I LEGO N.Y. by Christoph Niemann

As referenced from the MoMA article, another related LEGO piece that I find interesting is called 'I LEGO N.Y.' by Christoph Niemann, which is available as a book, check out his site for his other work... his toothbrush/toothpaste illustration works is cute and the ink jar is awesome.

Lego: Plastic Bag caught in branch

Inkwell

Toothbrush/paste

MoMA art reproductions in LEGO

Not only does this involve Lego, which is awesome, they've (the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) staff) created versions of artists work. I particularly like that they've kept to the miniature scale of lego in the reproductions. I feel particularly inspired by this piece of work to do something similar with other works...

Shown below is an example of one of the works by Anthony Caro, called 'Midday' which has been reproduced in LEGO form.

On the topic of Lego Houses...

And here's a guy from the UK who is building a house made out of lego bricks... the article points out that it's about 816million lego bricks... Wowsers.  They have a really good photo library on the page.

Frank Lloyd Wright Lego Sets

I've always had a fascination with LEGO since a boy.

I've got a pretty big collection back at my parents house.

Thus, these building sets caught my attention.

Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

I was watching MTV tonight and this video caught my attention. It would have taken a fair amount of time to produce the animation, let alone filming the t-shirts and applying it effectively especially with moderate environmental interaction. I like.

Dissenting Queers Tell A Love Story, Kind Of (including generated speach & video)

A reminder by some that same-sex marriage shouldn't be the goal and won't be the end of attempting to obtain equality.  In my opinion, it's a bit heavy handed for two small bears to be talking about.  Check out the video here.

What I found curious was the mention in the story about how it was constructed by creating "one of those internet videos where you just type in the voice, and automated polygonal figures act out your script like robots"... I've not heard of this... I must search further. Oh, this particular one is from xtranormal.com...  I've now created an account and created a small movie... this is a lot of fun! :)  The only issue is that I can't publish without getting some experience points... now how to do that???

Layout for complete Video Reshoot (sans NTSC)

Well, even though stabilisation was great and the videos looked good before the browser, once they were exported, they looked very bad with terrible artifacting.

Thus, I bit the bullet and decided to re-shoot instead of sleeping.

This is the new layout used for the re-shoot, you'll notice that I added a border around the rear of the lazy susan so as to avoid reflection and increase lighting of items inside liquid.

side view

top/front view

"The Comet Song" by Bjork from the film "Moomins and the Comet Chase"

This is a cute little video. The Moomins are cool.
Odd oriental Bjork song. Odd visuals match the song. I don't know what a Moomin is but they're weird, although I like their little felt arms. :)

Björk - The Comet Song - The Moomins And The Comet Chase OST from lfemusiclab on Vimeo.

Numero Magazine

A set of great images I found via Another men's Fashion Blog from Numero Magazine.

The effects are quite reminiscent of a few ads and video effects on music clips these days. I like!

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI'S ALL NEW SERIES ABOUT ANIMAL ATTRACTION

This is a very fascinating series by Isabella Rossellini. It's great from an artistic perspective with the puppetry and hand animation but very interesting from a factual perspective.

Seduce Me (Season 1)

MGMT - Congratulations

Here's a video by MGMT together with their song Congratuations.

I really like the creature they're following across the sand.  On a side note, their other "official" video has a very plain video featuring a guy holding up anti-war signs... (though I did like the quote, "fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity" or something similar) but it's boring in comparison to this one where the poor creature looses its bits. Sad and kinda gross really.

MGMT - Congratulations found on Pop

Jean Francois Carly "Snakes Series"

These photos are great. I'm not sure I'd be able to stand that but models are a different breed. :)



Check out the rest on "Another Men's Fashion Blog".

Also, look at Jean Francois Carly's website too.

Videos - Earth Time Lapse from Space

How cool is time lapse video! And from space... with lens flare! :-o

Last Address

This is an emotionally moving set of works entitled "Last Address".
It's quite sobering to consider that these people were artists like me, but they're now dead. Sounds like a stupid statement but I find these people more real-life and thus have a bigger impact than others. I don't know if I explained that properly.


Here's a film featuring the works...

Last Address from Ira Sachs on Vimeo.

Glad Wrap & Foil Vagina Tree

Check out the music video of iamamiwhoami, I think called 'y':

I just like the strange nature of the visuals... Also shows what you can do with lots of glad wrap, foil, paper and tape. The baby dancing is cute. Not sure on the song or the lighting of some parts but still worth a watch... stick around for the final sequence too.

Photography by Edgar Thissen

I really like this guys photos... particularly the macro shots.  Why aren't I doing more personal photography?!

Set Layout #2

After working a very long time on fixing the wobble on the existing video footage, I managed to get my hands on a really good lazy suzan, thanks heaps to Simon.

This was the layout of my new set.  You'll notice that I dispensed with the lighting tent concept, mostly because you couldn't really see what was in the jars very clearly and really, a few shiny lights on the jar edges aren't that big of a deal.

Schweppes Burst Balloon Ad

I was sitting at the Hellenic club and on one of their advertising lcd screens, they were showing this Schweppes Ad.

I wish I had high-speed camera so I could capture such things.

Polaroid 300... yes please!

Today I was bemoaning the discontinued film for my Polaroid iZone from 11 years ago.

discontinued Polaroid iZone

But in the search for film (no luck) I discovered this awesome piece of equipment. And it's only $150 at Teds!  I can't afford it yet, but I do want it.

Polaroid 300

Old Spice Equality Parody + Original

Chaser's Old Spice Equality Parody




Since I've included the parody, here's the real one...

“Fire Angel” by Simon Procter

“Fire Angel” by Simon Procter feat the house of Christian Dior. “The Fall from Grace.”

It does the whole optical illusion where she seems to move because the backgrounds are rotating... nice use of multi-opaque backgrounds too... I wonder whether it's a very large set...


Fire Angel from procter on Vimeo.

Jar Set Shoot #1

Here is the layout of the first set built to create my jar animations.

I tried to incorporate the concept of the lighting tent but due to a lack of a lazy susan (and not wanting to pay $40 for one) I went budget.  It involves, a curled up piece of paper for background (without edges), a metal frame drilled and fixed to a plastic breadboard, a platform made of a sticky-tape dispenser inside, a shoelace, 3CD's, tape a Blu-tak (shown below) which attaches via a drilled hole in the breadboard surrounded by another CD, baking paper wrapped round the top and sides and three spotlights tied to my tripod with shoelaces above the baking paper.

Jar within my lighting tent.

Side-view showing curled paper backdrop.

Close-up of the rotating platform (with 10 degree outline for still movie test.

My home made "lazy suzan".

The resultant video produced with this method left a lot to be desired, particularly from a wobble perspective.  I'll post the video, and what it looked like after post soon...

On a side note, this video is of one of the jars but using still images rather than video... You can see my template with every 10 degrees showing but worth a look anyway:

Skream | Listenin' To The Records On My Wall

While browsing posts I came across this one which draws on the Adam and Eve story. What is cool is that it uses various types of art forms to make up the video... what particularly took my interest, although I think it had the potential to be much better, was the use of 'Strata-cut animation'. The 'Making Of' video was very informative too... although I think the director's teeth need attention!

Check out the making of video too.



SKREAM - Listenin' To The Records On My Wall from David Wilson Creative on Vimeo.

Human Furniture by David Blázquez

Human Furniture, just as it sounds.

Following from the Spencer Tunick reference, I came across the following. The Book Shelf is quite creative and I particularly like the concept of the ironing board.

Art :: Human Furniture by David Blázquez

Speaking of Joseph Khan...

http://www.josephkahn.com/index.xml

After posting about 'All the Lovers', the music clip for Kylie, I started looking into Joseph Kahn's work... I love the non-conventional website design but am impressed at how many high-profile artists he's worked with.

Check him out!

All The Lovers - Kylie

I was watching MTV tonight and saw this video clip again and was reminded about how much I liked this song. Also the inclusive themes and of course the visual aspects of having such a large orgy pileup. :-) I was reminded of her visually interesting clip Come Into My World by Michel Gondry.

In any case, 'All The Lovers' was directed by Joseph Kahn, influenced by the group nude works by Spencer Tunick.

'The Lady is Dead' directed by Roy Raz

Song: 'The Lady is Dead' by The Irrepressibles.
Director: Roy Raz (http://www.facebook.com/raz.roy) of PAG Films (Check out their PAG Films YouTube Channel)

The music is great but I really enjoy the visual asthetic. Roy Raz has become a favourite based on this.  The white somewhat-limbo background is great.  But what he was going for... is it a commentary on gay culture like some have supposed or even on STI's?

When I watch it, I'm left feeling kind of lost, or at a loss... with a sense of hopelessness teven. It definitely evokes an emotional reaction.  Whether intentional or not, with the tennis of the organ and the touching of transmission of the black pain, or even the transmission of black between the three guys, it seems to indicate an STI message and even conveys the hopelessness via the gaze of the heavily made up actor.

Either way.  I'm a fan.

Possible HV20 Firmware Hack?

So, when I found out that the HV20 I purchased on eBay from a guy in Sydney was an NTSC model I thought... damn it!

But... I came across this forum explaining how to successfully hack the firmware of the HV30 to allow it to be switched between PAL and NTSC. You can check it out here.

Official Firmware Hacking Thread

On the bright side, they are researching the same kind of hack for the HV20.

Crossing fingers.

UPDATE: Note the log entry made on the forum on 15 August:

"The HV20 is on its way here, it should arrive sometime next week, I have already prepared the HV30 firmware for injection, fingers crossed!"

Uses of Canopic Jars | eHow.com

I was looking at formaldehyde and jars and came across the Egyptian use of Canopic Jars...

Uses of Canopic Jars | eHow.com

Digital Photography How-To: Building a Light Tent

http://www.creativepro.com/article/digital-photography-how-to-building-a-light-tent

How To Photograph Reflective Round Objects - watch free tutorial at LearnMyShot.com

How To Photograph Reflective Round Objects - watch free tutorial at LearnMyShot.com

Test Cycle of iPod Jar

Here is a test animation showing a jar rotation.

What to jar next?

I'd like a larger jar to enclose a miniDV cassette and something that will take the 2.5 inch external hard drive.

Still not sure what to place in the pickle jar and the two original baby food jars...  I'd like to capture gaming... maybe a DVD would work, or BlueRay though I don't have any of those.

I'd love to purchase a broken/damaged iPhone (since they are very topical atm) but is it worth the money on such a project?

Filling jars & making new ones...

So, the jars from last night have been topped up with Gelatine.  They look relatively good, except I am worried that the phone jar has too much of a colour difference despite my attempts to ensure a smooth blend.

Some new additions to the collection include:

• USB key
• Oil (actually vegemite)
• Micro SD card

Complete set as at today, above.

Complete set as at today, front.

Untethered Jars (In progress)

The jars that were created last night have successfully set and look good. Now to top up the gaps... Here is what they look like now:

iPod Shuffle w/ headphones

XBox communicator

Nokia phone

Film roll

Rotation Source Code Argh!

Finding source code for nice image rotation is proving more difficult than I thought... I have something that will work if I tweak it a fair amount which should be fine but still, you'd think I wasn't the first to want to do this.

What would have been nice would be to successfully implement the Quicktime VR stuff but I can't get the demo because they e-mail out the links and I've yet to receive an e-mail either through Uni mail or my personal mail.  I'm not impressed with their site as a result.

In Progress... New Items in Jars

Here is a shot of some not yet set items in jars...

Cleaned Jars

After Washing, removing stickers, and removing paint from lids, here are my new, clean specimen jars...  My finger tips hurt from all the sanding and scouring.

Cleaned, empty jars.

Major Theme: "Capturing the Now"

Chris asked us to come up with a phrase/one-liner to describe the work.

Process/thoughts regarding the theme:

• Collecting and throwing away
• What is important and what we collect
• Important collections
• Collections of today are the rubbish of tomorrow
• Collections of now are the rubbish of tomorrow
• Collect today, throw tomorrow
• Interests of today
• Interests of the now
• Collected interests of today
• Captured interests of the now
• Collections of today
• Collections of now
• Capturing the Now

Finally, I decided on "Capturing the Now"

Swipe Code?

• JQuery Swipe
• jQuery Reel Plugin 

iPod Classic 360 degree view

iPod Classic 360 degree view

This is kinda the style I'd like for the website pictures.
Obviously not as detailed, but you get the idea.

Potential items to be placed in jars...

Roll of film

Mobile Phone - thanks to 3 Mobile @ANU

Mini Photographic Keepsakes

iPod Remote plus Headphones

Original iPod Shuffle

SD and USB storage

iPod 3G accessories

Additonal Jar Collection

Jars of various shapes and sizes yet all maintaining a basic clean shape.

Now, to empty, clean and strip the paint from the lids...

Oh, and a special thanks to David for helping with the selections.

[AJ] Australian Journey's Work Proposal - Jarred Objects

Aims/subject of the proposal

• What is the nature of the work you are proposing?

The work will be a set of nine 360 degree photographed objects, each held in glass jars suspended in liquid.  These jars will have fake specimen tags adding to their "authenticity".  These photographs will be presented as spinning objects within a browser.

• What is the subject matter of the work?

Drawing on the 360 degree views of items presented in the Australian Journey's Shoebox and my fascination with the jarred mud and sea creatures done on the Antarctic mission, and just generally with scientists historically taking specimens, this work will make comment on modern life now as the jarred items will include electronic and common household objects.

• How many works do you intend to produce for this project?

There will be one web page presented with these nine objects shown in a standard 3x3 grid, possibly spinning based on the mouse-over event.  Optionally, it would be fun if such spinning could be accelerated depending on user interaction, ie. fast or slow mouse-over.

Research/working process

• What's the historical or conceptual basis for your ideas?

History shows that we take specimens of existing objects for later study.  Within the Australian Journey's exhibit, you not only see evidence of this with the jarred objects, but with the entire "jarred" set of cases, holding, coins, dresses, wool, instruments, etc.

• How will you go about developing these ideas, and what visual material and other research will be involved?

 As a commentary on modern life, as if these items were found and jarred in the future, the objects will have a technological focus, highlighting the irony of placing electronic things in liquid.  Themes include communication, entertainment, technology,   Such items include:

1. a mobile phone (Nokia 8210)
2. an original iTalk iPod attachment
3. an XBox wireless headset
4. a post-it note with a shopping list written on it.
5. iPod headphones
6. a Micro-SD or SD card.
7. Concept of LCD TV printed onto Acetate or Tracing Paper to have an opaque object.
8. -
9. -

* Q. I'm looking for feedback and other ideas in regard to what items could be included. 

Methods and materials

• What methods and materials do you intend to use?

Cleaned Jars
Objects suspended using Gelatin.
Software options:

1. Using Nuke, model the jar and use 3D projection to build a 3D view of the object and use a camera to circle the object.
2. Using the photos themselves, present as a sequential image animation.

Background, etc.  Should be well-lit, all encompasing white background.

* Q. Is the 3D projection idea overkill?

* Q. How would such a bright environment be achieved?

• What new skills do you need to develop?

1. 3D Projection, ties in with my Digital Compositing complimentary.
2. Advance roll-over effect withing the browser... possibly using JQuery, as learned in first year.

Timeframe

• Give an outline and plan of your work in relation to the time available.

Week 3 - Have objects within jars, photographed with labels, etc.
Week 4 - Test 3D projection concept with photos and/or
Week 5 - Webpage setup and layout complete.
Week 6 - Mouse-over functionality introduced.
Week 7 - Review.

* Q. Does this seem reasonable?

Visual Materials

• Provide drawings, diagrams, related visual and research material which may be useful in developing your proposal.

Within the article, Making of Australian Journey's (8 October 2008), senior curator Martha Sear, stated:

"... amazing scientific material gathered on the voyage including – I think this is our favourite named object in the gallery - assorted sea gunk. It is stuff that was trawled up from the bottom of the ocean by the expedition and put in a jar. We have the jar, and you can see the little shrimps and strange creatures that were found under the sea."

Jar containing mud and sea residue.

Test Jar Image #1

Test Jar Image #2

Deadlines

• You should prepare a full-length detailed draft for discussion by the end of week one of semester, and the final version for approval by the end of week 2.

Using Gelatin for Moulds and Prosthetics

Using Gelatin for Moulds and Prosthetics

This is an interesting method for creating moulds and prosthetics using Gelatin.

The only downside here is that it comes out quite brown and I'd prefer something more see-through.

Questioning Map Concept and Proposal

As much as looking into Ptolomy's Map was interesting...

I placed the map onto a plane and changed parts of it to correspond to the terrain. 

1. Whilst the map looked kinda good at such a close camera angle... it clearly would need to be worked over, either to remove the words or clear them up... I think there is too much work here.
2. My ideas for the camera wandering around, seeing the drop to the sea, seeing the fire pop up as they reach the equator, and get blown back by the winds... are very basic and to be pulled off nicely, I'd need to be able to draw better and better represent my pop-up book concept without it looking cheap and nasty... I want something clean and polished.
3. I want to know more about the legends back then, ala, too hot at equator... this is proving very difficult to research.
4. My other thought of a Southern version of the map, as if Australians had explored a small amount and thought New Guinea was larger, as was New Zealand, with a similar heat concept at the equator again needed better fleshing out and better drawing skills.  I think if this concept was undertaken by a group it might have a better chance of success.

It's a pity, 'cos I was enjoying the idea of using the Ptolomy map.  I was going to write up the proposal anyway but I've decided against it now.

Ptolemaeic land area coverage overlay

In an effort to identify anomalies and get a clearer picture of the area covered by Ptolemy's map I've tried to outline the bounds of the known map at the time...

Area covered as shown on Google Maps:

Identical area as shown on Google Earth:

Topographic Map of the world.

Topographic Map of the World released by NASA and Japan

This map shows the topography of the world... this may be useful when mapping the 2D Ptolomy map on a 3D plane.

And

Some of this, particularly at the start is perfect for what I'm going through though I'd like to keep to the single map and have the other elements be tightly controlled by the underlying map system.

3D animated transition

This is more the style I'd be after with my map animation. Although I'm obviously not intending of launching into a video sequence.

Animated Map : From Gurun Kedah To Ipoh Perak

The part I like here is the title sequence, it shows a very darkened background, this might be a way of highlighting that we don't really know what's past certain points, eg. edge of china and parts of africa in the ptolomy map. I liked the clarity of the rest of the video but would have liked to have the names of places be standing up 3D letters that projected a shadow onto the surface... I wonder whether you can have a light system that only impacts the text elements... Can you have text elements?

Map Animation Reel 2009

The cloud effects when flying over these 2D maps give an interesting effect, I think I should include such elements when I do my map. The zoom in feature at the end was also very nice.

Royalty FREE: Folding Globe animation as seen in ZEITGEIST 2

Tricky map folding into sphere.

Commonwealth Bank "Determined to be different" TVC

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Official HD Trailer

It'd be awesome to be able to work on a movie such as this.  Can't wait till November.

[AJ] Initial Concept/Plan

Using the Ptolomy map, I'll create a 3D landscape based on the terrain indicated in the map.  Then I'd take a tour of the landscape on a micro level.  As the camera passes a landmark, it should pop up like a pop-up book.  As you approach the equator, it turns to flames and you cant pass... maybe you can see through the flames the abominations.

I was thinking about presenting a similar map from our perspective, NZ coast goes on to end of map, as does New Guinea.

Due to the pop-up nature, I think Maya will be the best medium for creating such a map fly-thru.

[AJ] Ptolemaeic Map

I was particularly drawn by the early map created by Ptolemy within the Four World Maps collection...

Typus orbis descriptione Ptolemaei (description @ NMA)

The Ptolemaeic map as seen in the exhibit.

 

For additional information on Ptolemy himself see here... Ptolemy Biography

[AJ] Australian Journey's Exhibition @ NMA

NMA - Australian Journey's Exhibit

We visited the Australian Journey’s exhibit on Friday.

The exhibits that stood out were:

1. Maps. The simplicity and unique nature of the diagrams.  Also the story about the equator being too hot to cross and that religion said that beasts found past the equator would be an abomination.  I like the words, looks like latin.  Could the map be animated or manipulated in some way?  Could I make an Australian/Southern map with similar aspects.  NMA Four World Maps Collection

2. Jars of mud and sea creatures.  I could make my own jars… I’m thinking clear liquid with a leaf, a flower, a blade of grass… photographed and represented in a 3D perspective, using some kind of 3D Model plus projection.

3. Musical Instruments - Make a website where you can play those instruments.  Alternatively, try to research heavily the olive-oil tin that was used by the guy for his instrument.  Looking up its history instead.

Blog Resurrection

So, in an effort to more accurately capture our "Visual Diaries" for Digital Media, we are now going to keep an electronic blog rather than draw inside paper-based diaries.

In my opinion, this is awesome... a huge step forward.  At the same time, I'm not sure in what form this will take when it comes to handing my "process diary" in at assessment time.

We had it suggested that we use the Tumblr blog system to keep track of our diary but after a couple days of using it, I worked out pretty quickly that the system is far from desirable when it comes to the ability to customise the look and feel and to be able to clearly tag, categorise or label posts depending on a topic, especially when the blog will likely contain multiple subject matters.  Thus, I deleted the Tumblr account and reopened my Blogger account, initially expanding on the existing blog.  I'm really happy with it so far and from what I can tell, the system does everything, and more, than what Tumblr does.

Sorry Tumblr.  Blogger Rules!