A decade ago, venture capitalists declared, “Software is eating the world”. Since then, entrepreneurs have used software to disrupt industry after industry. Marcus Owen Bell, known as “Calmsurble”, is one of those disruptors, using technology to deliver a new experience of music.
Bell is a master of mixed reality art, creating art forms for a new era. Bell has an impressive number of international clients who appreciate his ability to create evocative, emotionally powerful, authentic art. It’s an art form that is only possible because of the unique way that his mind works.
We are living in a time of disruption and revolution, and Bell brings to this revolutionary era the sensibility of the classically-trained artist he is. He has worked as an actor, in movies and television, and he has worked as a musician. The classical sensibility he has gives him a profound sense of form and design that is often missing from today’s artists.
Bell’s stage name speaks to his desire to dig deep into his psyche in order to tap into the most creative elements of his being. The name hints at his ethos and what he attempts to create through augmented reality.
As one of the key figures in the augmented reality art movement, he is stretching its possibilities and bringing it to the world. Augmented reality, which is in effect a digitally imposed reality over our actual reality, imposed through the medium of technology, has arisen with advances in augmented reality technology. For instance, an augmented reality artist might create the image of a purple elephant drinking from a river of milk, an image which appears before you when you wear augmented reality glasses. A mere table, then, can suddenly be the scene of this dramatic moment. The world is changed through the medium of augmented reality.
The Marcus Bell (Calmsurble) King Walk Album is a testament to Bell’s vision as a musician and his unique sensibility, founded on an appreciation of how the classical relates to the hypermodern.
Bell’s vision has won him a legion of fans on his YouTube channel, where he uses Kabuki theater to narrate his unique vision. Kabuki theater is an ancient form of Japanese theater that in many ways is apt for the times. Kabuki is played by an all-male cast who play even the female roles. What makes Kabuki so modern is its use of masks to represent the various characters and emotions they undergo. In a world of technology in which we are increasingly relating to each other through social media and behind avatars and online personalities. In that sense we have entered an era of role play and the whole world is a Kabuki theater. Bell took on this tradition and modernized it with his Pokimane Musical, which combines animation with augmented reality to deliver an incredible sensory experience.
Bell’s work in art speaks to the possibilities thrown up by augmented reality and other technologies. It also speaks to the potential for a fertile collaboration between the classical and the hypermodern.