Millennium Park, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, with residencies at MASS MoCA, The Experimental Television Center, NYU, Slalom NYC, and The Atlantic Center for the Arts. I also present regularly on performance design and the evolving relationship between classical and emerging technologies as an artist and educator.

As CandyStations, I celebrate the collaborative nature of live performance, accessing a diverse network of fabricators, lighting designers, artists, and programmers to create transcendent, responsive experiences by merging digital and handmade processes. There’s everything from lines of code to piles of charcoal in this studio — if it works, use it.

Download a full CV of my past lives and loves (PDF).

RECENT PRODUCTIONS

• SWARM (2023)
  Visual direction and content design for Donald Glover and Amazon’s immersive premiere at Lighthouse LA, in collaboration with Brian Chasalow, Chelsea Hash, and sound designer Christopher Lane.

• Wet Tennis (2022 - 2023)
  Content design and visual direction for Sofi Tukker’s album tour, featuring a hybrid of band-driven motion collage and 3D graphics, in collaboration with 2n/Eye Garden and lighting designer Sarah Landau.

• New Edition Reunion Tour (2023)
  Select content design in collaboration with 2n/Eye Garden, translating the band’s original music videos into new visual realms.

• Age of Reflections (2024)
  Projection-mapped live visuals for Suzanne Ciani’s Seven Waves tour and Time Wharp at The Church of Heavenly Rest.

• Melanc’Holy Ghosts, and Other Mothers (2022 - Future)
  Visual design for Tamar-kali Brown’s powerful, gothic performance based on three suffrage-era poets and activists. Performed at Harlem Stage, produced by BMP.

• Helios (2022 - Present)
  A 14-movement celestial video design for Timothy Takach’s expansive choral composition. A gallery of photos can be viewed here.

PAST LIVES AND LOVES (DOWNLOAD CV)

Kronos Quartet, Adrift, collaboration with Braden King (Visual Design)
Now Ensemble, Chant (Visual Design)
Sandbox Percussion, The Pillars (II/VI), collaboration with Maggie Royce (Visual Design)
Visiting Artist, Illinois State University, Creative Technologies (Live Visual Design and Performance)
Unity Technologies, Stadium (Creative Direction and Design Consultant)
NY Live Arts, Live Visual Art for Music (Panelist with Joshua Light Show and VIDVOX)
Annie-B Parson/Onassis Foundation, 6’ (Video Design)
Sufjan Stevens and Lowell Brams, Aporia (Video Design)
Sofi Tukker, RIP Shame World Tour/Coachella (Content Design)
Echo Mine, Robyn Mineko Williams, and Artists with Califone (Scenic and Projection Design)
Ballet Dance, Big Dance Theater (Content and Projection Design)
Alarm Will Sound, “Keening” (Creative Direction, Visual Design)
Bang On A Can, Road Trip (Scenic and Projection Design)
Planetarium, Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, and James McAlister (Live Visuals and Lyric Videos)
Ray LaMontagne, Ouroboros (Stage and Video Design)
Beth Orton, Kidsticks (Visuals)
M83, Coachella Main Stage (Live Visuals)
M83, Junk (Visuals)
Sufjan Stevens, Summer Festival (Visuals)
Interstellar Rodeo Festival (Backdrop, Banner, and Sculpture Design)
Sufjan Stevens, Carrie and Lowell (Select Visuals)
TUMBLR IRL @ SXSW (Scenic Design and Live Visual)
Com Truise, SPIN + Microsoft Connect Sessions at Verboten (Live Visuals)
Lucius, Wildewoman at Terminal 5 (Show Design)
Ray LaMontagne, Supernova (Set Design and Visuals)
ETHEL, Documerica (Projection Design)
Planetarium, Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, and James McAlister (Stage and Projection Design)
M. Ward, A Wasteland Companion (Set and Projection Design)
St. Vincent, Strange Mercy (Lighting Design)
Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz (Live Visuals)
HERE [ THE STORY SLEEPS ], Braden King and Pomegranate Arts (Projection Design)
Sufjan Stevens, The BQE (Projection Design and Live Visuals)
Lambchop, Damaged (Stage Design and Live Visuals)
Calexico with Iron & Wine, In the Reigns (Live Visuals)
Wilco, a ghost is born (Live Visuals)