ROMANTIC PSYCHEDELIC

Moving Blog to Wordpress

2010-02-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

I'm moving this blog over to Wordpress & have stopped posting on blogger. So please look here for newest updates! Will have a unique blog name soon and will try to consolidate all the other ones. Grascias.

Morphing Perspective with Stop-motion photography

2010-02-01T22:47:00.001-08:00

Drift from mustardcuffins on Vimeo.

Fields of Potentiality

2010-01-27T23:18:00.000-08:00

As I get my feet wet with basic systems neuroscience, am excited by computational models of large urban spaces & environments. Interactive systems as fields of potentiality.

Thames Gateway / Zaha Hadid & Patrik Schumacher

Neil Leach, Xu Wei-Guo (curators), ‘(Im)material Processes: New Digital Techniques for Architecture’, 798 Space, Beijing 2008

Neil Leach @ IMD seminar tonight

Mel Alexenberg's biofeedback project @ MIT, circa 1988

2010-01-26T15:27:00.000-08:00

From Mel Alexenberg's blog, "Future of Art":

Inside/Outside: P'nim/Panim
I constructed a console in which a participant seated in front of a monitor places her finger in a plethysmograph, which measures internal body states by monitoring blood flow, while under the gaze of a video camera. Digitized information about her internal mind/body processes triggers changes in the image of herself that she sees on the monitor. She sees her face changing color, stretching, elongating, extending, rotating, or replicating in response to her feelings about seeing herself changing.

Alexenberg referencing Roy Ascot¹: Roy Ascot proposes that just as the development of interactive media replaced the cult of the object d’art with process-based artforms in the 20^th century, future artforms will be dialogues between dry pixels and wet molecules. Art of the future will explore “moistmedia,” the interspace between the dry world of virtuality and the wet world of biology in which spiritually numinous artforms will emerge. These new artforms will be conspicuously different from art of earlier periods.

1. Roy Ascott, Art, Technology, Consciousness: mind@large (Bristol:UK: Intellect Books, 2000).

'80s distortion, 2007 style

2010-01-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

eyes watching the '80s...

Speak & Spoil from Justin Lui on Vimeo.

Insane CG

2010-01-19T14:57:00.000-08:00

Atmospheric photorealism at its moody awesomest. All 3D, what!?

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Pinwheel

2010-01-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

2 day psychedelic video

Fun & quick Flash animation experiment I did today for a programming class.

Char Davies & Control

2009-12-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

"In Osmose, breathing is being used in a very specific way, not only for the navigational aspects but also to help people reconnect to the body which puts them in a certain state of mind. This in turn affects how they interact. Osmose is based on getting people into the state where they let go of the urge to be in control. Most interactive technology is about being in control. When you're playing games, you're being rewarded for your skill in being in control, your quick reflexes."*

*-Char Davies quoted in Carole Lee Craver, "Char Davies' OSMOSE," SGI Animator Vol. 1, no. 2 (1995): 17.

Photo Sketch Automates Bad Photo Mash-ups

2009-11-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, not sure if this is/was legit and what the deal is. Either way, an interesting concept. Photoshop Sketch Program that automates searching for images on line, cuts them out, and juxtaposes them based on the user's simple sketch input.

Mission From the Future

2009-11-05T22:26:00.000-08:00

Large Hadron Collider, mission aborted by future people again!

(Matt from MICA's infamous toast sculpture)

Modular Animated Webcam Units

2009-11-05T22:19:00.001-08:00

Sing Sang Sung

2009-11-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

AIR video =
sweet graphics!

Pinball arcade L - R jumping fantasy game

Andrew Brandou's Psychedelic Painting

2009-10-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

Andrew Brandou's Psychedelic Painting

Heart Beat Camera

2009-10-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Harris timed his camera shutter to his heart-beat as he documented a whale hunt.

Sorry I missed him presenting at UCLA yesterday. Living a day late...

Yes Yes No "Terrarium"

2009-09-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Terrarium - Interactive Installation from Theo Watson on Vimeo.

Terrarium (2008) is an interactive, sonic ecosystem whose source of energy comes from the sounds people make interacting with the work. Created by Theo Watson of YesYesNo and Emily Gobeille

The Reality Clock

2009-02-04T10:03:00.001-08:00

I started a new blog to outline the specifics of my thesis.

Here is the link:

Winter Time-Lapse

2008-12-23T11:44:00.000-08:00

Peripety & Returning to Z-love

2008-11-18T21:27:00.000-08:00

2 shots from a new Zeitguised promotional film, "Peripety"...

Recently, I've been moving away from Maya into building most of my project as flatter After Effects scenes. However, seeing these images, and what can be accomplished lyrically & whimsically in Maya, I feel re-inspired to emphasize the depth and CG aspects of my thesis more, to move away from what I already know and keep pushing the visual style.

Ground Falling Away

2008-11-12T22:53:00.001-08:00

Here is an inspiring and simple piece created by Theodore Watson for the outside of an elevator. As you step on the daisies, they disappear and then return again.

Daisies

In the animated world of my thesis, the environment disappears and rebuilds itself as the man traverses through it, paralleling the deterioration of his memory & perceptual abilities. As an installation, this environment could disappear & reappear as the viewer enters and moves around it.

Scalable Cities

2008-10-31T00:17:00.000-07:00

Scalable Cities, a project grown from the experimental game lab at UCSD

Vector Park

2008-10-29T16:30:00.001-07:00

Here's a fun and simple flash animation with a telescope environment:
Vector Park Flash Animation

Storybook Illustrations

2008-10-22T23:58:00.000-07:00

What would the love child of the following look like?

Moon Mountain Landscape

2008-10-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a test of a simple environment background combining stop-motion elements, time-lapse photography, and digital animation.

telescope view

2008-09-21T15:58:00.001-07:00

Royksopp -- What Else Is There?

2008-09-21T15:56:00.001-07:00

This is one of my favorite videos for mood & lighting from last year...

Stereo Moon

2008-09-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

Catalina last night.

Hurricane Ike, Man in Water

2008-09-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

Interesting storm photo from AP Press...

Moving Still - Gorgeous Anaglph

2008-09-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

Moving Still
Santiago Caicedo de Roux

Timescope Project

2008-09-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

Timescope Project
An interactive telescope allows a viewer to travel through layers of history of an object or place

Hudson River School

2008-08-31T15:06:00.000-07:00

Inspired by romanticism, Hudson River School Paintings reflect 3 themes of America in the 19th century: discovery, exploration, and settlement.
Luminism is a 2nd generation offshoot.

I like the circular frame here

Mala Iqbal Paintings

2008-08-31T14:55:00.000-07:00

Juxtaposition of styles and narrative fragments is interesting. Not crazy about the color palate.

UVA "Hereafter"

2008-08-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

United Visual Artists (UVA) created this gorgeous installation called "Hereafter"

From the catalog: "Hereafter uses a high speed camera to create a live history of the space, mixing previous recorded interactions, objects and people."

Time Lapse over Lake Erie

2008-08-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

My parent's backyard. Fun with stereoscopic timelapse...

Dreamy Photographic Landscapes

2008-04-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

Inspiring surreal photo-real imagery from Bernhard Quade:

Per Speculum

2008-03-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

Adrian Paci

William Burroughs - new narrative style

2008-03-11T21:07:00.001-07:00

Taken directly from a great brief history of multi-media art here:

"William Burroughs | Cut-ups <1959>

It was William Burroughs preoccupation with the deconstruction of words and language, most notably through the cut-up and fold-in techniques that he began to develop in 1959 with artist Byron Gysin, which constitutes his most significant contribution to the fragmentary, non-linear approach to contemporary narrative.

Borrowing from the collage technique of visual artists, his method links fragments of texts in surprising juxtapositions, offering unexpected leaps into uncharted territories that attempt to jar and ultimately transform the consciousness of the reader. For this reason, Burroughs refers to himself as "a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas."

For Burroughs, narrative operates as a vast, multi-threaded network that reflects the associative tendencies of the mind, collapsing the boundaries of time and space, drawing attention to previously undetected connections, drawing attention to the links between disparate ideas and elements. "

Evoke

2008-03-11T01:39:00.000-07:00

Also by Hague

Haunt

2008-03-11T01:17:00.000-07:00

Interactive Artist, Usman Haque, created an installation in which various sensual perceptions associated with paranormal experience were simulated within the environment. Psychologists tracked the physiological and psychological reactions of participants. Fascinating! See here:

What was simulated:
- infrasound (felt sounds that aren't heard)
- electromagnetism (concentrated fields)
- humidity (changes in)
- temperature
- air movement

Other gorgeous work by Haque

Open Burble

Broken Cloud Sculpture

2008-03-05T21:24:00.000-08:00

David Spriggs

House Breaking Apart

2008-03-05T21:19:00.000-08:00

Nina Pohl

Sailors!

2008-03-05T20:55:00.001-08:00

Iconic romantic character re-interpreted by Catherine Wallace

Tornado of Figures

2008-03-05T19:44:00.000-08:00

The warm gradation of top-light here is gorgeous.
Cause & Effect by Do-Ho Suh

"The fractured nature of narratives, memories and storytelling permeate Suh’s œuvre...Suh continues to activate subtle dialogues around space, human relationships, and displacement." - Art21 Series Blog

European Expressionism

2008-03-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

"The weakness of Expressionism, at its extreme, is that it may degenerate into formlessness, becoming a swirling, slathered aesthetic stew, expressive of pain and disorder (or ecstasy, but there's not much of that in our day), through which we fear we will be led, without hope of redemption, deeper into the unresolved, disturbing, anarchic, primeval muck of existence which we so long, and need, to rise above, or significantly integrate into the fabric of our daily, civilized lives.

What we mainly view as negative manifestations of Expressionism in nature: the volcano, earthquake, storm, disease and death, in man, are clearly anger, rage, emotional violence, crime and war. But, in addition to powerful extremes, the catchall of Expressionism also contains the mystery of life and the universe, and man's poetic, spiritual response to it" c. 1983 Don Gray

Girl in Water

2008-02-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

Deborah sent this one to me. I like it.

Themes of Romanticism

2008-02-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

My interests relate to the following themes of Romanticism:

HALLUCINATION/SUBJECTIVE VS. LITERAL PERCEPTION
- Tension between imaginative projection & recorded experience

MEMORY/DISTANT EXPERIENCE REFLECTED WITHIN PRESENT SPACE
- Haunting evocation of landscapes of memory
- Distant places join the distant past as a journey into the inner self
- Vast & remote vs. intimate corners
- Finding beauty in the sadness of decay

EXTERNAL LANDSCAPE AS SYMBOL/MAP OF THE INNER WORLD & ITS REVERSE
- Search for the inner state of mind or soul reflected in the outward form

GROUND (LITERAL SPACE, POTENTIAL) VS. ENERGY (PERCEPTIONS, REFLECTIONS)
- Fascination with everything elemental and irrational
- Return to a forgotten natural state from which new insights & visions might spring
- Apprehension of the spiritual in the world

SURREAL & SUBLIME
- Make the familiar strange & the strange familiar
- Elation, even fear, produced by the vast, mysterious, or unknown
- "Every tree seems to say Holy, Holy" - Beethoven

Imaginary Worlds Symposium

2008-02-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

Great reference sight for research into designing imaginary worlds: Imaginary Worlds Symposium reference

Space Time Play -- Interactive Narratives

2008-02-25T16:44:00.000-08:00

I've been researching how narratives are incorporated into interactive media design. Here are some quotes taken from the book, "Space Time Play"

"...Most existing embedded narratives take the form of detective or conspiracy stories since these genres help to motivate the player's active examination of clues and exploration of spaces and provide a rationale for his efforts to reconstruct the narrative of past events." p.59/ author Henry Jenkins

"In the case of embedded narratives, the gamespace becomes a memory palace whose contents must be deciphered as the player tries to reconstruct the plot. And in the case of emergent narratives, gamespaces are designed to be rich with narrative potential, thereby enabling the story-constructing activity of players." p.60/ author Don Carson

Northern Lights

2008-02-22T01:06:00.000-08:00

And the mother of all light shows...

Stone Mountain Laser Light Shows

2008-02-22T01:02:00.000-08:00

I remember going to these as a kid in Atlanta

from Spellbound, not Stone Mountain...

I'm fascinated by 3D laser projection, holograms, etc.

Meladori

2008-02-22T00:45:00.000-08:00

Zombie Rabbits

Fata Morgana

2008-02-22T00:23:00.000-08:00

Castles & Ships in the Sky

ITOTD
Wikipedia

Romantic Painting - Character

2008-02-21T18:53:00.001-08:00

Caspar David Friedrich, The Wanderer above the Mists, 1817-18.

Philipp Otto Runge, We Three, 1804.

George Stubbs, Lion Devouring a Horse, 1763.

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson, Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, 1809.

Pierre-Auguste Vafflard, Young Holding his Dead Daughter in his Arms, 1804.

Romantic Painting - Landscape & Light

2008-02-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

I am inspired by the mood, texture, composition, color palate, and lighting of the following.

First, one of my all-time favorite paintings:
Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, 1809.

J M W Turner, Peace - Burial at Sea, 1842.

J M W Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, 1912.

Caspar David Friedrich, Abbey in the Oakwood, 1809-10.

Mariele Neudecker, I Don't Know How I Resisted the Urge to Run, 1998.

Interactive Tornadoes!

2008-02-18T16:06:00.001-08:00

Interactive Tornadoes and other Forces of Nature

Tornadoes

2008-02-14T00:08:00.001-08:00

I've thinking of storms & concepts closer to the mid-western home that I grew up in.
Turn your volume down. The audio is awful.

Bjork on Shock

2008-02-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

I love the interactive look, use of Google Earth like navigation and perspective, and the theme of landscape as emotion and interior space

excerpt of lyrics from this Bjork video
"All these accidents,
That happen,
Follow the dot,
Coincidence,
Makes sense,
Only with you,
You don't have to speak,
I feel.

Emotional landscapes,
They puzzle me,
Then the riddle gets solved,
And you push me up to this

State of emergency,
How beautiful to be,
State of emergency,
Is where I want to be."

Shock

2008-02-11T21:30:00.000-08:00

Earthquake as a metaphor for a shock that shifts one's perspective
All of a sudden the ground shakes and is pulled out beneath you
Death, illness, intensity, the sublime

Here's an environmental sketch

seismic maps

2008-02-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

Toribash

2008-02-03T23:05:00.001-08:00

I'm not into the violent fighter theme. What I like here is the possibility of creating line through colorful 3D splashes of paint.

Crayon Physics

2008-02-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

deluxe

Flipside

2008-02-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

Flipside!

Katamari

2008-02-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

Fun scenes
I like the thought of including messages in a light-hearted way.

Amir Fallah

2008-02-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

This guy started Beautiful Decay. The color, context, and juxtaposition of painterly landscape design elements in industrial settings are gorgeous. It screams L.A.

The flowers are panties!

PCP - Fantasy Graphic Landscape

2008-02-03T21:09:00.001-08:00

Inspiring Fantastical Landscapes by PCP, Heisuke Kitazawa/illustration and designs

Eerie House

2008-02-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

The eerie treatment of this house struck me.

from jpgmag.com

Capturing Ghosts

2008-01-30T15:24:00.000-08:00

Ghost Chasers!

Pop Culture & the Paranormal

2008-01-30T15:09:00.001-08:00

I'm fascinated by pop culture iconography and objects that attempt to encapsulate or evoke the religious experience in some way. In Middle School, I was obsessed with the Time Life Mysteries series. In 5th grade, I remember trying to follow one of the book's 10 point list of "How To Have An Out of Body Experience".
12 Year Old Painter channels imagery directly from God!
(and interestingly, comes from an Aetheist family)

Jesus Shroud

A bizarre article I'd like to come back to as some point...

Mapping & the Western Occult

2008-01-30T14:51:00.000-08:00

I continue to be intrigued by attempts to map geographical spaces, whether physical and external, or as representations of internal or even spiritual/philosophical phenomena. I am also fascinated by the philosophical blendings of new religious cults and movements, such as these, that have become popular in the U.S. since the late 1800s:
Theosophy
I Am Society
The Seven Rays

Ouija

2008-01-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

Why is Ouija a game?
I used to play this as a teenager...alone...on home-made boards!
Instead of imaginary friends, I had ghost friends.
Ouija History

Eternal Darkness & Sanity Effects

2008-01-26T23:44:00.000-08:00

I'm inspired by some of the conceptual aspects behind this game, though I have heard that it is difficult to navigate and kind of frustrating to play. Here's an excerpt from what Wikipedia says about it:

"The game's standout concept, patented by Nintendo,[2] is the "sanity meter", a green bar on screen which is depleted under various conditions, generally when the character is seen by an enemy. It can be restored under various conditions, such as performing a "finishing move" on an enemy. As the bar becomes low, various effects occur, reflecting the character's slackening grip on reality. If the bar remains empty, further damage to sanity decreases the player character's health.

One effect which is consistently used is a skewed camera angle accompanied by whispers, cries, and other noises. The lower the sanity meter, the more skewed the camera angle and the louder the sound effects. Fourth wall breaking effects include simulated displays with messages apparently produced by the TV or the GameCube; this does not affect gameplay unless the player misconstrues them as actual technical malfunctions and turns off or resets his or her system, thereby losing all progress made since his or her last save.

Other Sanity Effects

Golden Compass

2008-01-26T23:29:00.000-08:00

Dave Horowitz pointed me to "The Golden Compass" New Line Cinema movie website Daemon generator. It plays upon the pop Native American/Celtic spirituality idea that your soul lives outside of your body in animal form, and morphs depending on your characteristics, until it eventually takes a fixed form as a particular animal spirit that is unique to you. Who is your Daemon?
OF COURSE I had to take it. Check it out...
Am I a fox???

Romantic Psychedelic

2008-01-26T22:59:00.001-08:00

Researching romanticism and psychedelia...