'Digitification'

The Matrix inspired me so much as a child. Even thought I haven't seen this scene in a few years I could imagine it perfectly.



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Holly Herndon - Chorus

ffDirected by Akihiko Taniguchi (http://okikata.org/)

'Holly Herndon: "So much of Chorus was constructed by spying on my own online habits. It felt fitting to invite Akihiko, who I had been spying on online for a long time before my approach, to contribute the visual treatment of the piece." 

Akihiko Taniguchi: "I was interested in exploring the textures of daily necessities and the embodiment / physicality of the computer and Internet. One of the most striking contemporary images is that of the desktop capture, which is seen commonly on YouTube as part of software tutorials. I like the shots of desktops that are poorly organized and 'lived-in'. 

Referencing one of my earlier pieces "study of real-time 3D Internet", I considered how it corresponds to the personal environment outside of the screen and how particular it is to my identity and my friend's identities. I asked several friends to photograph their desktop environments and then rendered these images with custom 3D software, shooting video by moving throughout this virtual space. This video is a collection of records of life of friends and their Internet environments."

Herndon: "I love the idea of depicting the mundane and quotidian in high definition, and how evocative and individual each of these spaces are. Thinking about intimacy and the laptop is familiar territory for me. I've also been thinking a lot about privacy, particularly in light of the ongoing revelations regarding the NSA, which add a more sinister sub-narrative to Akihiko's piece.

The most crucial conversations happening in technology at the moment focus squarely on our work space, our email, our iSight and our smart phone, and how much we can honestly claim those spaces to be ours at all in an era of indiscriminate and imperceptible surveillance."

Thinking about an outcome.

Right, I've been feeling that my project is a bit unfocused. I was trying to make my project about what I'm really interested in but I've realised I'm interested in far too much. This is because we've always been given themes before and I feel this was my first opportunity to pursue exactly what I wanted, how I wanted but it seems I've set the net too wide. But I'd like to think of it as a healthy variety; I have enough ideas and research for three outcomes.
But the aim is to have a final piece!
And that is hard for someone who makes lots of video samples, looping gifs and snippets rather than finished things.

Ok so- what do I want to come out with?
I need to make this piece with the limitations of our college show in mind. If I want to outcome with a video, which I probably do, then it will be shown on a TV screen on rotation with other student's videos.
If I want images, I need to print them off nice and big.
My Sketchbook needs to be flick-throughable.

Quick digital collage. I am imagining a video of me swimming, green screened over facebook/internet footage.

Ok so my final outcome piece is going to be a video. Videos usually should be under 5 minutes in length, otherwise audiences get bored or distracted.

What do I want in my video? Will it be one fluid video with continuity that develops or will it be a bit of a patchwork of shorter videos together like my last project with the spaghetti.
 - I don't have an answer for this yet but a single video can be dull.
I have multiple elements in this project; all my 3D modelling stuff, stuff about facebook, stuff about sci fi. I don't want to force it all together if it's unnatural but I reckon I can definitely pull together real camera footage of myself and others (+projections) and the 3D models that I have been making.

So I suppose this is now my challenge: Make a video along the lines of what I've already been making, over 1 minute, under 3 about humans and the internet.

is that still too vague? Hahaha.

I want some layering of video, using green screen/chroma/luma key, blending modes, projection and transitions to put myself or others 'into' the internet, to involve my 3D renders and create a 'lost down the rabbit hole' feeling.

Head Gifs

http://phong.technology/

William Gibson (Author), Yukimasa Okumura (artist) & 'Glitch Aesthetic' (Facebook group)

I had an image in my mind that I've seen before of a head with lots of cables in a sci-fi-come-HR Geiger style. I thought that it might have been from the science fiction book, Neuromancer by William Gibson. I went and had a look but couldn't find the specific book cover I had in mind but I found so much more! :) I had been thinking about science fiction when cycling home earlier today. I have definitely have been having sci-fi thoughts in my head about experience machines, transhumanism and cyberspaces. I've been looking at old computer graphics since starting this project because you usually need an understanding of what has come before you before you make something for the present, that's my philosophy, anyway. I find old sci fi quite interesting as well because it's from the past relative to me but they are about the future relative to me (and sometimes set in 2000). That leaves us right inbetween, what a cool place to be!
Anyway, check out these book covers-

'Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...' -William Gibson, NeuromancerPretty sweet, pretty glitchy. I don't have a lot to say about these, I'm quite tired and my eyes sting a bit. but as I was scrolling through these book covers, one really really stood out to me: 












 'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel'





'bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void...'

Ahhh, I really love this! So glitchy looking but also clearly a paper collage.
This is the book cover for the Japanese edition of Neuromancer, designed in 1986 by Yukimasa Okumura. I decided to see what other art he's made. 

 I think that this one has been printed on some kind of fabric and distorted, I think! if you zoom in you can see a fabric kind of pattern and the colour looks like it could have been embroidered on but I don't think it was. The pattern is quite 'pixelly' and thus digital looking, the bright primary colours help this as well. I'm not as fussed about this one compared to the collaged picture.

This one is interesting but once again I don't like it as much as the first collaged one. It's good to see that the artist has experimented, though and this poster might be more suitable for it's client.
The reflective dome top of her head is interesting and reminds me of some of the 3D digital art I see.

I like this one more than the two above, the technique is more similar to the first image of Okumura's work for 'Neuromancer'. I decided to see if these books were related and did some more research...  and what do you know- they are!
Burning chrome is a short story in the same universe. Neuromancer and Count Zero are both in the 'Sprawl Trilogy' which famously coined the term 'Cyber space'.

 

Finally, I shared a few of these pictures with a facebook group I'm in, 'Glitch Aesthetic'. There are a huge amount of dedicated different art groups on facebook. I'm in 4 or 5 active digital art groups that range in size. They all massively encourage posting 'OC' (Original Content) If not, the original artist MUST be credited. I find these communities great because they are supportive and provide great criticism and discussion. The 'Glitch Aesthetic' group was perfect because it is dedicated to physical art that is inspired by glitch.

Sometimes I feel that it is my duty to sort and organise data to places it should go. As you can see, it was shared 11 times meaning it will have been seen by hundereds of people because I shared the image which was then shared by another 11.
That means art which I have personally considered good has been seen by many people.
That feels good.... probably because of 'The selfish Gene' proposed by Richard Dawkins that makes us feel good when we spread our own ideologies and geneology.

Anyway, that last part was a bit of a tangent but it's all relevant to my thought processes for this project! I'll see you soon.

'Roll on and on and on...'

Roll on and on and on... by Miguelangelo Rosario on Sketchfab

'Our first Augmented Reality Project for Clubs had Premiere in Wiesbaden, for the 80ties Rollerdisco - Event : “Roll-on”…”Reverse” Augmented Reality without smartphones or tablets…Live camera images from the rollerskaters were integrated into a specially created virtual 3D enviroment…the result was then projected on a 40 m² big screen…So the skaters interact with the animated figures in the trippy enviroments.The event was sold out and 800 people enjoyed the night… So the success of this event will push us to new ideas and into more exciting Exploration into the world of AR Animations, 3D Enviroments, Renderings by Miguelangelo…'

I went and found Miguelangelo's website, Visual Gimmicks: http://visual-gimmicks.club/
He works with projectors and new digital video technology to create immersive experiences and interactive design.

Facebook Projections.

Two days before our Easter Holidays I really wanted to have something to show for my ideas about combining people with their facebooks. I wanted to film classmates all on facebook in silence in the dark but that was proving hard to organise. No one was in Greg's classroom so I slipped in with a camera and tripod, logged onto the classroom PC and turned the projector on. After a few test films on myself I went and talked to Louis, Gil and Nabeel, described my thoughts on what your facebook newsfeed can say about you and they were all willing to participate!
I captured about two minutes of each of them standing in the middle of the shot, I didn't really tell them how to be but just standing there and looking around a bit was what they did and it worked for me!


I have only just got round to putting these videos up onto this blog and was pulling them up in Adobe Premiere Pro to export I couldn't help but have a bit of an experiment! First off, I sliced each of the videos into lots of smaller chinks with the idea that I'd intersperse them all to make the overall video a bit more entertaining for the audience. The logic behind really short snippets was because people have short attention spans nowadays from just sitting on facebook. Then of course I couldn't help but experiment some more! (because it's late and I'm meant to be in college tomorrow).

I tried dividing the videos in the middle of the screen so that we could see different things going on at once. This is already more entertaining and has more 'depth'. I then looked into the cheesy transitions available, played around with them. I liked the 'Random Blocks' transition the best with its pixelly look so I tried pushing the effect of that transition to make it even more entertaining! The final part with all the different blocks of Gil was exciting for me to take a few screenshots!

I really like these stills, especially together in a 3. They are pixelly collages of light and hues, motion blur and text.

In Premiere Pro. This is how the interface looks.

'In Algorithms we Trust'

Hail the all knowing!

I use Google on a daily basis. You probably do too. Even if you haven't searched anything today you've probably seen a google ad or you are signed into chrome or youtube.
We massively rely upon google and as a company they have potential to influence our lives directly.
They could cause political unrest quite possibly, not by writing articles but by only showing certain articles. Their power is not in content/information creation but in content/information curation, sorting and organizing. And we wouldn't know since they keep the coveted google algorithms as secret as Mr Krabs keeps the Krabby Patty formula.

We are at the mercy of Google's Algorithms, and Facebook's and Reddit's algorithms.

They make calculations by giving posts or search results variables such as how many times they have been clicked and how long ago they were posted. But what if we don't only want to see the most popular things or the most relevant things?
Facebook has a 'most recent' sorting option for your news feed. I prefer it because it's the 'Fairest'. I like to see things posted by people I might not have talked to in a while rather than FB only showing you things by who they think are your closest friends.

This is explained better in this TED talk that I highly recommend!




Anyway, these are musings and I haven't fully thought of how I could turn them into art yet really. I could try letting google do the art for me by using the google images results:

How else could I let the sorting algorithms make art?
how could I represent the concept of what's going on in a different way?

I also thought of a phrase that I've grown kinda fond of:

Synthetic Pleasures Gifs

I made each of these Gifs from videos in the 'Synthetic Pleasures' film from 1995, the next blogpost below this one is all about that film. These are parts that I wanted to capture and preserve in easily watched loops! 

A seed explodes into Polyhedra.

A virtual waterfall- how soothing!

Telecommunication. I like these maps, they remind me a lot about my previous project about internet cables.

Microchip man! This really reminds me of an old intro to a game I used to play.

Global Electro Head.

Crystal dancers

Ｆｏｒｅｖｅｒ

Synthetic Pleasures Film

Synthetic Pleasures is a Documentary from 1995 by Iara Lee.

• "Conceived as an electronic road movie, this documentary investigates cutting edge technologies and their influence on our culture as we approach the 21st century. It takes off from the idea that mankind's effort to tap the power of Nature has been so successful that a new world is suddenly emerging,an artificial reality. Virtual Reality, digital and biotechnology, plastic surgery and mood-altering drugs promise seemingly unlimited powers to our bodies, and our selves. This film presents the implications of having access to such power as we all scramble to inhabit our latest science fictions.
  - Written by Anonymous"

I watched parts of the film. It is interesting and certainly like a 'Road Documentary' with snippets of relevant imagery and film paired with interviews with ravers, scientists, teenagers and philosophers. Two thinkers that I respect massively are in the film; Timothy Leary and Michio Kaku.
The whole film is interspersed with short clips from 3D rendered videos from the 1990s. I love this old VHS look, it makes me feel a bit creeped out.


Lots of the quotes are interesting. I do not agree with quite a few of the interviewees' opinions but I find the theme very relevant to my project. It's amazing to think that this film is 20 years old! These people seem so adamant that we are on the verge of living in a 'cyberspace'.
Technology has advanced massively but I feel that these people's dreams of a more immersive virtual reality is only just arriving with consumer products such as the Oculus Rift.
I'm also not sure I believe in a 'Digital Transhuman Utopia' or that it will save us but what I did enjoy about this film is that it makes me feel that it exists, I felt that Iara Lee juxtaposes people and graphics well, combined with the subject matter each of these people are talking about really pulls the viewer into the Virtual world.

I've pulled together a short video of some of my favorite parts. I really recommend watching it!

The fact that people have been talking and thinking about all these things for over twenty years is a bit depressing to me. It simply reminded me that what ever you do it's not very original. Even the graphics are better than what I can do!
I could always sample these videos and use them directly into something else more modern.
But this also got me trying to think about what has changed since 'Digital Pleasures' came out?
what can make my project more original?

Social media? The advancement of mobile technology? The 'sleek and minimal' technology style that has been very popular for quite a while now?

Computer zoom

I made this animation using Adobe After Effects, the same program I made the other gifs for this project on. I love recursive things that go on forever into themselves and the computer screen seems like an obvious thing to use. The computer is like a portal.
I have used feedback loops before- by plugging my camera into my monitor and pointing the camera at the monitor to generate an endless echo. I nicknamed this technique 'Pixelsurfing', you can see a video of it here: https://youtu.be/GrgurEwVfiY

I have made one or two endless zooming gifs before, here is one of them:


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One issue which I always bumped into was the 'swimmyness'- the way the zoom speeds up and slows down. This is because of the relativity between scaling objects. The way I finally worked out how to make it smoother was by using inter keyframes. Keyframes control animation by setting a variable at one point then transitioning to another value at another point. I was animating scale from the first and last frames of the loop only and needed to add a few in between to skew the movement so that it's slower at the beginning. This is all a bit technical but I wanted to show that I revisited a technique and improved upon it.

Alt VR

Hello.
Welcome to your Digital self.

You are in the Alt Virtual Reality,
a program made for people to explore digital spaces together over the internet.
Utilizing the Oculus Rift, headphones and bodytracking people can see one another's gestures, talk together and see facial expression (depending on hardware used).
This world is still accessible from a normal PC with an internet connection but immersion effect is far smaller.

A team of developers are still building the AltVR and it is somewhat limited at the moment but there is already an online community dedicated to coding objects and 3D videos into the AltVR engine.
This means you can sit down and enjoy a 3D film or sculpture with friends who could be thousands of miles away.

Taking a screenshot in the mirror

This proves that a Virtual Art Gallery is possible