My aim with 'Window' is to convey the inherent duality between digital and physical art. It serves as a visual portrayal of this conflict, offering a glimpse through the window into a world where motion design contends with static painting, minimal pattern and maximal abstraction, systematic geometric shapes collide with chaotic impasto. Despite these seemingly contradictory elements, my objective is to reveal their coexistence within this monochromatic presentation. Guided by a specific rhythm dictated by sound, 'Window' seeks to evoke emotion and provide viewers with a harmonious and thought-provoking experience.
This project wants to explore the artist’s creative and living space. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and his room made me think of the artist's creations and the environment in which they create. My living space might also be squeezed when I am creating, and the boundaries between reality and dreams might blur.
The first step of this project is to convert real room photos into line drawings. The second step is to project these line drawings onto a canvas using mad mapping. Based on the projected shapes, tape is applied. Then, I created 12 scene transitions according to the 12 two-hour periods (a traditional Chinese method of timekeeping).
The music, "Farewell," is by a Chinese rock band from the 90s named Tang Dynasty. This song is also linked to meaning of the end of Van Gogh's era. Even though that era has ended, we always cherish the brilliant days of art.
After Project 1, I knew that I wanted to do something more performance-based project for the next one. I made a demo session on Ableton with some Techno/House beats and I hope to use that with MadMapper
First, 3D Model. For this project, I wanted to use a .obj mask to tape. I have almost no experience working with 3D objects, so I went to our good friend Google for help.
Candidate 1: Too complex, too many small lines.
Candidate 2: Not exactly a 3D mask, but the lines are solid.
After importing the .obj into Madmapper, I started taping.
After the basics, I tried different textures from the library to build scenes.
As usual, I synced up the internal clock in MadMapper to Ableton via Ableton Link. Additionally, I added a midi channel sending midi signals to MadMapper
Inside Ableton: Sending Midi (Visual Trigger)
Triggering a scene through Midi - Mapped on MadMapper
The Ocean is a vast, mysterious dimension that takes a large portion of the earth itself.
Containing all kinds of life beings and ecosystems, it is a world of wonder and curiosity, and the deeper we go in, the question just keeps on growing.
Aside from that, the ocean also provokes various types of emotions, and this aesthetic is what I wanted to emphasize and implement in my project.
One of the forms of ocean we are most familiar with is waves.
Normally it has a feeling of Excitement, Joy, Refresh, and all kinds of positive emotions when encountered on the shores, but that's not all to this mysterious being.
Consisting of 3 Chapters(Cue), This project intends to concentrate on various types of deep and negative sides that the ocean is capable of offering in the form of waves. I wanted to visualize the chaotic synopsis that ocean waves are capable of expressing.
Hence, I named this project,
"Chaotic Waves."
Techniques:
After deciding the main theme that would go on for the overall cues, it wasn't difficult to come up with the shape that I'll be taping later.
What I felt drastically different from other projects was that my taping project needed to focus on more abstract and geometric shapes. A series of distorted lines with gradually either narrowed down or widened gaps and line width which resembles that of a wave.
Then I turned my design into line .svg format and implemented it in Madmapper.
The taping process was indeed interesting. Since my intended shape involves mostly curves, I tried to match the tapes precisely following every inch of curves in one go. This method resulted in tape lines that had three-dimensional textures that let each line "literally" pop out.
The most trouble I had with the project was figuring out the placement of the projector and getting the intended target surface to shoot the beam at. Because waves mostly happen on the surface of the terrain, I thought it would make sense the most if I shot the beam down the ground, and I had a huge, HUGE help from Professor Scott. Again, I want to thank him because if it weren't for him, this project would have been impossible to make it happen and I was so glad that I was able to express my ideas as intended.
Everything else after that was very intuitive.
Learning how to access audio control properly took a bit of trial and error since I had a hard time finding the preference section, to be honest, but after figuring it out, I had tons of fun playing around with them.
The project involves masking with lines, distorting the line layer with a noise animation effect so it would look like the wave is flowing beneath my very foot, and various ways of combining quads, footage and all sorts of effects in my taste.
Each cues has their respective audio source base that goes up to 1 minute or so, and I tried to maintain all 3 cues are based in monotone color schemes, and later I implemented a portion of the graphics that will portray each distinct highlighted color that will showcase the main respective theme each is going for.
Interpretations:
All 3 cues have their distinct themes of portraying different types of chaos the ocean waves offer.
Chaotic Waves Chapter One: Mysteriousness.
Getting inspiration from the Deep sea environments and a closed-in texture of various cells and plankton, I wanted to let out the magical, but scary scenery that the ocean can tend to let out and express the phobic side of it.
This cue symbolizes the Mental Chaos that the ocean waves could offer.
Quads and masks of circular cells with vivid color contrast that distort organically, and wave lines that respond to the music with intimidating shivering lines add up to the rather disturbing side of the ocean.
The music mainly lets out a shimmering synth sound and a distorted xylophone, expressing a calm, but psychedelic mood.
Chaotic Waves Chapter Two: Disorder and Chaos.
Getting inspiration from water particles when strong waves hit each other, the waves move more radically, distorting at a fast pace, and shattering recklessly, with color-inverted, extremely hue-saturated footage of waves masked outside the lines adding a more chaotic feeling to it.
This cue symbolizes the Physical Chaos that the ocean waves could offer.
The way the waves hit each other results in more chaotic waves that spread and layers each other until the calmness and the order of the waves are nowhere to be found and anarchy is all that's left for the ocean.
The main musical point I want to emphasize is the chaotic vibe that the saxophone solo spams you with. Alongside the watery echoey sound of the band, the saxophone will keep storming the music and it gradually gets even more crazier until the end of the cue.
Chaotic Waves Final Chapter: Reminiscence.
This cue symbolizes the Emotional Chaos that the ocean waves could offer, and among the 3 ques, this had the most emotionally hard time to develop through.
Colored footage repeatedly fades in the forms of slow-paced distorted waves according to sections divided by line masks transitioning to its monotone counterpart, trying to portray that behind gold memories, lays the sad reality that overshadows it,
The cue concludes by slowly erasing the memory little by little as time goes by, until it slowly fades completely at last along with the depressing musical score, Leaving a lingering impression and intended to let the hollow feeling stay with you in the end.
Eating has been a central theme in several of my works.Eating is instinctual; it's something we are compelled to do, and it's a commonality shared between humans and animals. On the other hand, it can also be cultural, serving as the substance of social interactions and human relationships, which I find intriguing.
The connection between eating and the home/kitchen, money, history, and geography adds depth to this action for me on multiple levels. The drawing shows me with four fingers in my mouth. This serves as a symbol of inner anger and sorrow that I must confront in solitude. However, the circle around my face and the presence of a cup, knife, fork, spoon, and napkin indicate that I have become sustenance not only for myself but also for others—a subject to be consumed and savored!
First, I transferred my self-portrait onto a sheet of plexiglass using thin black tape. This not only helped me do the project but also allowed me to experience the possibilities of projecting a video or image onto plexiglass. Subsequently, I transferred objects related to a dining table to the surroundings of my self-portrait and onto the 3D Studio's wall using tape.
I added a red surface to the portrait and turned the cup's surface blue by masking.
With a glass of water, all of this may be sallowed!
Concept: I have been interested in images of Apsaras, or Hindu interpretations of fairies. I came across the following image online and used it as a reference for my tape mapping:
Apsara, a celestial being from Hindu and Buddhist culture
Sadly, it is difficult to find who the actual artist is for this piece. I think it is RB Yadav, however, many artists have claimed credit for this artwork. If anyone has insight on crediting the original artist, I would love to know. I decided to create a drawing that referenced the posing of this artwork:
Detailed drawing of fairy
I then took my detailed image and reduced it to basic shapes that I could use towards my tape mapping project, and then I made that drawn image into a vector image:
Sketch from detailed image
Vector image from Illustrator
Techniques: I had Professor Scott assist me in my projection set up. He strapped my projector sideways so that I could project my illustration as a portrait image instead of a landscape image. I was then able to start taping my projected image onto the wall with the aspect ratio of 1200px by 1920px. I used a thin black tape provided by the 3D Studio. I used an X-Acto knife to make sharp edges while taping.
"Holding Hands" The chains from the gate next to my piece cast an interesting shadow onto my projection
Taping Complete! This image was calibrated by projecting the image onto the wall and I taped accordingly
This is the thin tape that I used for the taping process
Now came the fun part: making imagery in MadMapper using their image library!
I decided on making multiple themes of fairies for each scene since I enjoyed projecting different colors.
Fairy Themes:
Evil Fairy - red, black, and white effect: string noise
Portal Fairy - Pinks, purples, blues, reds effect: [recode] Vasarely and atom supernova
Sun Fairy - yellows and oranges effect: I created a "mini fairy" in After effects
Geode Fairy - greens, blueish greens, mix of colors for geode effect effect: Calico
Dark Fairy - Blues, purples, whites effect: Noise wave Eye balls created by layering a number of shapes
Interpretation: This artwork has been an exploration of playful. magical themes to show versatility within one single character. Vick asked me what I have named my fairy, but I haven't given them one. I think that it is worth thinking about a name and backstory for each theme since it would give this character more depth.
For future development of this project, I would also like to find music that I feel matches this image. I couldn't seem to land on one song that I felt encompassed all of the different themes well. It is possible that I would have to blend songs together to make a seamless piece. I would also like to make more fairies, of various genders and body types.
Overall, I think my projection and taping came out pretty clean.
Link: https://youtu.be/FLQEzmNvfYg
(I condensed the 7 different scenes to three minutes to save time when viewing in class. If you would like me to upload the seven minute version, please let me know.)
