‘Bitmap & Experimental Music from the Sri Lankan Diaspora’ – a groundbreaking night of three boundary-pushing audiovisual performances at Café OTO on March 31st. Curated by Toulip Wonder, alongside Suren Seneviratne and Seth De Silva, the event explores pixel art, archival Mac software, and experimental sound.
Speaking to Asian Voice, Toulip discusses her inspiration behind the work, collaboration process and much more.
What inspired you to curate ‘Bitmap & Experimental Music From The Sri Lankan Diaspora’?
I had the brainwave to join forces with Seth and Suren a while after I discovered that Seth and I had both been drawn to this obscure vintage mac software, ‘Flying Colors’. He was using it in his practice back in 2017 and I’d discovered it after becoming a mother in 2022. I made a lot of work within the software while juggling the transition of becoming a parent and figuring out what my new life as an artist and a mother looked like.
I had been asking musician friends for musical offcuts to create videos using animation software when I reached out to Suren. It clicked that all three of us shared intersecting interests—as musicians and visual artists working with vintage Mac software and sounds. I'm also pursuing a PhD, ‘Sounds and Silences in the Archives of Empire’, focused on decolonising records at The National Archives by amplifying Sri Lankan diasporic voices through creative acts. The night was a culmination of these influences, and I knew Café OTO would be the perfect space to bring it all together.
Can you tell us about the collaboration process with Suren Seneviratne and Seth De Silva?
Each of us brings our own distinct practice to the night-some performances were already established, while others emerged directly from this collaboration.
Suren’s ‘Missing Music’ project is a dynamic live improvisation using vintage Mac sound software and plugins, constantly evolving as he explores new discoveries in the internet’s digital archives. Seth, primarily a motion graphics artist, has previously worked on the visual side of live music. For this show, however, he’s performing a unique live AV and DJ set, blending archival film and SCUMM-era video game footage with underground club tracks and eclectic Sri Lankan rhythms.
My piece is an autobiographical tribute to that pivotal time in my life—exploring ‘Flying Colors’ software, navigating parenthood, and the challenges of being both an artist and a mother. More than that, it’s a love letter to my family, my heritage, and the transformative power of decolonising through creativity.
The event explores pixel art, archival Mac software, and sound. How do these elements come together in the performances?
‘Flying Colors’ is a pixel art stamp software and drawing tool similar to Deluxe Paint or Kid Pix, but it includes stamps drawn by one of the most famous pixel artists of our generation, Mark Ferrari. The three of us were all drawn to Mark’s artwork at different stages and originally I thought we were going to centre things more specifically around the ‘Flying Colors’ software. In the end we broadened the scope of the night to allow space for our individual practices that utilise those elements. Suren’s vintage mac software in his Missing Music project, my performance piece which centres around the pixel art software and Seth’s performance which will be featuring some visuals from SCUMM era games which are some of the games that Mark Ferrari helped create the pixel art for.
How does your Sri Lankan British identity shape your approach to experimental music and digital art?
Each year, I find myself diving deeper into my heritage. After drama school, I had a stark wake-up call—suddenly confronted with my Sri Lankan identity, or rather my ‘brown-ness’, in a way I hadn't fully processed before. My music video ‘Fortune Baby’ reflects that journey—a story of closed doors leading to a reclamation of heritage and identity.
Being of dual heritage and third culture, it took time to understand what my Sri Lankan roots mean to me. Now, I’m deeply engaged in reclaiming that identity on my own terms. Digital art and experimental music offer boundless creative worlds where I can rewrite both history and my future. In that sense, I’m grateful my acting career never fully took off—I wouldn’t trade this creative freedom for success on someone else’s terms.
What do you hope audiences will take away from the event?
I want their minds to be blown. I want them to feel the love in the space and solidarity within it too. I want them to feel love. To reconnect with their humanity. I want them to remember what it is to be human. I want them to have a great night out and go home thinking, wow, those were some seriously amazing performances, I feel healed, my faith’s been restored, I want to see those artists perform again! And then finally, “…how much do flights cost to Sri Lanka…?”.
