It’s a creative spot for a company – Ericsson (the network folks, not to be confused with Sony-owned Sony Ericsson, the mobile phone company). But it’s worth mention here for a few reasons.
One is, it’s nice to see clever design and match moves, yes.
Two, the message of the vendor in this case – about the networks on which we all live – is compelling, even if here in the service of just that one vendor.
But three, and what put me over the top even though this site is the “Motion” site, is that sound design and editing is what makes these spots work for me. The impact of the motion effects, the stuff on which many readers of this site are most focused, is actually pretty useless without the soundtrack and the crisp, carefully-timed, minimal and expressive sound design. (That’s especially true in the motion spot.)
That for me made this worth posting. Sound can be the punctuation that makes the visual really work. It’s not a separate element as such, even: it makes the visual message stronger.
Erik Sellgren of Stockholm, Sweden-based House of Radon – a CDMotion reader – sends this in on behalf of his agency.
In the latest example of what people are doing with open source Kinect tools and movement, PRICKIMAGE sends a performance that works with the Windows-based vvvv. It’s still a work in process / proof of concept, but I’m really enjoying seeing experiments with this technology. There’s definite potential to be explored. The artists write:
I follow CDM and find it inspiring & informative
Can I share a project with that we are developing quickly
Video sample below is the 1st test promo
This is what we plan next…
A 10-15 minute performance will use the Musion Eyeliner system to conjure magical effects with a performer who will dance and sing live,
live illustration and interactive graphics & audio, powered by vvvv (a multipurpose toolkit) within a simple fantasy narrative. Our theme is
metamorphosis and transition, within which we will play with effects of dramatic transformation visually referencing children’s fiction,
early cinematic and pre-cinematic effects, and animated worlds.
More:
creative direction: PRICKIMAGE
vvvv: SAPOLAB
performer: MC Gaff E
illustration: Martin Wollerstam
event: WetYourSelf!
music: App “Feel Like Dancing”
It’s a multi-national effort, this, but I see at least one person at the STRP Festival later this month in Eindhoven, NL. I’m there presenting on the 25th, if anyone else is around!
Presenting a moving (and moving) snapshot of what the emerging field of live visualism is all about, the new trailer for the Mapping Festival might just give you a shiver.
Thanks to Jerome Monnot, the trailer’s director, for sending this our way – and for the fine work.
For my part, I’m clearing my May schedule for both Mapping and LPM, the Live Performers Meeting (dates forthcoming on the latter, but they just finished up an installment in Minsk). In fact, can we just get, like, a big bus to go between Geneva and Rome?
All the gory details of the folks involved in the trailer above: Continue reading »
You’ve come a long way, baby. In fact, in the midst of this whole debate, consider what phones can do – and what they’ll be able to do soon. As an artist, that’s incredibly compelling. Photo (CC-BY) Fred Benenson.
While ZDNet stands behind the story, this should be classified as “rumor” until an official statement has been made, and my comments considered accordingly speculative.
Updated: the official announcement. Note what it says – yes, it’s wordy, but there are two pieces here. One is, Adobe is committing to contributing to HTML5, which is to say, to make Web standards do more than they do now. We’ll have to watch to see if they deliver on the commitment, and in what form. The other is a renewed investment in AIR – that is, Adobe tech (including, presumably, bits of Flash Player for mobile) in apps packaged using Adobe’s tools for different platforms, but not delivered inside webpages.
To me, Adobe’s decision is the result of momentum from all corners of the Web community, not just from Apple – though I think in retrospect, Apple’s decision to immediately dump Flash, much like dumping old serial ports and floppy drives on the iMac, was absolutely prescient, and to argue otherwise would be silly. What’s exciting to me now is the ongoing innovation from all circles. Replacing Flash on mobile isn’t just the result of having video support through other means; it’s also the extraordinary work done with animation and canvas and CSS3. In fact, it goes beyond just “HTML5,” as some people are certain to correct shortly. It’s the whole cluster of technologies that make up the so-called “Open Web,” and readers and this site have argued in the past, that’s likely to be a lucrative area for Adobe.
It’s also worth noting what this isn’t: this isn’t a retreat from the AIR framework; it’s quite the opposite, you’ll see the report notes that in absence of energy spent on Flash, the focus is on native development using AIR. (And that means Apple’s vision for what development looks like isn’t entirely realized here.)
That said, make no mistake: because of the importance of video, I think there’s no question that this decision will re-ignite the controversy over what codec should make up the future of the “open Web.” This debate isn’t likely to be any easier or more fun than it was the last … umpteen times. But you will see it again, no question.
As the Web discussion is likely to focus blindly on iOS-versus-Android, rah rah team sports quasi-journalism (snore), I think there’s a bigger theme here. A lot of the awesomeness of “HTML5″ or the “Open Web” includes stuff that just doesn’t run yet on mobile – WebGL being one huge, glaring example for which a lot of us are really hungry. Continue reading »
Calibration workshop, demonstrating the gathered energy and brainpower in Pittsburgh last month. Photo by our friend, the extraordinary Kyle McDonald, whose teaching is behind a lot of the creative output here.
Microsoft may be running showy ads that show imagined applications of 3D computer vision, but using technology like Microsoft’s own Kinect, hackers are making sci fi reality, right now. Art && Code, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was an epic gathering of artists and hackers and hackers become artists and artists become hackers. It was an extraordinary convergence of learning and making, workshop and hacklab, technical brain dumps and creative experimentation. Special to CDM, Sofy Yuditskaya brings us a number of highlights. For her part, Sofy herself presented how to make the Kinect camera work with free software graphical multimedia environment Pd, something I hope we’ll look at more soon. Here’s what Sofy brought back from the conference, so you can see what people are doing and learn yourself. -PK
Last month, Carnegie Mellon University held its now annual conference/festival Art && Code — and this one was in 3D!
Lovingly organized by Golan Levin and a core group of administrators, the gathering created a supportive and productive space for artists, students, hackers, makers, researchers & educators, and corporate developers to have a conversation. Props to everyone involved.
I came in on Thursday at the end of the hackathon preceding the main event. The power of structured light scanning was part of Elliot Woods’ and Kyle McDonald’s Calibrating Projectors and Cameras workshop, documented on an extensive wiki: 4A: Calibrating Projectors and Cameras: Practical Tools
There was a very universal performance by Jason Levine using Kinect tracking, beatboxing and throat singing: jasonlevine.caContinue reading »
Make all the hipster jokes you like. Fashionable film photography could be all that lies between us and the demise of film. With camera manufacturing and film stock going out of production, enthusiasts – both the inventors/merchandisers and users – are having to rebuild the film revolution from scratch. And while this site’s name has “digital” in the title, make no mistake: creative work with light and motion is dependent on maintaining traditional techniques for the full spectrum of choice.
That’s why it’s good news that today, Lomography has a motion camera. True to Lomo’s experimental roots in art student visual play, it’s not really a movie camera in the traditional sense. It’s a throwback to the beginnings of motion film, in many ways, down to the hand crank and jerky, slow-framerate capture. You could use it to do individual frames, timelapse style, or crank up to about 3-5 frames per second.
For visualists, it looks like brilliant, experimental fun, and I’m already thinking of ways to combine this “analog” workflow with digital tools that embody the same spirit. And Lomo seems to be going to digital hybrids, too, encouraging uploads to Vimeo. That’s good news – I can’t say I’ve absolutely loved Lomography’s own web photo sharing site, which can be clunky; seeing them embrace Vimeo seems very good, indeed. The design, which I hope to check out later today if I can grab one in Berlin, has some interesting features:
Fixed focus 1m+; 0.6-1m macro mode
Continuous aperture – a departure for the “sunny / cloudy” mode on Lomos. f/5.6 – f/11. (Amusingly, they still recommend switching between the extreme settings based on whether it’s sunny or cloudy.)
A roughly 1/100 shutter, for cranking up to 3-5 fps. (This is where digital gets interesting to me – think about processing between frames.)
Hot shoe and flash. Obviously, you want a flash that recharges quickly, but the flash could be the coolest feature here.
Easy 35mm processing. Lomo suggests scanning with a flatbed. Time to hit eBay for a flatbed. Here, too, I could see some interesting DIY solutions and hacks.
Best of all, while I anticipated some wildly-expensive product here, the LomoKino is EUR 65,00. And before you complain about that, come on – how much did you spend on your last lens? And your last Adobe CS upgrade? It comes with a book, too.
But why is this important in the bigger scheme? Even as film assortments and stocks dwindle, Lomography is getting into making their own film. And that expanding retail operation, that includes cameras in places like Urban Outfitters? It may make “serious” photographers cringe, but it could be the market that sustains any kind of usable scale in film manufacturing. (Remember how pricey it was to buy The Impossible Project’s clone of Polaroid film, and how inconsistent the results were initially, and how scarce it was? Plan for more of this – and, conversely, more successes when production ramps up.)
And let’s consider just how desperate the situation is becoming. The LomoKino is hardly a replacement, but the motion movie camera is meeting its untimely end. Continue reading »
Big pixels, enormous screen: watching the latest LED wall spring to life from basic materials, with a lot of effort, is a sheer delight.
Reader Konstantin Leonenko sends in this work, by technical producers YBCOZ, for the Dutch artist Giny Vos’ cinematic installation.
The sheer quantity of LEDs aside, it’s the ability of that cinematic quality to shine through in Vos’ work that ultimately makes the technical achievement more valuable.
The construction, which took a full month of work, is here collapsed into four minutes. During those minutes, what you’re seeing is some 360 degrees, 4,000 LEDs for 4,000 individual pixels, 8,000 needles, and a screen constructed from “cardboard and calque paper,” says Konstantin.
“Round’n'Round” cinematic led installation by Giny Vos.
location: Virtueel Museum ZuidAs.
technical production by YBCOZ
Amsterdam, July-October 2011.
Music: “How Long Is The Wrong Way” by Flanger
More of Vos’ work below (and elsewhere on Vimeo), or visit her site:
Peter Kirn
Jaymis Loveday
Matt Ganucheau
toby
joshue ott
michaeluna
vade
dan-winckler
Momo The Monster
songcarver
dj-rndm
nathanal-lcaud
christian.ryan
craig-dorety
Surya Buchwald
Kyle McDonald
Annapurna Kumar
Sofy Yuditskaya