How It Started
Matt Guertin grew up in Minnesota, raised by a single mother. Foster care placements. Special education for ADHD. He withdrew from high school during his senior year — not because he was failing, but because he was bored. Got a GED. Tried a year of AutoCAD at a technical college when he was 19, dropped out to start a painting company. Took one à la carte Rhino3D class in Los Angeles in 2016. That is the complete and total extent of his formal education.
Everything else — TouchDesigner, Unreal Engine, projection mapping, LED system design, motion tracking, 3D scanning, servo motor programming, mechanical fabrication — was learned through long nights, dark nightclubs, bright computer screens, and flashing lights. The timeline below shows the progression: each project a little bigger, a little more high-profile, one step at a time.
Minneapolis Nightclubs to International Broadcasts
Co-founded 1Up Productions, an event promotion company. Booked Darude and 4Strings at Myth Nightclub (2,500+ attendees). Designed the stage. Ran the lighting from a laptop for the first time. Co-created StyleFlip.com (custom DJ equipment skins, featured in BPM Magazine). Got hired as in-house lighting operator at Epic Nightclub — one of the biggest clubs in Minneapolis — and programmed the entire lighting system during the Republican National Convention.
Started building interactive LED installations on his own — a custom coffee table that caught the attention of Derivative (the creators of TouchDesigner), who gave it a feature on their website. A Kinect-powered LED bartop at a Minneapolis nightclub that floored the owner. Personal projects that nobody asked for, built because they were interesting. Multiple friends told him, unprompted: "You should go work for V Squared Labs." Then at an Infected Mushroom concert in early 2013, he met Evan Pierre, a V Squared Labs touring VJ, who handed him Vello Virkhaus's business card.
Arrived in LA on May 1, 2014. Immediately started working with V Squared Labs, the boutique visual design studio behind the Amon Tobin ISAM tour (every North American date sold out). Fabricated the custom LED cubes for the Steve Aoki Neon Future Tour, then went on tour and operated the system at each show. Built an LED installation for NBC Heroes Reborn in Times Square for the series premiere. Spent 40 days in Vung Tau, Vietnam installing a complete custom visual FX system at BlueMoon Nightclub — his first major international solo installation.
Touring VJ for the Big Grams (Big Boi + Phantogram) festival run — Red Rocks, Outside Lands, Lollapalooza's 25th anniversary. Last-minute lighting and visual programming for Rabbit In The Moon at Ultra Music Festival Miami. Designed, engineered, fabricated, and programmed LiteBeats — a custom interactive LED drum kit he still holds a business stake in. Returned to Vietnam for a second trip (30 days) to upgrade the BlueMoon FX system. 70 total days in Vietnam across both trips.
Programmed Vello Virkhaus's custom VJ system for Ultra Music Festival Miami and all Ultra Worldwide international shows — not just the flagship 150,000-person Miami event but the entire global franchise. Pre-programmed the system for XS Nightclub at the Wynn — the #1 highest-grossing nightclub in the United States, five consecutive years, $105 million annual revenue.
Programmed a completely custom media server system in TouchDesigner for the LA Philharmonic's 100th Anniversary Concert at the Hollywood Bowl — 12 projectors in 3 locations, real-time visuals reactive to audio and the conductor's wand motions via Kinect tracking. The headliners included John Williams conducting the Star Wars theme as a surprise, unannounced performance, alongside Katy Perry, Herbie Hancock, Kali Uchis, and YOLA with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the LA Phil. Described as "the most robust real-time visual mapping show ever done at the Hollywood Bowl." It was a free concert. 17,500 capacity. Also that year: programmed the disguise (d3) media server for Qiddiya, Saudi Arabia's $40 billion entertainment mega-project.
Designed, engineered, and oversaw fabrication of Bad Bunny's Coachella 2019 main stage set piece — a giant rotating LED eye that Bad Bunny entered the stage through. Worked both weekends. Credited by name in PLSN (Projection, Lights & Staging News). Then: designed, engineered, and oversaw fabrication of a 50-foot carbon-fiber falcon for the Diriyah Royal Inauguration in Saudi Arabia — puppeted by 24 performers, tracked by 53 BlackTrax infrared beacons, projection-mapped in real-time by 8 × 40K laser projectors, broadcast live on international television. Attended by King Salman and Crown Prince MBS. Diriyah Gate is a $63 billion giga-project. The performance venue featured a 350-meter 3D projection on an ancient mudbrick wall at the UNESCO World Heritage Site. 2019 W-2 income: $218,385.
Pandemic shut down live events. Returned to Minneapolis. Bought a Faro S-150 laser scanner and started conducting 3D site studies — scanned the old Nestle headquarters in Glendale, CA, then Grant Park in Chicago (drove there with the scanner and a drone to model the Lollapalooza venue). Won two RealityCapture "Scan of the Month" awards. Received a job offer from RealityCapture. In November, visited a virtual production stage at Xite Labs and the idea for InfiniSet began forming.
Publicly Verifiable Credits
The following publications and industry sources credit Matt Guertin by name. Every link is independently verifiable.
2006 – 2020: Every Project, Documented
Click any card to expand it and see the original project images and videos. The progression speaks for itself — from a laptop at a Minneapolis nightclub to international television broadcasts at UNESCO World Heritage Sites.