Abies Electronicus 2.0 videoReport

Abies Electronicus 2.0 videoReport:
Finally, here’s the video report of Abies Electronicus,



shot in Brussels, BE, 2012.
technical info for da nerd:

4 Video Projectors 20k @1024*768

each projector was Space Scanned using MadMapper

Custom QC based software

26 LED rgb fixtures

DMX flashlights

DMX control over the existing facades

Lots of custom QC plugins

Running entirely off a single MacPro

Automatically Projection Mapping a 3D, Moving Object: White Kanga Show Stunning Tech

Automatically Projection Mapping a 3D, Moving Object: White Kanga Show Stunning Tech:

Hide’n'Seek – Technology Demo from White Kanga on Vimeo.
Automatically map an object with a projector. Keep the mapping working as the object moves. And, oh yeah, look damned fine while doing it.
That’s the neat trick Poland-based White Kanga have pulled off, powered by TouchDesigner. We’ve been following their work before:
Robotic Mapping Pulls a Model Building, Tron-Like, Into the Virtual
Projection Mapping, with Robotics, Goes Further to Augmenting Reality: MPS Demo [TouchDesigner]
Here, we get to really see it in action. It doesn’t hurt that you get cool graphics visualizing the calibration. It’s an internal tool, but it demonstrates a lot of what’s possible.
I was in Poland for their national day yesterday, but watching this video makes me want to start waving around the white and red flag and cheering on this crew. (Or, if they like, whatever flag/mascot they choose.) Brilliant work.

The Augmented City: Istanbul’s Data, Made Visible in Glitchy Structures

Our century is marked by a wash of data, flooding out of explosive urbanization. Humans and numbers, it seems, are now densely packed, dynamic, and essential. Yet with that same density, they threaten to become invisible.
The challenge of visualists: break the barrier to reveal that unseen world. Call it data mapping.
“Augmented Structures” is, first and foremost, rather lovely to look at. It’s a kind of architectural performance, in glitching, flickering contrasts of sound and light. Maybe the scale of transformation requires something aesthetic. Here’s what co-creator Refik Anadol has to say about it – thanks, Refik, for sending in your work.

‘Augmented Structures v2.0′ by Refik Anadol and Alper Derinbogaz is a distilled urban experience project which focuses on two dissimilar regions in istanbul and displays the inner characteristics of the texture of a city-center that has undergone a recent transformation within a suburban region consisting of gated communities. Presented at Istanbul Design Biennial within the ‘Musibet’ exhibition curated by local architect Emre Arolat, the work is based on soundscape and data mapping of two regions reveals the invisible information about their context and suggests an alternative way to understand the existence of urbanization through new media technologies.
By bringing disparate disciplines like sound, architecture and visual arts together, the development re-examines the world in aesthetic terms, in its capacity as an ‘interdisciplinary transformation’. ‘augmented structures series forces each discipline to alter its own ‘material’ state; transforming sound into mathematics, mathematics into architecture and architecture into a living structure, while presenting the viewer with a new media experience that is multi-levelled, produces sound, moves and breathes.’

The project in this case is augmented sculpture, beamed onto a structure. But I wonder how this same data might become part of the tapestry of architecture or urban experience. Perhaps that’s not where it belongs – maybe it’s best kept independent, a mirror in art. Whatever the context, it’s only natural that this substance of our age, data, would become artistic medium, rendered in terms as changing and fluid as it is.
More:

The team is diversified by sound designer Kerim Karaoglu and parametric designers Coşku Cinkılıç, Koray Bingöl. — at Istanbul Modern | Istanbul Museum of Modern Art.

Thanks to; IKSV, Emre Arolat, Nil Aynalı, Özlem Yalım Özkaraoğlu, Salon2, Antilop, Can Buyukberber, Başar Yurtçu.

From the same artist, Refik Anadol, here’s an intervention in urban space, with more fluid projections – and, again, a sonic element:

Augmented Structures v1.1 : Acoustic Formations / Istiklal Street from Refik Anadol on Vimeo.


Augmented Structures v1.1 : Acoustic Formations / Istiklal Street from Refik Anadol on Vimeo.

Augmented Structures v1.1 : Acoustic Formations / Istiklal Street

Architecture and (Media) Design are art forms that exist independently from one another. Over the last few years they have been growing together. They are entering into symbiotic dependencies and stimulations. Against the background of the information technologies, architecture has gained a new reality. No longer are objects or processes the constituting elements of a building. Now they are described as technical networks of communicating nodes, which balance themselves in contrived patterns.

“Augmented Structures v1.1 : Acoustic Formations/Istiklal Street” is an augmented structure, an installation by Refik Anadol and Alper Derinboğaz which is created through the use of innovative parametric architecture and audiovisual techniques. The projects deals with a new mediated space: How to translate the logic of media into architecture? In this first experiment field recordings of Istiklal Street will be transformed in to parametric architectural structure. The recordings were made by Kerim Karaoglu who also used these recordings to create an electro-acoustical composition. The project seeks interactions between space, sound, visual and light. A similar connection between architecture and media has been experienced in Philips Pavilion of Le Courbusier in 1958.

Beyond being an artwork this installation is an urban experience. The scale of surface, 2000sqm, and the dominance of the location will definitely take place in collective memory of İstiklal Street visitors.

There will be an exhibition opening on 20th of September at 19:30 in relation to this façade installation which showcases experiments of architecture- sound – visual correlations of Refik Anadol and Alper Derinbogaz.

During the night visual performance will be projected on the structure which will be accompanied with a generatively designed contemporary aesthetic visuals consisting of input data from the recordings and their transformed versions synchronized to the movement of graphics re-shaping and transforming the structure on which they are projected. The structure in turn influences and transforms the projections as well.

For more information: augmentedstructures.com

Refik Anadol / New Media Artist

refikanadol.com

Alper derinbogaz / Architect

salon2.info

Sound Design: Kerim Karaoglu

VVVV Realtime Graphics: Sebastian Neitsch

Projection Infrastructure: Visio-vox

augmentedstructures.com

Mapping, Beyond Projectors: ArKaos Adds Serious Plug-and-Play Pixel, LED Features

Mapping, Beyond Projectors: ArKaos Adds Serious Plug-and-Play Pixel, LED Features:re-blog from CreateDigitalMotion

ArKaos promises to make output to LED surfaces easier. Marco from ArKaos explains what we see here: “[This is the] Kling-Net mapper working with MediaMaster in Simple mode. In simple mode each layer can be sent to the video mapper or the Kling-Net mapper. In this screen shot layer 1 goes to Kling-Net and layer 2 goes to the video surface.”

It sounds like the computer system on a Bird of Prey on Star Trek, but Kling-Net is at the heart of where VJ and media server maker ArKaos – and a lot of the live visual world – is headed. Forget the phrase “projection mapping,” and think “video mapping” and “pixel mapping.” Yes, projectors will still be a big part of live visuals. But they’ll be just one outlet for visual performance, alongside increasingly-sophisticated LED lighting. And LED lighting is increasingly looking like a major choice in installations.
Let me put that in less technical terms: more bright shiny, shiny from the LEDs.
So, LED is amazing technology for visualization. But it can also be amazingly hard to set up. The race now becomes about how to make that technology easier to access. ArKaos’ play is doing just that with Kling-Net. (Kahplah! Sorry, I’ll stop that now.)
It’s not rocket science to do cool stuff like this with pricey media servers sold for expensive applications. But what about the independent visual artists, the experimental creators pushing the envelope? The good news is, ArKaos is bringing the same media server tech back to GrandVJ, an app that’s far more affordable.
Marco Hinic is engine architect and CEO of ArKaos and creator of Kling-Net. (I love that, in this business, the engineers typically run the show.) Marco tells CDM about what their goals are for the tech:

Kling-Net has been designed to create plug and play LED devices and we are converting more and more manufacturers to work with us. There is nothing else like that on the market and we hope it will enable a new level of integration for many users.
The good news is that we will also support Kling-Net in GrandVJ. Indeed this why we are late with releasing GrandVJ, while working on the video mapper in MediaMaster we added the functionality where a layer can be sent to a mapping surface and / or to Kling-Net – ArtNet. To support that in GrandVJ we need to rework it’s core engine and that’s what we are doing now… We are now looking forward to present that at NAMM with ADJ. Ed.: NAMM is the music trade show in California held in January. Mark your calendars. -PK

The other side of the equation, apart from ArKaos’ software, is the lighting fixtures. Recently, ArKaos announced Chauvet is bringing Kling-Net support to their lighting, which you can see in the video and image below.

Chauvet’s EPIX strip product, as seen in a permanent club installation at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida’s club Off the Hookah.

http://www.chauvetlighting.com/
Kling-Net is a complex technology, so I’ll do two things. First, I’ll direct you to ArKaos’ site that explains how this works:

Kling-Net @ ArKaos
Second, I ask you to tell us what your experience is with these kinds of applications, and what you’d like to know. We’re fortunate enough to get to talk directly to Marco about the technology he engineered, so, seriously, ask anything. I look forward to your questions.
http://arkaos.net/

Nature-Graphique gets triangle fever

Nature-Graphique gets triangle fever:re-blog from Madmapper

The collective cook up an immersive, triangle filled, mapping extravaganza for Scopitone Festival 2012 in Nantes, France. Extra interesting are the brief screenshots of the planning phases. I also spy an interesting layout of what appears to be a Lemur for iPad layout that possesses a highly ergonomic, function oriented layout. In a brief communication with Orl, he notes that the iPad was used to control the multiple computers that were part of setup:
- 2 Mac Pros

- 4 Matrox TripleHead2go

- 12 projectors
Oddly enough, my first impression of this video was that the lighting setup somewhat complimented the structures, given that for the main stage the lamps were considerately positioned at each of the line segments of the triangles. However Orl states that they had little control over and that there was too much light.
Unfortunately this is still a very common problem. I have seen productions that could have been immensely improved by a tasteful and relatively simple balancing and placement of lighting. It always appears to me that lighting is somehow arranged in a sort of battle formation that disregards any kind of overall stage composition. This type of scenario usually emerges when the producers of the event are primarily concerned with getting the job done without much of a fuss.
While the technology at our disposal is getting better, with more integration between video and lighting, such as the upcoming release of MadMapper with its MadLight feature, we will likely always have to set our own standards and convince others in order to achieve our visions.

Amon Tobin ISAM 2.0 – Leviathan

Amon Tobin ISAM 2.0 – Leviathan:Posted on Motionographer



Chicago-based studio Leviathan crafts a creative projection-mapped piece to provide an immersive stage experience for Amon Tobin’s ISAM 2.0 tour.  Check out the making of video here.

Amon Tobin : ISAM case study from Leviathan on Vimeo.

Willow – Sweater (official video uses MadMapper)

Willow – Sweater (official video uses MadMapper):




While I have already seen examples of augmented reality used in videos before, I really enjoy how this one by Filip Sterckx exploits the idea further in many different ways, with many different angles, that constantly fool my eyes. At the same time the video is constantly reminding you of the fact that ‘this is an illusion’ with visual queues such as the embedded treadmill or the part where the singers legs are ‘buried’ into the stage to create the illusion that he is standing on the water.

Beyonce at the UN: Behind the Scenes of Epic Projection in the General Assembly Hall [Gallery]

Beyonce at the UN: Behind the Scenes of Epic Projection in the General Assembly Hall [Gallery]:

The new world of projection is big – really big. Planet big. It’s not a dinky projector pointing at a ragged, wrinkled piece of cloth. It’s something that can stand up to one of the world’s great divas.
When you’ve got Beyoncé, and you’ve got the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York City, you’re on a whole new level. Lucas Werthein of SuperUber is kind enough to share with Create Digital Motion the effort that made this all possible. And, we have a photo gallery revealing how all of this came together.

First, he rattles off some of the impressive specs:

Projection

• We used 10 20K HLM Barco projectors
• Mapping was done using Pandora’s widget designer and 5 Pandora’s Box Dual servers
• The final video has a 8856 x 1664 resolution
• This final video was split into 10 slices of 1080 x 1664 pixels, since each projector was turned on its side and we projected the images vertically in order for them to cover the whole structure. We fed 2 slices into each system and did the warping and edge blending inside Pandora

Screen

• The screen is over 12,000 square feet
• It is the largest indoor temporary screen that is a tilted compound curve. From an engineering standpoint, it is extremely complex.
• It took a team of 45 people to sew the screen.
• It weighs 1000 pounds. The whole structure, which was hanging off the the UN ceiling weighed 6000 pounds
  
• In order to create the proper tension for the screen to hold its shape we had to weld permanent rigging points into the dome of the general assembly.

This is projection mapping, though onto a fairly simple surface. What makes the mapping so effective is the way in which it can fill the space, making those pictures immersive on a grand architectural scale. It makes the image a real volume in which the performance can take place.
The content itself might draw some criticism. The event celebrates the World Health Organization’s World Humanitarian Day, humanitarian efforts and social causes. The imagery, featuring groups like the Red Cross, tends to more traditional aid – this is people in corners of the world being helped by someone else’s hand, rather than helping themselves. But that’s what powerful projection can do: it can make imagery big enough that it invites big thinking — and debate. Even amidst the spectacle here, that kind of powerful immersion can lead people to engage with what images mean, enlightened in a brilliant glare rather than lost in dimmed obscurity. (And, for the record, with an interactive component, the WHO in this case also invited direct commentary on what social action can mean.)
In the end, you see a performance in which neither Beyoncé nor the imagery upstages the other – it’s two powerful performances, not just one.
SuperUber offers more description, which also puts those animations and images in better context.

SuperUber was invited to direct the technology, screen, and stage design for Beyoncé’s single “I Was Here”. The filming took place on Friday, August 10th, during a live performance for special guests in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York.
The music video is part of the global World Humanitarian Day campaign, which honors humanitarian efforts worldwide and encourages people to engage in social causes. The worldwide release took place on Sunday, August 19th, and 1 billion messages were shared through social media (whd-iwashere.org).

SuperUber’s role included the integration between animations and technology, the structure design and projection mapping that took over the United Nations General Assembly Hall.
It is the largest indoor compound curved screen ever created – a complex and sophisticated project. It was custom-designed to mold to the inside of the General Assembly Hall. The screen spanned 224 ft X 46 ft (68m X 15m) and surrounded the audience with a 240 degree immersive projection. Ten synchronized and mapped projections covered the screen with 200,000 lumens, creating one continuous giant image.
“It’s an ambitious project that has completely transformed an iconic location – seen as immutable and unchanging, with its goldplated panel and grand volume. By adding a virtual layer to it, we could digitally rebuild it, playing with the architectural elements, and therefore changing the notion of something static. The technology made the integration between animation and architecture. We used projectors to “paint with light” the UN General Assembly’s Hall – a unique opportunity to transform such an emblematic place,” said Russ Rive, SuperUber’s director.

SuperUber was invited by Kenzo Digital, director of numerous acclaimed productions, amongst them Beyoncé’s “Run The World (Girls)” performance at the Billboard Music Awards in 2011. The “I Was Here” performance was directed by Kenzo Digital, in association with Droga5, Ridley Scott Associates (RSA), SuperUber, and Dirt Empire.

SuperUber is an agency, tech lab, and architectural studio working across media and interactive projects, with offices in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and New York
http://superuber.com

Robotic Mapping Pulls a Model Building, Tron-Like, Into the Virtual

re-blog from Create Digital Motion



Robotic Mapping Pulls a Model Building, Tron-Like, Into the Virtual:
MPS – Building Presentation from White Kanga on Vimeo.
A model building rotates, light spilling over it. A virtualized sun creates shadows and accelerated days. And then, halfway through, the building still gliding in circles, it’s as though you can see through the building to wireframes beneath.
The latest illusions from the White Kanga crew aren’t simply mapping as a novel way of making projection look three-dimensional. They appear to alter the reality around the object itself, playing with our perception’s ability to see animation as something fluid and real.
Or, to put it another way: moving the subject, not just the projection, has a remarkable amount of potential for mapping illusory effect. See, previously:

Projection Mapping, with Robotics, Goes Further to Augmenting Reality: MPS Demo [TouchDesigner]

Mapping, in Motion: Projection Meets Stepper Motor for Rotating Fun [vvvv+Arduino]
Toolset: TouchDesigner, custom software, control, and robotics.
Derivative, makers of TouchDesigner, interviewed this crew:

White Kanga, a talented crew from Poland have expertly been building their own custom applications with TouchDesigner to produce something remarkably new, integrating mapping, robotics and extended reality. A revealing interview with the team details their experience working with TouchDesigner from a seasoned VFX background (Houdini pros) and the making of the Modeling Projection System (MPS) project.

Love the headline: What WHITE KANGA is building with TOUCHDESIGNER to alter our sense of REALITY

Pop-Up Video: Tesla, Synesthetic Hallucination, and Augmented Book Science

Pop-Up Video: Tesla, Synesthetic Hallucination, and Augmented Book Science:

Nikola Tesla in Sound and Light from Marco Tempest on Vimeo.


Nikola Tesla in Sound and Light from Marco Tempest on Vimeo.
Digitally-enhanced magician Marco Tempest is back, here with a poignant message about the magic of science – the leaps of faith, and leaps of showmanship, required to turn scientific imagination into reality. Any opportunity to celebrate genius scientist Nikola Tesla, unjustly unsung relative to his extraordinary accomplishments in electricity and thinking, is a good one. Here, too, we find a behind-the-scenes look at how carefully-calibrated projection mapping brings a pop-up book to life. Some of those close-ups in the video at top are unforgiving (it’d work perfectly in a theatrical setting). But the integration of the book, Marco Tempest’s sleight of hand, and digital animation can be spellbinding.
And because Mr. Tempest is of the mind that being more open makes the magic more effective, not less – a bit like science itself – he shares all the how-to details.


Making of "Nikola Tesla in Sound and Light" from Marco Tempest on Vimeo.


Making of “Nikola Tesla in Sound and Light” from Marco Tempest on Vimeo.
Full details, plus the TED version:

Created and Produced by Marco Tempest

Script: David Britland

Art Direction: Kevin Blanc

Motion Design: Alain Renold

Pop-up Design: Peter Dahmen

Music and sound design: Michael Ricar

Custom software development: Enrico Viola

Arduino Tech Wizard: Manuel Rueda Iragorri

Pre-visualization and production mascot: Signe Fleischmann

additional still photography:

Carmen Kam

(Bonus points to anyone who knows to what my headline refers. Or, at least, you’ve established you’re my age.)

Projection Mapping, The Documentary: A Short Film Profiles the Technique’s Significance

Projection Mapping, The Documentary: A Short Film Profiles the Technique’s Significance:




Once a novel technique, the likes of which could land you a gig, projection mapping is fast evolving into a fundamental skill every visual artist must have. It’s the ability to work not only with your content, but to be creative with its delivery, almost as much as something as basic as an alpha blend or a crossfade. It separates the visualists who work within rectangles and those who don’t.
As a semi-daily chronicle, this site often provides specific stories about one project or another. In the short film “Augmented Reality,” by Belgian filmmaker Dane Luttik, the camera pulls back to a big-picture overview of what the technique is about.
It’s perfect for introducing those new to the idea. But even if you’re skeptical about such things or tired of lots of projection mapping – indeed, especially if you fit under that header – it offers insight.
I’ll excerpt one quote from Ilan Katin, though, that I think is best of them all:

“To do it right … you need to have an idea.”
The artists are ANTIVJ and Jean-Michel Verbeeck. From the video notes:

Mapping projects by AntiVJ

0.14 3Destruct (AntiVJ 2011)

1.16 Nuits sonores (AntiVJ 2009)

1.20 Mécaniques Discursives (Legoman 2012)

1.22 St Gervais (AntiVJ 2010)

5.45 EYJAFJALLAJÖKULL (Joanie Lemercier – AntiVJ 2012)

6.48 Enghien (AntiVJ – 2009)

more info: antivj.com/

//

Mapping projects by Jean-Michel Verbeeck

1.29 Hexastruct

2.43 Quantum

//

MUSIC BY NOSAJ THING

Projection Mapping, with Robotics, Goes Further to Augmenting Reality: MPS Demo [TouchDesigner]

Projection Mapping, with Robotics, Goes Further to Augmenting Reality: MPS Demo [TouchDesigner]:re-blog from CreateDigitalMotion



Okay, great: you can project on facades and surfaces in ways that makes the image tailor-mapped to the surface. What else can you do?
Rafal Bielski and a small team from Poland provide a glimpse of a more awesome, more futuristic future. Here, projection mapping isn’t content with a still, static surface, like a building. The surface and the projection can both move, aided by robotic servos. As that image tracks the object, the combined project comes further to the dream of transforming the physical reality around us with digital visuals.
How cool is this? Well, for starters, that video above is not something done in post. It’s not a special effect. It’s live, real-time projection you’re watching – really. (No one hiding behind the curtain, either.)
Rafal explains that the result is “a combination of interactive real-time 3D projection, robotics and augmented reality.”:

MPS is the realization of an idea of pushing projection mapping one step forward, making it even more spectacular and involving. In short, we have synchronized rotation of stepped motor engine with “geometric” projection with respect to the position of the viewer. This is the moment where we get the spectator to “believe” that this is a metallic, weird box rotating in a front of the window of the skyscraper. It was shocking to me when I made a very first panel to show our friends that Vimeo flick. Most of them — like 80% — thought it was all post-production, a 3d animation (the industry three of us have come from) and Arek Rekita is just keyed-in there. So imagine the

sensation when you are actually standing in front of it. Its physical form there is real, and I think you can sense those qualities even through the computer’s screen.
The ability to visually influence human beings is weakening. We are getting more and more resistant to that form of communication. (When was the last time you heard heard that a movie had “good CG FC, really, go see it”?) In the film industry, I hope we are getting back to the era of a good script over spectacular effects, but in advertising, there is a whole new world coming in. I could rant about it for hours, so lets get back to MPS. The upper projection surface part is a 50 kg vinyl polymer structure, reaching 3.5 m in height. The base is a custom-made device from certified components, mainly stepper motor connected and controlled via Arduino.
The PC has twin GeForce cards driving three projectors – Benq W1100 and wide-lens Mitsubishi 230u-st. That worked well, but the system also worked with Christie Roadster monsters not in this video. Of course, we went for Derivative TouchDesigner as our interactive visual programming environment. It was a spectacular

learning process, adapting third-party libraries, synchronizing devices, and writing tools to quicken calibration processes. Yeah, we developed our own calibration software: it’s a semi-automatic little tool with live quality. We are going to introduce it on our Facebook profile soon. Stay tuned.

More is coming, too. Rafal tells CDM, “in the near future, we will presents our in-house software for semiautomatic projector/3d calibration and others.” Yes. We’ll look forward to that.
Consider yourself teased.

MPS project.

Realtime projection+servo+augmented reality.

Rafal Bielski : Programming, CG

Arek Rekita: Programming, Devices

Rafal Osmolski: Support

White Kanga is based in Warsaw.

Mapping AV to Architecture, a Touchscreen Project Puts Participants in Control in Chicago [Video]

Mapping AV to Architecture, a Touchscreen Project Puts Participants in Control in Chicago [Video]:



   


Mapping projections to architecture, and connecting music to visual metaphors are nothing new. But many of these projects leave the control to performers; audience members simply stand back and watch. In a project for HP promoting their TouchSmart PCs, interactive artists ceded that control to participants. Instead of the computers being in the hands of the performers, they’re touchable by anyone, for an open, collaborative experience of the work.
The project makes use of a number of ingredients. The HP TouchSmart PC provides a big, touchable display, much larger (though less mobile) than a tablet like the iPad. On the software side, custom interfaces for the participants manipulate sound and visuals built in not one but two visual programming languages: Max/MSP and (Windows-only) TouchDesigner.

The project is the work of two firms, Waveplant and Leviathan. Joel Corelitz writes from the Waveplant side to share the work with CDM readers:

My company (Waveplant) collaborated with Leviathan to create an OSC-controlled projection mapping installation for HP to promote their TouchSmart line of PCs. Participants controlled the sound and visuals via the PCs with custom-created OSC interfaces (in TouchDesigner). Max/MSP was used to drive the audio and the visuals.
I was responsible for all the audio creation as well as the Max/MSP programming, and Leviathan created the visuals and handled the projection mapping.
Just to reiterate – Leviathan is the company that’s responsible (amongst many other things) for the visual component of Amon Tobin’s ISAM tour. My company / personal brand Waveplant was responsible for all the audio in this project as well as the maxMSP programmed back-end that was responsible for the live audio interactivity. Leviathan designed interfaces in Touch Designer that transmit information to Max/MSP. Max/MSP would respond with audio in various ways while sending OSC information back to those interfaces and touch designer which reflected those musical changes visually.
As an artist, I’m really excited about these kinds of marketing efforts. They’re incredible opportunities to push creative boundaries and subvert the more “linear” forms of advertising that we’re used to. What’s also really unique about them is the way they let the art stand on its own while at the same time involving the product in a hands-on (literally) capacity.

Here’s an extended documentary of the project, with requisite shots of Chicago’s famous L train. (For some of you, that should cause a Pavlovian hunger for deep dish pizza.)



More information:

http://www.waveplantstudios.com/HP-Play-Big

http://www.waveplantstudios.com/HP-Hear-There-Everywhere
Agency for this project:

designkitchen

Plays of Shadow and Light, into Digital Topography: New ANTIVJ Work

Plays of Shadow and Light, into Digital Topography: New ANTIVJ Work:re-blog from Create Digital Motion

French-born, Bristol UK-based artist Joanie Lermercier is one of the names most associated with projection mapping. But in a new video, the artist – who goes by the name ANTIVJ, which doubles as his audiovisual label – expresses just how he conceives these tricks of perception, as plays of shadow and light.

The work itself is beautifully documented here, interspersed with its surroundings, as an installation and (for Joanie) artist residency at Troy, New York’s EMPAC, not far upstate from New York City.

It’s not just an escape from the rectangle that motivates ANTIVJ’s work. The specific application of calculated (and sometimes exaggerated) illusion, and the awareness of those illusions, recalls the trompe-l’œil technique that saw its peak in Baroque and Roccoco art. And it’s movng to me to hear Joanie speak about the sensation that surrounds that technique; somehow, I’ve always found French artists and perhaps even the French language most articulate in appreciating ephemeral sensations in expression. (I certainly have found that in playing French music, so I at least have that personal connection, if imagined or otherwise.)

It’s beautiful work. And at the same time, I find it encouraging that you could close your eyes, listen to Joanie’s conceptual notions, and create something entirely different. This could well be a deep well of thinking about digital projection, in which three-dimensional illusion is far from novelty. Centuries of art certainly suggest as much – and this new digital work demonstrates that aesthetic can be independent from illusion.

Details of the video:

EYJAFJALLAJÖKULL

an installation by Joanie Lemercier

twitter.com/#!/JoanieLemercier

——————————————–

a video by Jérome Monnot (cargocollective.com/jeromemonnot) and Vania Jaikin Miyazaki

Produced by Elefant Films

VISUALS: Joanie Lemercier

Additional visuals: Simon Geilfus

MUSIC: Monolake – Oomoo

PRODUCTION: Nicolas Boritch

Music used in the video report:

- Caribou – Children Play Well Together

- Nicolas Jaar – Wouh

Projects featured from 1:22 are all documented on antivj.com

——————————————–

twitter.com/#!/AntiVJ

antivj.com/empac/

And more description:

Audiovisual installation by Joanie Lemercier

Painting, layer of projected light

Inspired by the icelandic volcano, which wreaked travel havoc across europe earlier this year,

Joanie Lemercier presents the latest incarnation of its audiovisual mapping project

Painted directly onto a large wall, a wireframed scenery is slowly revealed by gentle light effects.

The audience’s sense are progressively challenged as optical illusions question their perception of space.

Projection Mapping Meets Turntablism: Serato DJing and Live Visual Feedback

Projection Mapping Meets Turntablism: Serato DJing and Live Visual Feedback:re-blog from Create Digital Motion

Projection Mapping Onto Turntables from E.N.S. on Vimeo.

Rooted in pre-digital tradition, the turntables and mixer here get a different kind of digital upgrade: sound-responsive visuals transform the decks.

Built by Austin, Texas-based student Mark Morris, artist E.N.S., and collaborators, this work in progress demonstrates what happens if you point the projector directly at the DJ’s rig. Cleverly, they map the platters themselves as they rotate, as well as add interface elements from the DJ software and responsive audio waveforms. From Mark:

This is a projection mapping project we’ve been working on for about a month as of uploading.

It’s a user interface for Serato Scratch Live that is vinyl rotation-reactive, as well as sound-reactive, and makes it possible to mix using Serato without having to look at your computer screen whatsoever. We have real-time waveforms streaming across our mixers, or our vinyl platters, and we have started to incorporate video effects that are controlled by [Nintendo] Wii remotes. We are also working on controlling effects with motion capturing using a camera.

Much more to come!

The Song from the video was made by one of the creators of all the cool stuff you saw in the video: Mark Morris

Music from E.N.S. is available on Facebook.

Thanks to Francis Preve (Academik Records, Keyboard Magazine), who’s fortunate to have Mark as a student and points this our way.

We’ll have more as they get further along, but this is already looking great.

Update – via comments, here’s another instance of projection mapping onto decks, by MrGeeBee, a Luzern, Switzerland-based developer moonlighting as DJ. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other examples, as well. Heck, I hope there are – go make more, folks.

A Virtual Tiger Stalks Paris, Projection Mapping from a Car; Similar Earlier Work

A Virtual Tiger Stalks Paris, Projection Mapping from a Car; Similar Earlier Work:

Golden Tiger from le3paris on Vimeo.

Here’s guerrilla projection taken to a whole new level: hitting the pavement, doing it from a moving object. Hit the road, jack.

The result: a digital tiger that appears to “run” across the surfaces of Parisian buildings. A reader tells us:

We have seen a tiger on Vimeo projected and prowling around the streets of Paris.

We found out that the french creative studio Le3 has been terrorizing Paris in recent days with its latest art installation, called the “Golden Tiger.” The team is projecting recorded footages of a running tiger onto the streets of Paris from a moving vehicle. The apparent running speed of the beast is controlled by the speed of car, via sensors in its wheels.

It goes to show that street mapping have clearly moved forward.

Moving forward, indeed. And it makes you wonder what other mobile projection ideas might be lurking in the veldt.

More information:

le3paris.com

Credits:

Street Mapping in Paris

from an original idea by

Mehmet AYDOGDU

Julien NONNON

Romain VOLLET

with the participation of

Laurent LE GOFF

Donatien DE LAVENNE

Music by THE AGENCY ‘Watching Us’

(F. Blet / R. Trotel / Y. Mayoux)

Published by Industry of Cool

From the album ‘SOMNOGRAPHE’ © 2011

Tiger in your Tank? [Updated] Unfortunately, it seems this work – has already been done. While unintentional coincidence is certainly easy enough in this field, here it appears the work above was without attribution based on an earlier work. Drawing from earlier ideas is a good thing, but doing it directly and without attribution would tend to be plagiarism. I will investigate to see if there’s something we don’t know here.

http://www.gravitytrap.com/artwork/wildlife [by Karolina Sobecka - and really quite lovely work, too - thanks to arctic sunrise in comments and a discussion thread on creative applications]

Projection Mapping for a Cause: Obscura’s Cube of CO2

Projection Mapping for a Cause: Obscura’s Cube of CO2:re-blog from Create Digital Motion

CO2 Cube from Obscura Digital on Vimeo.

It’s an older project, but no less timely: speaking of Obscura Digital’s work, they’ve also employed projection as a way to illustrate in tangible terms a serious issue. You’ll hear climate scientists speak in terms of metric tons of emissions. But because we can’t see those emissions, and because most people really don’t think about volumes of carbon dioxide (hardly something you pick up at the grocery), it’s tough to wrap your head around what that means.

That is, it’s tough until you see the volume. Assuming sea level, you get a cube of 8.2m x 8.2m x 8.2m (27ft x 27ft x 27ft) or a three-story building. And so at 2009′s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Obscura Digital made the message more concrete. The object itself illustrates the point, and then becomes a medium for conveying information gathered from YouTube and Google. It’s called a “4-D Hypercube User Interface System,” which seems a bit of a stretch – this would technically still be a 3-cube – if clever branding. But the message is really clear.

It also suggests an important role of creative projection, which is making the projection surface itself part of the content and meaning.

More information:

http://www.obscuradigital.com/work/detail/c02-cube/

Total Immersion: Projection Mapping + Tracking for PS3 Shots, Like Pure Magic

Total Immersion: Projection Mapping + Tracking for PS3 Shots, Like Pure Magic:re-blog from Create Digital Motion


We’re living in an age of the Neo-Baroque/Neo-Rococo, in which technique creates marvelous illusions, when technique and thought can create dazzling effects. And as the technology matures, that work begins to evolve genuine playfulness. It’s not enough to see the novelty: that novelty is now conveyed through real wit.

At least, I feel fuzzy, optimistic thoughts like that when I look at work like a series of spots for the Sony PS3. Friend-of-the-site Memo Atken is involved, alongside FND and Flat-e, with the wonder, mixing real-time projection mapping with head tracking and camera tracking (both at once) for a sort of live match-moving-like effect.

But… well, just watch. I hope we’ll get to talk to Memo, Flat-e, and FND soon. Credits and a teaser description of how it was done below.

And consider this: the combination of sensing with projection is to live digital visuals what a technique like perspective was to painting centuries ago. It’s a calculated illusion, but it could be the basis for an entire body of work, both a marvel in itself and a springboard to new art.





Credits:

Realtime projection mapping for Sony PS3 Video Store.

Agency: Studio Output

Directors: Robin McNicholas (Flat-e), Barney Steel (FND), Memo Akten (MSA)

Cameraman / AR: Thomas English

Music: Finn McNicholas/Si Begg

Client: Sony PS3 Video Store

Production Company: Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF)

Sony PS3 Video Store Realtime Projection Mapping [flat-e]

Memo writes:

For the launch of the Sony PlayStation Video Store, our job was to bring a living room alive with hints at various hollywood blockbuster franchises – so we decided to push projection mapping to a new level. We projection mapped a living room space with camera (or head) tracking and dynamic perspective. All content realtime 3D, camera (or head) is tracked to match and update the 3D perspective in realtime to the viewers point of view. Add to this real props, live puppetry, interaction between the virtual and physical worlds, a little bit of pyrotechnics and a lot of late nights. I can tell you, physically walking around in that space really messes with your head, e.g. when the floor drops you reach out to grab onto something!.

Dynamic projection mapping with camera / head tracking – Sony PlayStation Video Store [memo.tv]





Thanks, Steve Nalepa and David Lublin.

A Museum’s Faceless Cube, Transformed: Mapping in Austria

A Museum’s Faceless Cube, Transformed: Mapping in Austria:

MQ10 | Architectural staging from urbanscreen on Vimeo.



Speaking of projection mapping (again), Jonas sends a project he worked on that’s a spectacular example, one that seems to make a faceless box of a museum extrude fragments from its side and gain new depth. Description:

An audiovisual staging of the Leopold Museum’s architecture during the 10th anniversary of the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, Austria.

Premiered on 30th of July in 2011.

Art Direction: Daniel Rossa (rossarossa.de), Till Botterweck

Technical Director: Till Botterweck

3D Operator: Peter Pflug

Sound Design: Jonas Wiese

Documentation Director: Thorsten Bauer

Camera: Thorsten Bauer, Moritz Horn, Oktocam Vienna (audiovisuellemedien.at)

Edit: Jonas Wiese

Commissioned by: Soundframe Festival (soundframe.at)

Realized with Wings VIOSO Mediaserver (vioso.com)

An URBANSCREEN.com production

Pixels Mixed with Paper Sculpture: Amon Tobin-Inspired Audiovisual Projection

Pixels Mixed with Paper Sculpture: Amon Tobin-Inspired Audiovisual Projection:re-blog from Create Digital Motion

In a spectacular, sculptural work, forms built from paper become organic backdrops for undulating pixels in an audiovisual work by Daniel Schwarz. I like that he describes this as partially “non-mapped.” That is, if projection mapping is the use of software to create calculated virtual geometries on which to project, you can also just point a beamer at something that isn’t flat and see what happens. The appeal of projection mapping is to me really about getting away from flat rectangles – not that there’s anything wrong with them, but because it expands the canvas on which digital projection can work. Sometimes, you want perfectly-tuned mappings, but sometimes you actually want distortion and imperfection. It’d be a shame to lose sight of the latter just because of the novelty (and now ease) of the former.

What makes this work beautiful to me is the transformation of imaginative forms in space. Daniel describes the work:

I used mapped and non-mapped audio-reactive projections on paper sculptures and filmed it with a [Canon] 5d mark II. It’s kind of a journey through a dystopic landscape to the music of Amon Tobin.

Programming was all done in vvvv, editing in Final Cut Pro 7.

I also want so say a big thank you, because i basically made this video thanks to your blog post concerning the Amon Tobin Fan Video

Project.

Hey, thank you! (Curious to see more results of that project.) And here’s another case where you might still want to keep those SLRs around, not just the fancy new iPhone. (I’m also glad I don’t have to deal with mobile carriers to buy cameras.)