Creation
"Creation" is a visual narrative that explores the idea of the matters emerges from nothingness to existence, from 0 to 1, where energy, consciousness and forms of life begin.
produced by: Yewen Jin
Introduction
The physical artifact of this projection mapping project, the “Perforated Walls”, was set up to be a vehicle that conveys the split between solid and void. The cut out circles and the remaining space forms a binary relationship in which one is where the other isn’t. This allows me to explore the state of being/existence, particularly the beginning and end of it, the switch between off and on.
The concept of "creation" draws inspiration from the three deities in Hindu triumvirate - Brahman, Vishnu and Shiva, who are responsible for Creation, Preservation and Destruction, respectively. In fact, creator deity is a rather universal belief across religions. Scientists created models such as Big Bang Theory to construct visions based on tools from modern physics. What interests me is our innate fascination with the origin of all matters as human beings and how that sparks our imaginations.
Concept and background research
The solid/void relationship on the projection surfaces as a physical backdrop plays a key role in how the narrative unfolds. The 3 parts form a visual continuum that can be viewed as a whole.
The first scene starts with the opening of the eyes from the void, suggesting the first moment of awakening. The pupil/iris of the eyes then turn into rotating swirls, transitioning from the eyes as the subjects of viewing into the objects that are viewed, and the motors of life begin to turn.
Leading to the second scene is the explosion of these entities in each one of the slots, turning darkness into light. Within the void left the pulsating cores, whose energy later grow into active and emissive rays.
The last part zoomed out to a different scale where groups of particles start forming behaviors around the void - the free flowing particles, when they go near the void they get sucked into it and start forming a cluster that would eventually form the next level of identity, from atoms to molecules, from amino-acids to proteins, from cells to organs...
Technical
This project depends on the use of Openframeworks, the ofPiMapper addon and Scene Manager, and my approach to using these tools heavily replies on a system of frame-based timer and mapping the geometry within the (fbo) source files rather than using Scene Manager.
My intention is to create a sequence for what’s happening in the “voids”, where things don’t happen all at once. Since each of the 9 voids are stored in an array, it becomes quite straightforward to create a small offset of start time between each object in the for loop where the functions go through them. Otherwise, in Scene Manager I’d have to split up every single transition into 9 parts to set the sequence (unless there’s a better way of doing it that I’m not aware of).
Also, since I located the pixel details of geometry from the fabrication file, my process of coding is treating the entire 3 panel-background as a whole rather than create specific objects for either inside or outside the circles.
Future development
I would like to view this project as the first part of a trio, drawing reference to triangle of Creation-Preservation-Desctruction from Hindu Deity, and use the same visual language to explore the other two concepts. Eventually this project should finish on the same note where it begins so it completes as a continuously looping cycle.
Self evaluation
Through this project I have been able to bring out what I intended to express, and I’m quite satisfied with the aesthetics and the general sequence of events unfolding. The structure and transition are generally well planned although not every transition has been as precised as I coded during the projection during the mismatch between frame rate and timer. I do feel like I’d like to enrich the visual content and introduce more complexity to each of the events, especially in the opening part, where the simple eye shape can transition into something more complex more gradually.
References
Concept
Brahma.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/deities/brahma.shtml
Code
"Noisy Sun" - Workshop for Creative Coding, week 5;
Music
Lubomyr Melnyk. (2015) "Parasol".