Rave along with Maxxing’s dizzying visuals

Maxxing is a rave collective, co-founded by Ralf Hersborg and George Leo Manby, conceived at the latter end of lockdown. As nightlife struggled to get back on its feet, groups like Maxxing were forced underground as clubs began seeing closures. As London’s nightlife saw depopulation above ground, below ground something entirely different was brewing. “The DIY attitude balancing resourcefulness, and chaos shaped how we work. Maxxing was born out of that urgency and refusal to wait for permission,” says Ralf.

Upon first glance, the group seems caught between time – taking inspiration from the collisions of past and present. “If we’re surface-level nostalgia-baiting, we always want it to have something seedier behind the image or show some hypocrisy.” It’s a lot more deliberate and curated than that. Maxxing’s visuals could only have been forged within the internet age, calling upon higher powers of decayed-yet-crisp media with glimpses of thens and nows. It feels like subliminal brainwashing, with its fast-paced split-second image visualisers on stage bringing Maxxing a unique space in London’s nightlife – one that knows the importance of the visual experience alongside its music. Resident video wizard Pete Phipps is behind these quick-fire visual attacks, simmering yet sharp and balancing on a fluidity that stops it from pouring over. Ralf explains: “Our event visuals started with Motorhead’s ethos of “going harder and faster” than the competition, which definitely put us on the map initially.”

“Events can lean on dizzying spectacles or the sensuality of bodies in the crowd for their atmosphere,” Ralf continues, “and it’s a constant re-evaluation every event on how to strike the right balance.” Maxxing leans on the following pillars for its design: balance, chaos, resourcefulness, and wildness. These pillars may seem to juxtapose one another, but each arm of its design identity is carefully considered.

When curating a night, the lineup is where it starts first. By situating its next night around the sound, the visuals then unravel. “The way certain acts are paired often hints at a theme or motif we can run with,” Ralf explains. “The goal is to touch on the ethos of a scene without leaning too heavily into cliche,” the visual and sonic work in tandem, both uplifting the other in doing a certain scene justice. Interpersonally, the collective starts by locking themselves in a room, arguing amongst one another, going to the pub, then arguing again. By the end, the identity for its next night is laid out to be refined further.

The core ideas behind its design system, from stage design, to posters, to socials promotion, and more, comes through in various meltings and mouldings. There is a level of alchemy involved in the distillation of imagery Pete engages in to create these split-second visualisers. Described by Ralf as “philosophically moved by Looney Tunes”, you can see how the humorous chaos of the cartoon influences these designs. He starts by dumping images into a folder, wanting the images to adhere to a “specific feeling”, Pete says. “Then I switch between Blender, Touch Designer, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, using a few scripts, and somehow create a video.” A master of many tools, Pete’s end results bring home the dazzle of stage lights, in the visual language of ‘lights, camera, action’, alongside a multitude of imagery in quick succession. Ralf explains, “Like any good DJ set, we’d want to plan out where to go overboard with the visuals and lasers and where to pull back to allow sincere delicate moments to pass through the crowd.” Maxxing essentially takes on the role of a video jockey, catering to the crowd’s visual consumption with the same delicacy as they do in the sonic journey of the night. Not just for the audience, Maxxing’s visuals also curate an experience for its performers – electro pop duo Mgna Crrta told Maxxing’s founder Ralf “they felt like they were ‘trapped inside a video game’”.

Zooming in on the Maxxing logo and motifs alongside it, flood lighting cosplays as stars in the sky around the icon M. For a previous event, in April featuring rising duo Two Shell, its logo universe expanded to sit within the ecosystem rather than just the icon M as a standalone. Featuring greyscale models in dynamic movements of intimate dance and other poses, Ralf has this to say: “They were a photoshoot of real models in movement and then depth mapped, it just looks fake. It was a mix of looking like Xbox graphics, but also looking like military surveillance.” The ways in which its branding morphs into environments is a testament to the collective’s own dynamism as a collective. It creates quick recognition, starting with the crouched-in style of its letter icon. Reminiscent of the sharp, angular graphics of early video games, nostalgia floats up and down Maxxing’s stream of thinking. There is a play with realism, with these greyscale figures. Ralf speaks about this rendering of the classic party lifestyle and says: “We don’t care about the superficiality of the scene and always want to highlight some artifice whenever the opportunity arises. Most of the time you have to play ball though.” With the flashes of glimmer and dazzle in Pete’s videos, the collective definitely takes humour in its position as part of London’s nightlife. No part of Maxxing’s design thinking sits alone, and similarly, there’s no way to explain each module of it without speaking of it at a macro level.

What’s next for Maxxing? Ralf tells us “Maxxing will spend more quality time with loved ones.”