Monday, May 10, 2021

Imran Shakoor: Project 3 Relief Mapping

 Concept: The concept was to bring to life a larger sculpture that I created in Fabrication Lab 2 in semester of Fall 2020. The two concepts I wanted to bring together were heartbreak and breaking (known more widely as break-dancing).

Technique: I first used the MakerBot in the 3D studio to print out a 3D miniature of my sculpture. It printed correctly for the most part except for the top parts, which I had to break off and tape back on in the correct position (it is for that reason I had to use sticky tack to set it on its surface, otherwise it stands on it's own). I then placed the "Heart Breaker" on a cardboard cutout with tape on the sides holding it the ground (in this case was the grey blanket) that acted as a breakdancing surface to further build the piece. Once that was set, I opened Madmapper and brought in the obj. file of the the heart and calibrated it with the relief sculpture. Prior to that I had to adjust some of the UV mapped seams in blender because when I brought it into Madmapper it gave a weird form that would not allow to be correctly projection mapped on. Once it was calibrated, I brought in a video montage of people breakdancing from several videos that I found on youtube and applied it over the surface. I made sure to have one side of the heart with only colors projected on and the other side to have the dancers dancing on for ease of understanding and compositions sake. I changed the contrast a bit to get a better hue of the video on the sculpture. I also raised the thickness of the lines to bring out more of the sculpture. On the cardboard surface I added a strobe light emanating from the center to the edge of square to bring it all together. I added an audio control so that it would rotate mutually to the sound of the song. The song was "Money in the Bank" by Swizz Beats. It was really bouncy and is popular for breakdancing so I thought it would be good to use. Lastly, I added an animation of a heart beating in the corner for aesthetic purposes.

Interpretation: Solely from the idea of heartbreak and breaking, the first notion is that the energy created by sadness, anger, and exhaustion associated with heartbreak can be transmuted and put into one's vocation for therapeutic purposes and also to channel the energy in order to not be consumed by it. There are more interpretations of how I present the two ideas from a sculptural standpoint but I will leave those up for the audience to interpret. With the visuals projection mapped onto the sculpture, I wanted to show the high energy associated with breakdancing as well as bring out the form of the sculpture at the same time.


Above is a full longer clip, the one below is a short one with better lighting so it is easier to see the video being mapped.





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