'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.