My main composition is Mist Beast, a piece about identity that blurs lines between human, animal, and technological life. It is a conceptual play on tape mapping as a technique which emphasizes lines as boundaries between spaces and content. Mist Beast was inspired by indigenous masks which were worn in spiritual ceremonies meant to evoke the spirit or qualities of animals. The morphing face of Mist Beast expresses a tension in identity felt by being not quite animal, not quite technological, only enigmatically human. All compositions are audio-input controlled. I also created two paper crane compositions, including one for Valentine's Day set to Ella Fitzgerald's Dream a Little Dream of Me. For my subversive commercial, I created a satirical piece set to ASPCA commercials. Here the ambiguity of identity is poking fun at the way ASPCA commercials humanize animals in order to invoke empathy from human potential donors.
I start by mining Youtube for usable footage, and input the media into Madmapper. A crucial part of my process is adding quads and aligning each section in the input screen to perfectly fit eyes, noses, mouths, and ears. I find an ideal loop and speed for each body part. I added cloudy presets for the face, plus drone footage of forest for the background. I input audio from Spotify and Youtube and started adding audio controls to lines and layers. Working with two sets of lines, I tried out every combination of animations, and saved presets when something looked dynamic and balanced. I made 50+ compositions and then narrowed it down to the best dozen. I recorded with Syphon while switching between presets to the beat of the music. In Movie Maker, I edited together two versions of the video and added fades in and out from black for a finishing touch.
Tape mapping is a relatively quick way to make an interactive and immersive installation. It is a great choice when the concept of the work is related to boundaries. It is really fun to do tape mapping with audio inputs. Choose music you really really like and won't mind listening to for several hours on end. Also, when you add audio input controls it is possible to effect saved presets, so watch for that. Otherwise you may end up spending several hours editing together two videos when you didn't have to. :)
Mist Beast - set to Lines of the Broken by DROELOE
Dreaming of Flight - set to how many stars are there by Idealism
Happy Valentine's Day - set to Dream a Little Dream of Me by Ella Fitzgerald
Will you be an angel for a helpless mist beast? - set to ASPCA commercial
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