Psychedelic Cyberpunk Art: Cognitive Dissidents

Having your art described as “the closest thing to the visions I’ve experienced on DMT [Dimethyltryptamine]” is most probably a compliment. At the least, it suggests that a drug-induced hallucination is the only other place something like your art can be found. That’s a style that’s hard to find – and an opportunity Murray Furtado of art-for-hire firm Cognitive Dissidents found too good to ignore.

Cognitive Dissidents (the name is taken from a bar in William Gibson’s novel, Virtual Light) is a London-based business that hires these pieces of art out, mainly to festivals and other events. Its part of a truly international operation. The art is created by using UV acrylic paint on fabric by Sayp, an artist in Slovakia. The art is then sent over here to Murray who runs Cognitive Dissidents. From London, the art makes its way back around the world to festivals in countries such as Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, Germany, Czech Republic, and Austria.

The art is psychedelic to say the least. Some, particularly those that use straight lines instead of curves, also have a digital feel about them. Then there’s the neon glow under UV light which, altogether, makes these pieces of cyberpunk art worth sharing.

Unsurprisingly, this cyberpunk art goes hand-in-hand with electronic music. Psytrance, to be precise. Psychedelic trance lies somewhere near hardcore and techno as a genre and is close to what you might expect to hear in a fictional cyberpunk club (if Com Truise wasn’t playing already). Have a listen:

Follow Cognitive Dissidents on Facebook to find out when and where you can catch one of these pieces in the wild.