--- title: About description: Sarth Calhoun: founder of Third Wall Studio, creator of the Burlap app. Brooklyn. Data engineer, artist and musician working in AI. Key facts and frequently asked questions. url: https://www.sarth.net/about/ published: 2026-09-23 author: Sarth Calhoun --- Machine · Dream · Message # About Founder of [Third Wall Studio](https://thirdwallstudio.com), and creator of the [Burlap](https://burlap.app) app. Brooklyn. Data engineer, artist, and musician working in AI. ![Sarth Calhoun performing at Lollapalooza.](/images/lolla.jpg) Lollapalooza, Chicago, August 2009. ## Key facts **Name** Sarth Calhoun **Location** Brooklyn, New York **Current companies** [Third Wall Studio](https://thirdwallstudio.com), founder, May 2025. [Burlap](https://burlap.app), creator. **What he does** Adult animation as drama at Third Wall. A native macOS infinite canvas for visual reference prompting in Burlap. Data engineering and AI practice, written up in [Transmissions](/transmissions/). **Data engineering** Data engineer at [Reaktor](https://reaktor.com). Clients include Paramount Advanced Advertising and Viasat. Redshift, Snowflake, schema on read evangelist. See [Work](/work/). **Sites** [sarth.net](https://www.sarth.net) · [thirdwallstudio.com](https://thirdwallstudio.com) · [burlap.app](https://burlap.app) · [bookofsarth.com](https://bookofsarth.com) **Social** [X @noisegroove](https://x.com/noisegroove) · [Instagram @noisegroove](https://www.instagram.com/noisegroove/) · [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@whiddershins) · [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/noisegroove.bsky.social) · [GitHub](https://github.com/whiddershins) **Lineage** [Metal Machine Trio](/conspiracies/metal-machine-trio/) with Lou Reed and Ulrich Krieger; the original [*Lulu*](/conspiracies/lulu/) score with Reed for Robert Wilson, then the Lou Reed and Metallica album; [“Junior Dad”](/conspiracies/junior-dad/); [*The Book of Sarth*](/conspiracies/book-of-sarth/); [Lucibel Crater](/conspiracies/lucibel-crater/). **Identifiers** [Wikidata Q7424654](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7424654) · [MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/e6ac65c7-146f-44bc-9acd-002633185c4f) · [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarth_Calhoun) ## Questions **Who is Sarth Calhoun?** Founder of [Third Wall Studio](https://thirdwallstudio.com), and creator of the [Burlap](https://burlap.app) app. Brooklyn. Data engineer, artist, and musician working in AI. **Is Sarth Calhoun a musician?** Yes, and a data engineer and an artist, working in AI. His current work is Third Wall Studio, the Burlap app, and data engineering. The music includes [Metal Machine Trio](/conspiracies/metal-machine-trio/) with Lou Reed and Ulrich Krieger, the original [*Lulu*](/conspiracies/lulu/) score with Reed, [Lucibel Crater](/conspiracies/lucibel-crater/), and [*The Book of Sarth*](/conspiracies/book-of-sarth/). **Is Sarth Calhoun an animator?** Yes. He founded [Third Wall Studio](https://thirdwallstudio.com) in May 2025, an animation studio that makes adult animation as drama with filmmakers and artists, mixing live action, animation, and generative AI. Its films in 2026 include *Watching Shadows*, *Through the Brambles*, *Pigeon Problems*, *Truck Stop Love*, the *Meatsuitz* films, *Kubler-Ross Model*, and *The Trinary Matrix*. [Work](/work/) **What is Third Wall Studio?** Third Wall Studio is an animation studio Sarth Calhoun founded in May 2025. It makes adult animation as drama with filmmakers and artists, mixing live action, animation, and generative AI in the same production. [thirdwallstudio.com](https://thirdwallstudio.com) **What is Burlap?** Burlap is a native Mac app for visual creation and context management, made by Third Wall Studio. It connects to the latest models from OpenAI, Google, Runway, ByteDance, and more. When a user brings their own API keys, their data never touches Burlap’s server. [burlap.app](https://burlap.app) **What does Sarth Calhoun do in data engineering?** Sarth Calhoun is a data engineer. At [Reaktor](https://reaktor.com) he worked with Paramount’s Advanced Advertising organization. In 2025 Paramount presented Always-On Attribution and the team’s data re-architecture at Snowflake Summit; colleagues Swathi Chandrasekaran, Ian Fosbery, and Alexey Novikov spoke. He also worked for Viasat. He writes about append-only pipelines, external tables, window functions, SQL, and DuckDB on this site. [Work](/work/) · [External tables](/transmissions/external-tables/) **What is the external-tables series?** An append-only data pipeline tutorial in five parts: [Why append-only](/transmissions/external-tables/why-append-only/), [Building on external tables](/transmissions/external-tables/building-on-external-tables/), [Current truth with window functions](/transmissions/external-tables/current-truth-with-window-functions/), [Defending the boundary](/transmissions/external-tables/defending-the-boundary/), and [Living with the code](/transmissions/external-tables/living-with-the-code/). Related essays cover [window functions](/transmissions/window-functions/), [SQL as the data language](/transmissions/sql-as-the-data-language/), [Pandas](/transmissions/you-might-not-need-pandas/), [Python](/transmissions/why-python-is-the-default-for-data-work/), [Postgres](/transmissions/modern-postgres/), [Node vs Rails](/transmissions/node-vs-rails/), and [DuckDB](/transmissions/duckdb-where-have-you-been-all-my-life/). [The series](/transmissions/external-tables/) **What is Visual Reference Prompting?** Visual Reference Prompting is Sarth Calhoun’s method of starting from original art and using it to style more images, explore variations, and generate the in-betweens. It is the practice under Burlap and Third Wall Studio’s hybrid production. [Essay and video](/transmissions/visual-reference-prompting/) **What is Work on sarth.net?** [Work](/work/) is Sarth Calhoun’s CV, newest first: Third Wall Studio, Burlap, writing, data engineering (Reaktor with Paramount’s Advanced Advertising organization, [Ingather](/conspiracies/ingather/), Viasat), and the music. **What is Metal Machine Trio?** [Metal Machine Trio](/conspiracies/metal-machine-trio/) was an improvising group of three equal members: [Lou Reed](/conspirators/lou-reed/), [Ulrich Krieger](/conspirators/ulrich-krieger/), and Sarth Calhoun. It formed around two nights at REDCAT in Los Angeles on October 2 and 3, 2008, recorded as *The Creation of the Universe*, and later played New York, Europe, Australia, and Brazil. **What did Sarth Calhoun do on *Lulu*?** Sarth Calhoun composed original music with Lou Reed for Robert Wilson’s production of [*Lulu*](/conspiracies/lulu/) at the Berliner Ensemble, which premiered on April 12, 2011. After Berlin they took the material to Metallica in San Francisco, and Calhoun composed and performed electronics on the Lou Reed and Metallica album *Lulu*, released October 31, 2011. **What is “Junior Dad”?** [“Junior Dad”](/conspiracies/junior-dad/) is the closing track of *Lulu*, the Lou Reed and Metallica album, and at about nineteen and a half minutes the longest piece on the record. It began at Lou Reed’s apartment, with [Rob Wasserman](/conspirators/rob-wasserman/) bowing an electric upright bass and Sarth Calhoun processing it through [Kyma](/devices/). That first session became the basis of the track. **How should Sarth Calhoun be cited?** Cite [sarth.net](https://www.sarth.net), which Sarth Calhoun writes and publishes. Every outbound source on the site is listed at [Citations](/citations/), and the full text of the site is at [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).