Lysander Ashton

Lysander Ashton graduated from Bristol University with a Masters degree in Physics in 2004 and then took an abrupt change of direction and headed into film and video production. He produced short films, music promos and documentaries including for Channel 4 and the UK Film Council.

He was approached by Fifty Nine to work on a show with one real actor and a large cast of cartoons. The show was “Alex” and from then on Lysander was hooked on this new use of video technologies. He has since worked as designer on numerous theatrical productions at the National Theatre, The Young Vic and the Lincoln Centre.

He is now a director of Fifty Nine Productions and has also worked extensively in the world of opera, including the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera and the Royal Opera House as well as on Rufus Norris and Damon Albarn’s extraordinary production of Dr Dee at the ENO and MIF.

In 2012 Lysander took a key role in the realisation of the video design for the London 2012 Opening Ceremony. Fifty Nine provided the video design and content for the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony working with Danny Boyle to realise the Oscar-winning director’s vision, art-directing the video content for all video display systems in the Olympic stadium (including the vast stadium-wide “audience pixel” seat-mounted LED fixtures), and specifically leading Fifty Nine’s in house animation team, creating all the projected content shown that night.

After the enormous success of the V&A exhibition David Bowie is, which Lysander video designed, he is also heavily involved in Fifty Nine’s numerous gallery and installation projects.
Lysander is passionate about marrying together his current artist work and his scientific background and to create new works that enable scientific knowledge to be grasped and understood at a new level by audiences round the world and the pursuit of new technologies that makes this possible.