This piece explores objects created through mathematical rhythm and variation. The same methods are employed in a series of images that I call Visions of Promise. My interest is very similar in this work, to find beauty in nature as interpreted through a system that I have devised. The music is similarly constructed, a looping system of frequency oscillations are layered to create a familiar, but artificial soundscape.
Production Notes
The animation has been created through mathematical variations on spline algorithms. The heading, angle and bank have been altered over time and the motion is from the splines reaction to the changes.
Utopia, perfection and illusion are some of the ideas I wanted to explore with this group of images. I recently stumbled upon the work of Ernst Haeckel and was fascinated by the beauty of his drawings and his obsessive desire to find rational structures in everything he observed. As an artist I have always been interested in creating imaginary spaces that are both real and unreal, these works represent my exploration of that space.
Drawing from Haeckel and from my computer programs I started to create structures that I felt capture a sense of order, beauty and utopian perfection. With each piece, I have started with a structure, repeating and folding that structure upon itself using iterations of change in the underlying mathematical structure of the object. I wanted to create objects that felt both pictorial and physical, to varying degrees in each image. I am interested in blending these different realities as a way of exploring the connections between. I think of my life, living in an urban, controlled space, at once separate from and yet still part of the natural world. Or, of my relationships, people who I see regularly are not necessarily as vivid as online relationships. Friends are closer based not on physical location but on activity.
Through these works I hope to slow down the viewer, draw them in and have them consider issues of perception, reality and the value of the object. Far from being a scientifically accurate artist, Haeckel changed the subject to fit his concept of beauty. He used the guise of science and realism to make his vision believable.
This painting was for the cover of the New Republic and depicts the famous sketch by Monty Python “nudge, nudge, know what I mean?”. As a fan, it was great fun to be commissioned to do this cover. It has recently been included in the documentary series about Monty Python called “Almost the Truth – The Ultimate Holy Grail Episode“
These are screenshots from a Processing application that I wrote for my web site that displays a tag cloud with the diameter of the circles determined by the number of tags and a random tag as the fulcrum point. My idea was to highlight the most frequently used terms in my site while also drawing attention to a new random tag each time a person visits the site. Hovering will freeze a tag in position, while clicking will take you to posts with that tag.
The physics is based off the Bouncy Bubbles Processing application written by Keith Peters. The data loads the most popular tags from a text file created by Wordpress. The file is a static text file called test.txt, which is created on the fly. The information is parsed into an array for use in Processing. The original tag cloud is on my tag cloud page.
The future is not written, it evolves and changes based on our actions. Each of these cranes represent a person who hopes and dreams, our presence or absence determines whether the cranes take flight or remain afloat. I first started thinking about a piece like this during the summer of 2006 when it felt that all of Washington DC was being inundated by flooding and rain. Unlike other times when this had happened, there was no hurricane or specific reason for the flooding, it was just days and days of rain. I wanted to explore the intersection of hope and action through a piece that requires action on the part of the viewer to function.
Production Notes
This piece used real-time rendering using video game technologies combined with live sensor data and internet feeds. The origami cranes are repeatedly released into the environment along with the image of a person who had expressed the phrase “I hope” in their Twitter feed. As a viewer approaches the projection, sensor data triggered the flight of the cranes. Without viewers the cranes were left to drift until eventually they dissolved into the void.
Size
maximum screen size: 1920X1200 pixels
optimum size: 1280X1024 pixels
Media
Mac Mini
Proximity Sensors
Plasma Screen display
Software used : Cinema 4D, Unity, Processing and Arduino
For this piece I wanted to explore full dome projection as a topic and as a medium. The format is usually presented in a planetarium space and as such the experience is a fully immersive experience, which is quite different than standard film. With normal film, the viewer feels as if they are “watching” the action and story unfold in front of them. With a medium such as this the audience is actually experiencing the movie as a participant. The contrast between the “flat” medium of film and the immersive quality of the dome is what this piece is really about.
Immersive environments like this share more in common with gaming and role-playing than a traditional film. This first project for me was very enlightening and I believe this format provides a very unique way of engaging an audience. I look forward to exploring real-time dome installations and experiences in the future.
Production Notes
This piece would not have been possible without the help of many different people and entities, including the Gates Planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Daniel Neafus was instrumental in allowing access to the dome and encouraging the development of this project to coincide with a the film GreenIt, created by students in Digital Design at the University of Colorado Denver. The computation needed to generate 4000 pixel square frames was provided by the Digital Design labs at the College of Arts and Media, University of Colorado Denver’s computer labs.
The sound was custom created for the 15.1 channel surround sound that is part of the Gates Planetarium. Prof. Leslie Gaston assisted graduate students in the engineering studies of the sound for the space.
Sound Design
Andrew White
Jay Schamberg
Sound Effects
Andrew White
Jay Schamberg
Jake Montenegro
Special thanks to Aaron Thomas
Format
Digital Image Sequence
Exact Runtime 00 hr : 03 min : 44 sec
Print Details Color,
Film Sound 15 Channel Surround Sound
Aspect Ratios 1 (1×1 Dome Master)
Media
Digital Animation
Software used : Cinema4D, After Effects, Global Immersion
This piece was originally created for Indistinct Boundaries a dance collaboration with Jane Franklin Dance, myself and animator Rassamee Ruangsri. Below is a short excerpt from the animation.
A meditative sound and visual experience that is centered on a pulsing creature inspired by the drawings of Ernst Haeckel. The original sound composition is tightly integrated to a mesmerizing and compelling digital vision that explores rhythm and pulse as a motivating force. I have a hard time describing this as more of a music piece or a motion piece, the animation is almost a background element to the music.
This piece was originally created for Indistinct Boundaries a dance collaboration with Jane Franklin Dance, myself and animator Rassamee Ruangsri. Below is a short excerpt from the beautiful animation Rassamee created.
Originally intended as a projection for the dancer’s bodies to move through, I also feel that it stands on it’s own as a poetic journey into a cell-like structure that matches motion to original music. The organisms dance and relate to each other as they struggle against the confines of the microcosm they find themselves in.
This piece was a collaborative project developed by Jane Franklin and myself for a performance at The Woolly Mammoth Theater’s experimental space in Washington DC. For this project, we decided to explore the topic of in-between spaces and we wanted to try to blur the distinction between the performance and the projected image. I was interested in using chance and randomness as part of my process and developed original music compositions and animation for the 22 minute performance. One of the sequences was developed by Rassamee Ruangsri, a talented artist and animator in Denver and she chose to work with ameoba-like forms that appear to communicate and interact with each other. All of the animations were projected over the dancers bodies as they performed, creating another dimension of movement through their shadows.
At one point in the production, the shadows of the dancers become animated separately from the actual dancers, which blurred the distinction between the live performance and the pre-rendered animations. The score developed into 5 distinct movements which stand as films in their own right. Many different forms of looping and oscillating rhythms were used to create the music and animations. Through the overlapping rhythms and synthetic noise textures data streams were used to create motion and distortion of regular geometric forms. In some sections organic forms emerge and oscillate as they move through virtual space.
Reviews
Express Night Out
JANE FRANKLIN DANCE makes its way to the Woolly Mammoth Theater on Saturday for “That Indistinct Edge,” a collaboration between the NoVa-based troupe and artist Bryan Leister. The choreography touches on representations of probability in everyday life and the music is mathematically composed.
This series of images is continuing with the exploration of mathematically derived objects and landscapes. There is both order and chaos in the way the images are constructed, repetition and variation on a theme. The landscape is inspired by the landscape I see from where I live, on the edge of a plain that collides with the mountains in the distance.
“The Atlanta Film Festival strives to introduce new talent to audiences and has been among the first places to show work by then new filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and Victor Nunez. The Atlanta Film Festival is also a qualifying film festival for the Academy Awards for the Live Action and the Animated Short Film categories, and in 2002 “The Accountant” by director Ray McKinnon won the Oscar in that category after qualifying at the 2001 Atlanta Film Festival.”
The Atlanta Film Festival typically receives over 1700 entries from more than 75 countries, I am very pleased that these two films were selected for screening.
I am very happy to announce that Indistinct Boundaries Movement 2 is an official selection of the 34th Atlanta Film Festival. This piece was a collaborative piece animated by Rassamee Ruangsri and produced for Jane Franklin Dance.
From the Atlanta Film Festival web site:
“The Atlanta Film Festival strives to introduce new talent to audiences and has been among the first places to show work by then new filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and Victor Nunez. The Atlanta Film Festival is also a qualifying film festival for the Academy Awards for the Live Action and the Animated Short Film categories, and in 2002 “The Accountant” by director Ray McKinnon won the Oscar in that category after qualifying at the 2001 Atlanta Film Festival.”
The Atlanta Film Festival typically receives over 1700 entries from more than 75 countries, I am very pleased that our film was chosen for screening.
Thanks to Scott Hull for pointing me to this Fast Company article about what personality type makes the best designer. It seems to be inline with what I would expect, it also makes me wonder (beyond it’s incomprehensible design graphics). To see a trend, I would need to know how other professions would fare with the same criteria. I would think investment bankers would also be good at “intuiting”.
I asked seven digital design students to take a look at the iPad and Kindle, analyze the major points both good and bad and come to a decision about the product. The specific question is what’s going to happen a year from now. Will the Kindle be overshadowed by the iPad, or will it hold it’s own? Is there a market for both kinds of products, a dedicated e-reader and a new type of device?
Here are the key points they found about each product:
iPad Key qualities
a good company
more functions than advertised
Apps
sleek, slender
open door to touch screen
save money on books for college students
hi-def
Universal access (compared to iPhone)
crappy name
glorified iPhone
do we need this?
Kindle killer or iTouch killer?
expensive, fragile
uncomfortable to hold
why is it better than a laptop
great presentation tool
emailing device
can’t read in the sun
will screen get dirty
10 hour battery life, really?
Kindle Key qualities
Good for reading
Specialized
Holds a lot of books
Slow flipping
Comfortable to hold, as a book
Free 3G internet
Good downloading store (with books)
Not that entertaining of a device
Slow
Hard navigating
Keep wanting to touch the screen
crappy browser for internet
Right handed people only
Retro menus (early 80’s)
Appeals to old people
One year from now:
Kindle will be a has-been: 3 votes
Kindle will still be growing in popularity: 2 votes
Kindle will still be in “the fight”: 2 votes
iPad will be an embarrassment for Apple: 2 votes
iPad will be slow-grower like the iPod: 4 votes
iPad will be a revolutionary device: 0 votes
This piece explores objects created through mathematical rhythm and variation. The same methods are employed in a series of images that I call Visions of Promise. My interest is very similar in this work, to find beauty in nature as interpreted through a system that I have devised. The music is similarly constructed, a looping system of frequency oscillations are layered to create a familiar, but artificial soundscape.
Production Notes
The animation has been created through mathematical variations on spline algorithms. The heading, angle and bank have been altered over time and the motion is from the splines reaction to the changes.
Utopia, perfection and illusion are some of the ideas I wanted to explore with this group of images. I recently stumbled upon the work of Ernst Haeckel and was fascinated by the beauty of his drawings and his obsessive desire to find rational structures in everything he observed. As an artist I have always been interested in creating imaginary spaces that are both real and unreal, these works represent my exploration of that space.
Drawing from Haeckel and from my computer programs I started to create structures that I felt capture a sense of order, beauty and utopian perfection. With each piece, I have started with a structure, repeating and folding that structure upon itself using iterations of change in the underlying mathematical structure of the object. I wanted to create objects that felt both pictorial and physical, to varying degrees in each image. I am interested in blending these different realities as a way of exploring the connections between. I think of my life, living in an urban, controlled space, at once separate from and yet still part of the natural world. Or, of my relationships, people who I see regularly are not necessarily as vivid as online relationships. Friends are closer based not on physical location but on activity.
Through these works I hope to slow down the viewer, draw them in and have them consider issues of perception, reality and the value of the object. Far from being a scientifically accurate artist, Haeckel changed the subject to fit his concept of beauty. He used the guise of science and realism to make his vision believable.
I thought it would be fun to revisit a classic assignment Michael Beirut mentioned in a recent post on DesignObserver.com where he showed his student portfolio. The idea is to simplify an animal to it’s most essential elements and create a logo-like image. It occurred to me that those same skills are exactly what is needed when designing characters for game design, and with the game engine Unity now free we should introduce motion as an element.
Beirut’s logo exercise included putting the logo in motion, his version was pretty cool for the 70’s but nothing like what can be done today. We’re talking true 3D motion that the user can control. I think motion will soon be added as one of the core design principles equal to geometry and color in logo design. A few of these have used motion to create a sense of character like the jellyfish and fast turtle. Others used idle sequences like t-rex to add personality. Punk Penguin has a jump that will crash your browser the first time, but works after that!
Below are the design student experiments created this week (with only a few days of working with Unity):
My favorite microcontroller, the Arduino, has hit the big time – a WSJ feature article! For the uninitiated, the Arduino can be hooked up to sensors to detect presence and then it can send out signals to the computer or to motors, LED lights and a bunch of other stuff. The nice thing about doing interactive design with the Arduino, is that it can be a stand-alone installation without the need for a computer to remain attached.
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