Continuing on the concept of my Room Mapping Project, this composition expresses a different perspective towards my idea of allowing the viewer to step inside my mind and with it, to have a moment in which my memories are seen through space.
The second composition is the successor of a work created in my video production class, the story talks about a hacker who lost his wife due to an automated car accident. He loses his mind throughout the video and creates an Artificial Intelligence that replaces his wife but such becomes a much greater burden than her physical state.
Process
The first composition was created in After Effects and Mad Mapper, I initially exported the line output from MM and used it as a base to create the animation of the videos within AE.
Transitions is a room mapping installation with a narrative told through the combination of constructed audio and visuals. The piece follows an unnamed protagonist through death and imagines his afterlife. He begins in the city, driving a car and switching between radio stations when he gets into an accident and crashes. His death is implied through the sound of slowing heart beats and a transition to white as he goes into the light. He is transported to a natural space, where he reflects and interprets his life experiences through nature. After this meditation, he is transported again to the quiet infinity of deepest space.
Its hard to keep my mind together sometimes, especially when there are so many things to think about; Family, Friends, Career, Food, Nature, and Indulgences. This composition shall allow the audience to step into my head and get a taste of goes through it every day, it's a lot I know, but wear my shoes for a moment and understand my story. It's important for me to share where I come from since I got big plans for where I am going next and I want to make sure that everyone knows that dreams come true if you work hard for them and that some will have to work harder than others but that is perfectly fine!
Process
This composition was created by analyzing every possible surface in which the light from the projectors would hit, every single pixel! From boxes on the shelves to pre-made sculptures at the studio, I aimed to interact with as many surfaces as I could. I created a quad for each individual video and placed it according to the following layout.
Projector setup
Interpretation
Memories Composition
..::Party::..
Here lays a bonus composition due to my latest party mood.
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
