Sydney Salamy: Looking Outwards-05

The piece I chose to discuss wasn’t really given a name, but was described as procedural mesh splitting using tyFlow, created in 2019 by Tyson Ibele. tyFlow being a particle simulation tool used for 3ds Max and created by  Ibele (instagram username _tyflow_). The work is a video showing a series of limbs and a face. These are slowly torn apart to reveal the insides, which are a gold substance that acts like a balloon.

• I really enjoyed the work for the imagery. It starts off with what looks like a pretty realistic limb with a long gold cut on it. But then expectations are subverted as the limb pulls apart into two. This goes on throughout the video, with the only things really changing being the parts being ripped and the angle of the shot. So I guess what I admire about it is the subversion of expectations and what it’s caused by. Ibele takes something familiar like body parts and then makes them act very differently from how they’re supposed to act. I like how this kind of idea can be applied to so many different things and be taken in so many different directions. It  allows interesting imagery. No one would be able to see an arm or face act like this anywhere else. The way the gold parts reform really caught my as well eye since the result was stuff like a leg with three feet on the end, again, something that couldn’t really be see in real life.
• I suppose the algorithms that generated/rendered the work must have been pretty complicated. The imagery in the video was very detailed, and the “jiggling” physics of the body parts seemed realistic, with a lot of different movements having to be generated.
• The creator Ibele works a lot with 3D graphics, and his artistic sensibilities can be seen in the similarities between these works. Looking at his his pieces, it seems many of them kind of deal with “subverting expectations”. What I mean by this is that he’ll show something like a person or objects like Legos, and then he’ll make them act in unexpected ways. For example, he’ll have the person be made of ribbons, and as they walk they’ll unravel and fall apart. Or he’ll show water being poured or a small explosion taking place, but they will be made of Legos.