Wk 5 // DEMO projection tests

I spent some time this week in DEMO space, testing out some projections of recent video experiments. It was nice to see things off of my computer screen - as with comparing how works look in Blender vs. when finally rendered as animations, there's a big difference between how they feel on a small screen and how I encounter them when projected into a space without being confined...

Most recent moving image work:

I'm really happy with how this work is turning out - it is another moving image piece based on one of the historic volcanic rock walls in Cornwall Park, but I feel the pacing and scale works a little more successfully here than in previous experiments (they need to slow down a little...).

I've been trying to figure out what method/output works best in exploring the concept of landscape in flux (physically and ideologically) and I feel that these point clouds have the ability to lean into some of the ephemerality around what are otherwise quite material structures... It's important to me to try to retain and explore some of the "thingness" of these walls and rocks (as Sonya posed today in our meeting, "how much of a mountain remains in a rock?"). Although this form is a far departure from what the walls look like in person, I'm enjoying the idea of them as rigid, dividing objects of hard materials becoming almost permeable... I don't think it's as important that they reference their point of origin (i.e. the parks/walls that they are derived from), but finding some way to 'ground' the work in the world will be necessary (without being heavy handed about it... I think the important thing here, to me at least, is the work being an exploration of concept rather than an iteration or reproduction of a place/thing/etc.). While this is an initial work, I think there's some potential here and I plan on continuing to explore this avenue. The next step is seeing how multiple works sit together within a space... I initially wondered about experimenting with these point cloud 'landscapes' as prints, I think there's something important about their ability to retain their thingness and fluidity in relation to the the space and the viewer's body - projection makes the most sense for this, and allows more of the fine detail to come through effectively. While I don't mind having a 'cut off' edge at the bottom of the projection to ground the work in the space (i.e. in proximity to the floor that the viewer is standing on themselves), it feels important to give the forms enough space to move without being confined in a rectangle format... It was nice seeing them drift around the corners of the room here and there during projection for example. I have some smaller individual rock studies that are also point cloud based which I think could stand alone as either smaller projections, screen-based works or prints, but for now I think the moving image pieces need to be big and projected. Fingers crossed I can find a space to do so for critiques...

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Some images from tests today - really didn't like the effect of the pixelated works, and wasn't very excited about the iteration of the kaleidoscope piece here (although I did like how it sat next to Molly's paintings...), so am putting them on the side-line for now to focus on the point cloud concept. The 3D sculpt video was an accidental find - apparently I can export my camera's movement with a generated model in RealityCapture to make a video. This one was very jumpy as I wasn't really focusing on my movement while documenting, but it's good to know this is an option if I need to use it in future! Also looks pretty funky when projected, and the jagged square edges remind me a little of the NASA panorama patchwork images... fun :)

(forgot to upload these two!)