Many of the generative strategies that have been used in traditional VFX are now easily applied to electronic components. This integration provides for a much larger toolset where boundaries between physical and virtual becomes blurred, and the canvas becomes immersive rather than flat.
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Video Datagrams
Compositions featuring stacks of “chronographs” generated from digital video data. These images reveal intricacies hidden in movements and rhythms around us and through time.
Synced Video Tryptic
Filmmaker Natasha Maidoff approached me needing a way to display synced video for a multi screen piece at the Google Art Walk. Having multiple view ports embedded into a single piece creates tension between the individual screens and adds a dynamic layer on top of what happens within the boundaries of each. I built an aluminum frame to hold the LCD screens, power supplies and networked raspberry pi computers playing back the video in sync. The whole was then mounted to the wooden frame. more…
Cement, Light and Time
Building a binary clock is a rite of passage for artists interested in exploring electronics. There is a subversive edge in over-designing it to the extent that its alleged primary purpose becomes obfuscated until all that is left is the contemplation of mysterious patterns. My version of this endeavor involves contrasting the immateriality of light with the weight and cold smoothness of polished cement. But it DOES tell time, although by the time you’ve decoded the bits, the time will be different.
Tintype Photography
Learning the process of wetplate photography opens up the door to the magic of light. I worked with Sari and Jason Madsen at Tintypebooth doing tintype portraits at street fairs. This process, which was commonly used at the end of the 19th century, remains both surprisingly simple and wondrous at the same time. I never got over the excitement of seeing the cloudy swirl of the chemicals float off the plate to magically reveal the traces of captured light.
Panoramic Photography
Along with providing necessary data for VFX production, panoramas provide visual great datasets to explore creative uses of composition, sharpness, perspective and mood.
Generative Art
The label of “digital art” is often applied to work that use computers to simulate the look of traditional physical media even when the physical medium on which this visual grammar was evolved is no longer there. Ultimately, algorithms are to data what the paintbrush is to the canvas, and in both cases it is the job of the artist to apply the former to the latter in a way that reveals a universal truth. These images were generated using the Processing toolkit.