Eugene Golovanchuk (aka Skeeva) is an art director and 3D digital artist. His artwork uses “3D dark art surrealism, captivating in its cyberpunk flare.” Much of his work has a focus on fashion, developing outfits digitally. I chose to look specifically at his project “Oversized” made in March 2020 which was one of his personal projects where he wanted to learn how to use “Marvelous Designer” to simulate clothing and animation. This project shows animations of three different outfits (with a focus on oversized coats), and the video above shows the first outfit of the series. He uses imagery and animation to show off the garments he designed, and they are so cool. His artwork is fascinating as it seems so real, yet so out of this world and like nothing I have ever seen before. The patterns and textures are mesmerizing. I think this is also very interesting because so much of fashion is about texture and materiality, and Skeeva is able to achieve this kind of detail all through a computer.
Throughout this project, I felt it was a little difficult to figure out what I wanted to create, but it was interesting to consider how forms could appear with the use of repeated lines. Originally, I was thinking about a butterfly with the ground and sky as a background, but I decided to use translate and rotate to twist the ground to instead become colorful lines emphasizing the butterfly’s movement (instead of the ground) which I think makes it a little more fun and dynamic.
The artwork “5 Horizons” is an audiovisual installation created by Japanese artist Ryoichi Kurokawa. Created in 2010, it is made up of five screens and speakers. The experince is an eight minutes long loop. He builds his structures with recordings and digitally-made structures. Kurokawa synthesizes the image to the sound, creating a very cool, immersive spatial experience for the viewers. I admire the layering of this installation, not only between the sound and imagery, but also how the imagery is able to morph (from dynamic waves to nature scenes and so on)! It is very well executed for all the moving parts. With further research, Kurokawa is interested in synesthtesia which you can see come though his work as he blends together the visual and audtiory senses. He also is inspired by nature, and it very interesting to see how he blurs the boundary between the natural and digital world in this installation.
For this project, I wanted some kind of flower scene. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to make it seem like they can grow based on the position of the mouse, along with making the cloud interactive both with the sun and the mouse. I added the spinning parts to try the rotate and push & pop methods and figure out how they work.
Digital Grotesque is a creation of architecture where the artist, Benjamin Dillenburger, uses algorithms to generate the geometry, and then uses sand printing to create the builds. The 3D printed sandstone parts (which are made up of sandstone and resin) can then be connected together to make up the completed piece, and it is huge. It is essentially printing architecture!! The artist uses a computer to generate very intricate, complex parts, and it is absolutely amazing to me that the computer was able to execute this amount of detail at such a large scale without needing any intervention. I also really admire the use of texture that is able to come through. Dillenburger shares that the precision is down to millimeters and that this kind of detail could never be drawn by hand as there are 260 million facets and 30 billion voxels. I often have thought about how modern buildings have lost their detailed quality, and this technology makes me wonder how the future of architecture and style could change with generative processes and technology.
In my process, I wanted to figure out how to play with color and how that could change through pressing the mouse. I also was interested in and had a lot of fun figuring out how simple shape changes could affect expression.
When exploring generative art and different artists, I discovered Georg Nees and had fun looking through his work. Nees has a background in math and physics and started working in the field of computer graphics in 1964. He was one of the first artists to use algorithms on a computer to create his artwork. He first publicly displayed his work in 1965. The artwork was first coded on punched paper tape before being created by a drawing machine (Zuse Graphomat Z64). I think it is pretty cool to hear about an older system of coding like punching paper and translating to a drawing machine, and I admire the want to make art with a different system like computers. I enjoy looking at Nees’s artwork as it holds both a simplicity and complexity. The black line on a white background seems simple, but the patterns and images become so complicated. There is a sense of order and chaos. Pretty amazing that they are all created with code!
Blog 01 | Think about an interactive and/or computational project involving a creative or artistic bent (from anywhere, by anyone except yourself) that you knew about before starting this course, and which you find inspirational.
I chose the “Connected Worlds” interactive installation, designed by Design I/O. As an environments designer, I admire this project because it creates a learning experience that embeds digital and physical interactions with beautiful visuals. Essentially, the experience is made up of 6 digital ecosystems that all rely on a water source. Visitors are able to mold the path of the water source on the ground using foam logs that use motion tracking devices to affect the behavior of the digital water. The ecosystems react to the water and the goal is to show how water is vital to wildlife and their homes. The ecosystem wildlife also react to visitors’ hand movements. I love that it is fun and playful and yet still holds purpose. Design I/O developed with openFrameworks (an open source creative coding toolkit). They needed software for their single system network, the interactive floor, and interactive walls. There is a lot of feedback and reactions that are a part of this experience, leading to a very complicated computer system. There are 8 different MacBook Pros that control the different environments and are communicating with each other! Here is a “Behind the Scenes” video (https://vimeo.com/131665883) that explains all the technology! I feel this project exemplifies what future experiences can morph into and can ultimately be applied to anything from education, to retail, to social experiences.
Reference: https://www.design-io.com/projects/connectedworlds (I definitely recommend looking though the imagery!) Designers: Design I/O Team: Emily Gobeille, Theo Watson, & Nicholas Hardeman Title: Connected Worlds