FuzzPop Workshop creates art and opportunities

Daniel Murray founded FuzzPop Workshop, a Milwaukee-based multimedia production studio in 2021. The company specializes in immersive local art and is the creator of the popular Deep Lake Future art exhibit at Var Gallery.

The art experience features interactive sculptural elements, hidden passageways, projection mapping, and a 3D soundscape. The well-attended exhibit has been extended through the end of March.

The experiential project is a success, but Murray is just getting started.

He has his sights set on creating unique, locally focused immersive art experiences across the country, and gener8tor is helping to create the path for FuzzPop Workshop to realize its business goals.

Murray participated in the Fall 2023 cohort the gener8tor Art X Sherman Phoenix accelerator. The seven-week program provided the artists with a $10,000 grant and business mentorship.

“Working with gener8tor Art and being part of the accelerator was great, “he said. “The community of artists that were part of the program were all incredibly inspiring, and being part of the gener8tor community has been really transformative for FuzzPop Workshop, and for me personally.”

“We’ve developed some exciting new partnerships and collaborations,” Murray continued. “Now, we are working with a team of engineers at Rockwell Automations for future projects. That was a connection through the program. I’ve been able to travel around the country to research and meet with creatives and founders of immersive art experiences. We’ve been able to benefit from the wealth of knowledge as we develop the business side of FuzzPop Workshop.”

The company is vying for a spot in the Spring 2024 cohort of the nationally recognized gener8tor Madison Accelerator.

“I would love to be part of gener8tor investment accelerator, but I recognize that this is an odd fit, not the traditional kind of startup,” Murray said. “At the same time, it’s not the typical profile for the gener8tor Arts fellowship, either. I’m doing a much bigger collaborative project that is working with artists and creatives but walks a line between art and themed entertainment. I see us trying to do themed entertainment in a very artistic and more sophisticated way, but also creating art that is more broadly accessible in the ways that themed entertainment can be.”

“My hope is that the investment accelerator thinks ‘we’ve seen what a little bit of support can do.
Let’s see what a lot of support can do’,” he said.

At this time, the company’s revenue model is tied to ticket sales and a line of merchandise that includes t-shirts, enamel pins and posters.

“We’re developing two arms of the studio. Our next big step is developing a flagship permanent attraction in the Milwaukee area. Now, we have a 1300 square-foot space. We plan to have a 30,000 plus square foot, warehouse-scale, permanent attraction that would include an immersive experience, as well as performance and arts events space, a learning center, café and, of course, a beer garden. We want this to be an anchor for the creative community in Milwaukee,” he said.

“The second arm of the studio will do more site-specific temporary installations,” Murray continued.  The company will create an installation for the 2024 Gleam event hosted by the Olbrich Botanical Gardens this summer. Murray plans to focus his expansion on mid-sized cities with markets similar to Milwaukee.

Establishing FuzzPop Workshop headquarters in Milwaukee was a deliberate choice for Murray, a Whitefish Bay native who has spent the last 20 years living in California.

“I’m one of the people who is part of the exodus from the coasts. I think of myself as a boomerang evangelist,” he said.

“It’s possible to do something like this in Milwaukee in a way that wouldn’t have been possible in the Bay Area. The cost of living, the cost of space and the saturation in the market made this really difficult.
Here there is space. There’s energy. Things are affordable,” he explained.

“One of the things that drives me is thinking about this not only as an art experience, but as a driver of the creative economy in the city,” he said. “This will provide a bunch of exciting continuous opportunities for artists and creatives to be involved in and allow people to see Milwaukee as a place where they can imagine a future as a creative.”

“It’s a smaller pond in some ways, but also one that is really rich in resources and talent. People are hungry, both on the design and creative side, as well as the audience, for something like this. All of those things converged as an opportunity to be a part of the longer-term vision for Milwaukee,” said Murray.

To learn more about FuzzPop Workshop, connect with the studio here.