By Cansu Waldron

Michael Woodruff is a London-based multidisciplinary digital artist whose career spans over two decades across film, documentaries, advertising, and art. His work ranges from Hollywood blockbusters and Netflix productions to holograms, brand campaigns, and museum installations. With a deep passion for motion design, archives, and animation, he weaves nostalgia and abstraction through a refined design sensibility.

As a Techspressionist, Michael explores the emotional and perceptual qualities of digital marks, constantly questioning how technology shapes creativity and meaning in contemporary art. Woodruff emphasizes a careful balance between craftsmanship and software-driven creation. His work champions thoughtful engagement with technology — not as a race to keep up, but as an ongoing conversation between the human hand, history, and machine.

We asked Michael about his art, creative process, and inspirations.

Can you tell us about your background as a digital artist? How did you get started in this field?

Well after school, I did a general foundation in fine arts, and had decided computers were where I needed to be, especially to make a living. This was just as Toy Story 2 was being released and also Fight Club for a cultural setting. I didn’t have a computer at that time, apart from an old Spectrum and my Playstation 1. A game on there called ‘Music’ allowed me to make music and also make a video alongside it and that spurred me on to apply to University and a Multimedia Design & Digital Animation course. Making Cd-Roms and 3d characters, which I wasn't massively invested in, but I had taught myself many other pieces of software, notably After Effects, which just really clicked for me.

I was pretty directionless in using creative software, until I saw the OneDotZero festival in London in the early 2000s. That’s when I became aware of a burgeoning motion graphics industry. Not quite one thing, but many disciplines and ideas thrown together, and the one thing I took away from it was that you could make a whole film from your bedroom now with just a PC. I had moved to London and become a runner at FramestoreCFC, which was just embarking on the new Harry Potter films and I thought VFX was where I wanted to be. I ended up moving to a factual TV documentary company, who had just had great success with Touching the Void and I became their in-house design and graphics person. Making maps, titles and VFX… frantically learning as I went along.

I’ve since had a career working across multiple industries as a freelancer and through my one person studio - Nectar Motion. Making graphics for TV/Film, documentaries, commercials and advertising campaigns, which I still do.

The hours and chasing for jobs can be quite brutal and there was a frustration in me of the briefing and narrow range of styles wanted. It hit my artistic sensitivities, so I started experimenting with the tools I used and the plethora of techniques I've picked up and learnt over the years. And it was looking back at those early OneDotZero screenings and the graffiti, skate, music magazines and books and records from my DJ collection, that I felt these had real artistic value still and it was something I wanted to pursue. When I had decided to dedicate more thought and time into it, away from my day to day commercial practice, I stumbled across this idea of Techspressionism and the community of artists that work amongst it all. They've made me feel really welcome in weekly workgroups and Salons, and talks, much like the Paris painters had in Montmartre, but through Zoom!!

*200 views of Rothko’s Digital Graffiti*

You’ve worked across so many formats — from Hollywood films to holograms. What connects all these different kinds of work for you creatively?

The one thing that my jobs have in common (well mostly) is I’ve been using archives, or given certain imagery, 3D models and then I’d have to find the best way to either make a story out of that - or support a director & editor with it - or to find a design framework to bring it all together. I like having something to react against, particularly if it’s storied or has a history. I feel I can connect more with it, that my intention towards it is to present it in the most interesting way, but to be respectful and authentic, which I felt a lot of people neglect. That could be trying to match the look or style if it’s made in a certain period, so it doesn’t feel out of place. And I particularly liked the research and diving into the various technologies and their aesthetics and how best to replicate that. I feel that those techniques and the approach I had is still similar to how I make my art now - as though I'm trying to channel the original artist's intentions, whilst also presenting them in a new way with technology and medias they didn’t have.

Your practice combines nostalgia with digital abstraction. What does nostalgia mean to you in a digital age where everything feels instantly archived?

Nostalgia is such a difficult thing to categorize and runs the gamut of emotions, from a warm fuzzy happiness to feelings of anger and depression, even grief of how it’s all changed. Just look at our current politics and the social discourse around it all. For me the nostalgia stems from the loss of entertainment culture I grew up in and based my career on, or rather its physicality and where it is now, with that instantaneousness you mention. The friction we had of waiting and anticipating for various music and film releases and the industries around that, that promote, critique and remix too. The items and services I had cherished and coveted and the inner world I had created for myself around that all. Like how certain films resonated with me and how I would obsessively record BBC radio1’s Essential mix at 2am on a Sunday morning on cassettes then later through digital archives, to record cover sleeves that combined graffiti/street visuals, typography. They all had a certain swagger, a coolness and a secret inner world, at least to me and that is the same feeling I'm trying to chase in my work.

Now I'm looking more at past artists and movements, particularly the abstract expressionists, like Rothko, Pollock, Krasner & Still and imbue their intentions and themes, whilst looking at the tools I have at my disposal. The glows, blurs, film noises, textures, post-processing and collaging them with scanned real brush strokes, emulations, filters and the kitchen sink of photographic & compositing techniques. I’m not looking at a certain style transfer, say making my imagery cubist or creating with oil paints - which Gen AI can do instantly. I don’t look to the new technology to just emulate, but how the old technologies were utilized and those characteristics and also the same with the new technologies. Things like the halation associated with neon or sodium vapor lights, the qualities of various film noises, the textures from daguerreotypes from 1850s early photography through to VCR and digital glitches and mathematical transforms and noise shaping. They each point to that nostalgia as authentic remnants of the periods they were in use and at the time cutting edge technology or process.

*Going nowhere soon, but they wanted to go and then left*

Can you tell us about some of your favorite pieces or a past or upcoming project? What makes them special to you?

I have countless little projects and techniques in my library from over the years - my memory palace or wunderkammer - but my first real concerted effort was a speculative music video for an Underworld song. I was tired of graphics being so pristine and a push into micro-kinetic animation and styles, particularly around type. I felt that graphic design as a cultural discipline was dead, had lost its swagger and dominance in decisions about itself - it didn’t cater anymore to the physical, that desirable object you could hold or the niche cultures they spoke to or in conveying information in a broad sense. It moved into keynote design speak, strategic psychology, ranked text layouts and controlled systems of tech platforms, along with the jobs and culture around it. I felt this was a good thing to rally around and look back at my inspirations and bring that to life through animation, set to music.

A main inspiration - I have too many - is the design studios of the 90/00s, like Tomato, The Designers Republic, Raygun etc..that had very grunge, ethereal aesthetics and looked more at artistic movements than to any design principles or how it ought to be done. I could always see the way their static designs could be brought into motion. So I picked a song, Denver Luna which they had just released, then realized it was really long, like 8 mins. I think in making that it developed several of my ideas, notably this idea of machined textures and digital graffiti, that also have similar approaches to the abstract painters.

I’ve just come back from my first ever group show in Uzbekistan under Techspressioinism, with several other American artists, all who have had storied careers working with computer arts - and now I'm thinking how I can promote digital art and overcome some of its inherent challenges and problems I see. I’ll probably continue my digital graffiti series and process, but have neglected a lot of my animation I was developing, like with an Anselm Adams series and a tribute piece about Bill Viola I made last year.

Your work often plays with motion, rhythm, and repetition — there’s almost a musicality to it. How does sound or music shape the way you design visuals?

Well music is really everything. I’m lucky I can almost constantly listen to music as I work. I originally wanted to DJ, inspired by the Global Underground albums of City mixes, that effortlessly blended the dj mix, with journalistic travelogue and photography. Along with the superclubs and worldwide dance music communities. It really spoke to me of a blurring of the visual, the thought, and the sound and weaving it into a story. Together they are so much more resonant and long lasting, iconic and I think the way I approach my work is in a chaos of all this swirling around, mixing, interfering, breaking apart and hopefully harmonizing. I can’t really think of the music I love without a visual accompaniment associated with it and that the 2 senses are connected and almost have a tangible feel to them. It’s as if they have a form of something I should be able to feel physically in front of me.

The same with how I design visuals, although I sort of want to distance myself away from a design. Yes my process and workflows are designed and considered, but I like to think they just lay the groundwork for an instrument I can patch together and remix visually to express. Also I make all my work on a layered timeline, i can combine multiple sources on, rather than say static, like in photoshop or in a generative workflow, so every parameter and effect can be manipulated in time. I’ve always worked in motion, so it makes no sense to have a linear piece for me, it all has the potential to change, often frame by frame. There’s always a great tension in the best images, paintings that can capture this idea of movement or change. Pollock being a prime example of the painting as an act in itself, a record of the brush strokes and marks across the canvas. Rothko listened obsessively to Mozart. I like to think that bled though on his canvases as well.

*If you close my eyes forever, will it all remain unchanged*

Having spent over 20 years in digital art and animation, what’s changed the most in how you think about technology as a creative tool?

I’ve sort of mentioned this above in relation to nostalgia and memory and how I approach those technologies - let's not forget paints and paper are technologies and still are exciting and constantly changing with the new - but in relation to ‘digital’ or ‘computer’ arts, there is a fine line in the relationship between software based craft and not relying on the technology to make it for you. Also with the various creative and technical disciplines. I’m very aware that I am not making VFX and calling it art or a ‘graphic design’ or illustration piece. Putting something into the world, we think it’s our right but it has implications. Too much digital art out there, I see this. Immersive spaces, generative & coded art and NFTs have a real problem with this. When you’ve seen it once or twice, the rest feels like a reduction, you’re just gathering around technology or online platforms. It’s not much fun for anyone.

The accessibility aspect is great, more people can engage and be creative but it is very double edged with many issues arising from it. For me, technology as it is now, can try and strip us off identity and lasting progress, but I think we are equally drawn back to the liminal qualities from previous technologies - there is a comfort with familiarity. The rise of plotters is a good example as a result of more people experimenting in coded art and wanting a physical representation of it, not just a jpeg.

Also the digital recreation of any scene with an object or form involves solving three separate problems: the representation of an object's shape, the effects of light and the environment, and the pattern of movement, much like all art. The digital tools we have to do these things have constantly evolved and progressed. The ease and access anybody has to them, and the almost sprint race to make it all better has been a blur in these 20 years. It’s hard to keep up, even compete! I’ve wanted to simplify my relationship with this technical race of relearning and being aware of what’s possible and just iterating making it more realistic. Working with other Techspressionists and seeing how they use technology and other processes has been fascinating and shows that it is not just this idea we have that digital art is just for the young, and having technical aptitude. Anyone can pick this up and start being creative and that enables you to be an artist if you want to be.

*My nerves are raw on being accessible as i dig the hole for my information*

You mentioned Techspressionism, how does that fit in with you as an artist?

Yes it’s a movement of sorts to identify new ways of coming to terms with what we do mostly digitally on a computer which we’ve been doing increasingly since the 1960’s. This speaks to a world transformed by technology, and asks how we feel, connect, and create in the digital age. It builds on the legacy of Expressionism and upon a lineage rooted in the Hamptons, where Jackson Pollock & Lee Krasner lived and worked. As Pollock said “Each age finds its own technique.” It emphasizes feeling over realism, and that now, artists can create with technologies like smartphones, tablets, code, and AI, as modern tools of self-expression. Rather than a single style or aesthetic, it is a community of artists connected through online salons, interviews, and co-working sessions. Also that there is this misconception of technology or the new, is only embraced by youth and it’s of interest only to them and inaccessible to others. For me it’s more that digital art isn’t as much about the singular artist or medium, but it’s the wider community and infrastructure and that as you build that, it generates work that is asking different things and that isn’t found anywhere else. It's trying to inject as much humanity and diversity as is possible, and mostly over Zooms!

What is a dream project you’d like to make one day?

I’ve always worked based on commissions, making graphics for a TV series for example. So that feels like a good fit for me - I need the situation to respond to. As I look at my work, I think back to Bill Viola, Jeff Wall and the presence those artists had in a gallery or space, or how a lot of the abstract expressionists were commissioned to do murals or various pieces for buildings.

Churches have great potential and done right digital could have an impression alongside the various religious art traditions, same for corporate skyscraper lobbies and increasingly the observations & skydecks. So for me that appeals and to tie them around stories and narratives whilst still being expressive. I think they all need humanist touches to connect with people, as opposed to symbols of power or massive scales. Animation and video within art history has always been a bit downplayed and not always had the space it needs to have the impact, so anything to help elevate that. You just want to see your work largescale, and how the tenets of form, colour and movement affect you in different dimensions of scale and immersion. I can just imagine a videowall taking up the entire size of the Tate Modern, like Olafur Elaisson’s ‘Little Sun’ did. Also I'd like to do more work with scientists to help visualise some of the more abstract ideas they work with.

*The injury cannot be healed, It extends through time*

What else fills your time when you’re not creating art?

Sadly it’s the business side of running a buisness, pitching & chasing work and trying to upskill to stay relevant - it's exhausting. The creative industries are in real trouble, despite what we are sold on social media by creators and the companies surrounding it - it’s not a reality that exists and to support yourself through art or other disciplines is getting harder and not as much fun.
So it’s trying to find ways to decompress against all that, like music and getting away from the computer screen. So making digital art isn’t really helping me in that aspect! Trying to make computers fun again!

Lastly, what’s inspiring you right now?

I’ve returned from a holiday in Japan, and like everyone who goes there is blown away by the culture. For me the art I saw and how it is everywhere and woven into life was really refreshing. They have always been ahead in showcasing new media arts, alongside very traditional crafts. They had an fantastic exhibition of digital work at the Mori art museum called ‘Machine Love’ and it was great to see digital work given such prominence and physicality. Also the new immersive art playgrounds that are springing up everywhere, like teamLab - although i have mixed reservations from my artistic perspective with them, it’s great to see so many people engaging and being inspired in these spaces. Great uses of technology in action.

But for me the work that really stood out was their giant art fairs at the National Museum of Western Art and National Art Centre in Tokyo. Vast multi connected rooms filled with members' artwork, across many disciplines. The quality of the work and imagemaking just blew out of the water, everything I see over here in the UK and online. It really is just so much better and being able to see hundreds of paintings by so many different artists at that calibre was astonishing and pretty hard to compete with. I have several catalogues now and from previous years to trawl through and devour.

Also I'm lucky living in London and being able to visit the numerous galleries, mostly centered around Mayfair. Getting up close and personal with an ever changing array of work & ideas and that digital artwork is slowly creeping in and gaining acceptance and with spaces to showcase it.

Varvara Roza galleries have an exhibition of Britt Boutros-Ghali’s abstract work, which is transcendental and I will be taking ideas from that. She’s an amazing painter in her 80s, very inspiring. Also just brushing up on my computer arts history and in general art too. You just don’t realise that in most cases what you are doing has been done before and often much better - with much less - like in my case with Samia Halaby, Stan Brakhage, Hans Richter and Walter Ruttmann.