cycles
The circle is a universal symbol with extensive meaning. It represents the notions of totality, wholeness, the self, the infinite, eternity, timelessness, the great rhythm of the universe.
produced by: Oliver Schilke
Introduction
Cycles aesthetic derives from the universe in a constant state of flux. Capturing its ceaseless fluidity of unpredictability. In the form of a under 3-minute projection mapping piece I aimed to explore ways of encompassing the audience.
Concept and background research
A lot of the time when I am starting a project and am looking for inspiration, I go onto my list of saved posts on my Instagram page. I have been adding to this list nearly daily for the past year of (mainly) computational artworks that I find inspiring. My aim was to focus on the visuals that used round or circular representation in their work. Drawing connections between these pieces to see the similarities and differences and how I could combine and differentiate their likeness. I obtained my other research from looking at live sets of audio-visual concerts. Even though there was no audio to couple with the visual looking at this work was important for me because when focusing on the visual aspect of these sets, their intense and chaotic nature is a great tool for encapsulating the crowd.
Max Cooper live @ Koko - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIx6DI_RTqw&t=24s
Technical
After different stages of research, I would just jump straight into openFrameworks with a bunch of 2 second sketches that had emerged from my research. Through these I kept on developing individual sketches until I felt like I had enough to make the piece.
I had some problems importing my sketches into ofxPiMapper, even though I went through the same process as the rest of my sketches some just didn’t seem to take to the program. Some I ended up leaving out and others I worked my way around it using different methods. The flickering eye scene was intended to be a simple slit scan of an eye blinking but I couldn’t work out how to get ofxPiMapper to read the video so I ended up taking screenshots of the original slit scan program and then putting those images through another algorithm that would work in ofxPiMapper.
Some visuals were a lot more time consuming to make than others. A few of the scenes in my project were very simple to code, flashing panels, or randomly placed fast paced circles. Others were more time consuming when looking into particle systems, shaping functions and image transformation.
Future development + Self evaluation
I felt this project way key in developing the early stages of my work with generative art. It is something I want to focus more in the future, not just building my technical skills on the type of visuals I can create but developing my understanding of timing scenes, building tension and creating anticipation. Pushing it further I want to see what other mediums I can use to create enticing visuals, thinking about ways of manipulating video and using different forms of input to trigger these visuals. I have a lot of excitement to see where the knowledge I have attained from this project where lead my practice.
In most projects there is a level of expectation you expect yourself to live up to and it can be very hard to achieve if you overestimate that. There were a lot of ideas that I didn’t execute in this project either due to lack of time or of skill but on the other hand those thoughts have led me further into the process of being able to do manifest those concepts into reality.
References
Transform Landscape from Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architcture by Anthony Stellato - http://rabbitattack.com/
Recreating Vintage Computer Art with Processing by Alexander Miller - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaarVR1AOvs
Video Image Sequence from Mastering openFrameworks: Creative Coding Demystified by Denis Perevalov - https://www.packtpub.com/gb/application-development/mastering-openframeworks-creative-coding-demystified
Simple Particle System from The Nature of Code by Daniel Shiffman - http://www.shiffman.net
Moving Through Space #2 by Konrad Jünger - http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/96948