prosthetic knowledge

New Media - New Environments

This was my entry for the Transfer3D - Speed Show WROCŁAW, an experiment with Autodesk 1234D and a televised interview from 1967 with technology theorist Marshall McLuhan:

Brief:

Create a piece of work for the Transfer3D SPEED SHOW WROCŁAW, around the concept of 3D

Idea:

Advances in 3D imaging and technology has provided interesting possibilities to explore. In particular, there is a service which can convert multiple still digital photographs into a virtual 3D object called Autodesk 123D Catch.

With some understanding of the principles of how it works, it somehow lead me to connect to one of the most important figures in technological thought of the last 50 years: Marshall McLuhan. Having ideas with no single fixed viewpoint, employing ‘Probes’ to understand technological phenomena from various angles, and an influence from the texts of James Joyce and the concepts of Modernism, a connection can be made between both the thinker and the machine.

In 1967, he undertook a televised interview, sitting in a revolving chair in the centre of the stage, surrounded by an audience asking questions from all angles (see video embedded below):

Herbert Marshall McLuhan @ CBC 1967 from Sergey Teterin on Vimeo.

I took various frames from the footage to form the necessary collection to help create a potential model, all from various angles and different levels of proximity.

The results are a product of matching images and manually places points connecting the images to one another on particular key features of the person.

(See animated gifs above)

Result:

Admittedly, I was hoping to produce a virtual sculptural bust of Marshall Mcluhan, but the 1234D Catch service is designed for colour photography - the images I have used are black and white, grainy, and have been processed from original recording, to video, and eventually digitally processed onto online video services. Also, the subject must be completely still - it is difficult to find exact poses from various angles from someone who is in conversation with his audience throughout the recording.

Many of the attempts are, in relation to my initial plans, extremely disappointing in a representational sense, as well as some questionable orientations - upside down or positioned to the side as opposed to standing upright as would be expected.

My only consolation with the various outputs I have collected are that they still connect to the ideas of multiple viewpoints, abstract forms created from various points and time - machine vision generating pseudo-Cubism virtual sculptures.

The project should be considered a fully-finalized product, more of an experiment which, in theory, could provide other objects with continued practice, trying out different frames and combinations.

You can check some of the examples on my Autodesk 123D Catch profile here

Blade Runner Aquarelle Edition, Part 1 (Teaser) 

A remix of the film Blade Runner, created with frames handmade with watercolour pencils:

This animation is made of 3285 aquarelle paintings and form the very beginning of my paraphrase on the motion picture Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott.
The sound is borrowed from the original movie.

The video, embedded below, is only a few parts of the film, all very recognizable:

Thanks to windsdarkpoem for the heads up!

Plant-In City 

Art installation merges gardening and technology, creating Arduino-powered frames with sensors for plants to be monitored, and interacted with via smartphone app. From the project’s Kickstarter page:

We’re creating a space where a community who loves architecture, technology and plants can meet. Our mission is to integrate these disciplines into a new paradigm that changes the way we live and interact with nature. We believe that interacting with plants will improve our lives.

Plant-in City taps into the natural systems that foster plant life to give the plants themselves a voice. This revolutionary planter system contains built-in sensors that are activated by sun exposure, changes in soil moisture, humidity, temperature, and other natural cycles. Once activated, these sensors translate the environmental data into sounds or visuals, creating an imaginary vibrant wilderness.

More about the project can be found here

Visualization: Movies of Wong Kar-Wai 

Frame sheets of the directors films put together by Benjamin Wimmer:

With The Grandmasters finally having a release date (2012/12/18) I thought it would be nice to do a recap of Wong Kar-wai’s feature films. As IMHO his movies are primary made for being experienced rather than discussed/analysed, I thought I’d go for visual summaries:

Below, his movies compressed to single pictures (ever 60th frame was used) showing nicely the movies’ pace as well their overall colour schemes. Enjoy. 

Above are:

1. Chungking Express
2. As Tears Go By
3. Days Of Being Wild
4. In The Mood For Love

There are more of these frame sheets, which can be found here.

UPDATE: Benjamin has upload a ZIP file containing hires versions of the collection, available here

Polaboy

Large backlit photography frames that take the form of a Polaroid photograph:

The LIGHTWALLS® are based on analogue and digital medium and large-format photographs taken by renowned international photographers. By cooperating with the best specialists in the production of analogue and digital photograph enlargements, LIGHTBOYS® create photographic masterpieces with astonishing intensity and brightness.

These are images which not only open up rooms, but also hearts and minds; images which are pure and true and free from artificial effects or filters. They express strength, peace and reassurance and stand for freedom, open spaces and passion. They invite you to explore and discover their rich detail, to lose yourself in them. They are images which make you feel you™re in a special place and let you forget about your problems. Images with the power to move you.

More information can be found here

8 Mile Becomes Korean Meme Overnight by Wild Ammo (via @titleofmagazine)

A single frame from a film becomes a source of creative humour:

The 2002 movie starring Eminem, 8-Mile, has become something of an overnight sensation in Korea when artists and gamers decided to make a meme out of it by re-rendering one of its scenes in their favorite anime and video games. The results are utterly ridiculous.

More examples can be found here

How to make a Movie Barcode by MrReid

Technical, involves CLI scripting, but its there:

I loved the Moviebarcode site that I found via Meta­Filter and wanted to create some barcodes of my own. After a bit of fiddling I managed to produce some reas­on­able fac­sim­iles using a com­bin­a­tion of VLC and ImageMa­gick.

I used VLC under Windows 7 and ImageMa­gick under Ubuntu Linux because that’s where they were already installed, but I imagine the commands are pretty similar irre­spective of which OS you are using.

More details here

zxthetics:

One of the frames created for the pixelated 0ff0n project - full set here
(Note: best viewed full size)

VidiNotes

Upload an .flv video, capture up to 30 images, add notes, and generate a .pdf file.

Vidinotes [link]

via MakeUseOf