New idea!

Not as in the trashy magazine, as in I have one.


Was inspired by those old school anatomy books or reference books that had things on clear layers.
Here is an example.


We had this really old set of encyclopedias, and when I was a kid I loved them! They had anatomy sections, of people and animals. They had acetate layers, and each layer had a different system on it - skeletal, muscular etc. 
I think this idea could work well in photoshop, especially because it revolves around layering.

M.C. Escher.

If I'm interested in this kind of architectural/perspective thing its probably hard not to think of M.C. Escher.
My dentist has these prints on the roof of his practise, something interesting to look at while you're lying in the chair. They used to trip me out as a kid. Now I can't look at them without thinking of dental instruments.

BUT these images, particularly the second, do provide an interesting view of perspective - warping, mismatching, impossibility- that I could aim to incorporate into my image.

Working on an image.

At the moment I'm working on the ideas I mentioned earlier - childhood play and the perception of perspective - to hopefully create a maze-like image.
I've created a grid with rulers which I am stretching and snapping door/architectural images to. Then I cropped out an image of a girl, and am thinking of making varying levels of transparency in different versions of her. I guess I can work from left to right to create an architectural maze-like space...

But, I think I'm getting stuck. I'm going to rethink the perspective, and the way the image would look in the projection space, and consider tricks of perspective that will fit the space.

Craig Walsh.

Procrastination involved some channel surfing this afternoon, which wasn’t too unproductive in the end! Flicked onto ABC’s program, Art Nation. They had a feature on Australian artist Craig Walsh, who specialises in large-scale public projection artworks. 

These images are from a tour he is conducting at the moment, Digital Odyssey, in which he travels around Australia displaying works which are based on the stories of the places he exhibits them in. He said that he is interested in the ability of a projection to simulate surfaces, places and people. He has projected on walls, cliff faces, trees and even water.

In this piece, Walsh projected onto the water, creating virtual life forms that appear to exist below the surface:

Craig Walsh, Classification Pending, installation, Bremer River, Ipswich 2007

Walsh says he is interested in “instilling mythology into an area”, an idea to think about for my project.

Mystery and Melancholy of a Street.

Running on from the whole childhood idea, I thought of this painting.
I couldn't remember name, but roughly pictured it, and was asking everyone if they knew what I meant! I tried countless Google searches, and from the four words I provided her with, 'painter girl hoop spanish', my little sister managed to find it. Huh.
Anyway this is the image:

Giorgio De Chirico, Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914

So the elements that I wanted to take from this image are the shadows, the perspective, the architecture, the slant/angles that give an eerie feeling, etc.
It's given me the idea to create some kind of maze like image.
I'm going to play around in photoshop with some doorways and different angles and see where this goes.

Patricia Piccinini.

We briefly looked at the work of Patricia Piccinini in class today. Her installation Perhaps the World is Fine Tonight sparked an idea/new train of thought.

 

Patricia Piccinini, Perhaps the world is fine tonight, 2009

I think it's really beautiful, it led me to a visualise a whole series of imagery; it made me think of childhood play, hide-and-seek. I want to explore this idea, and how I could create something out of it.

Digital artists.

We just had our fourth class, in which we looked at some digital artists - Julie Rraap, Stephen Haley, Jane Eisemann, Kit Wise. I particularly liked the work of Stephen Haley and Kit Wise, who create digital 'worlds'. Stephen Haley works in both painting and digital media to create pieces reminiscent of video games.

His recent work is concerned with Western space - both real and virtual - and how the real is increasingly supplanted and preceded by the virtual forms of the digital and the model. 

from VCA website

The last two images are examples of how his work is often displayed, and a good point of reference for looking at how projected work can be viewed or interpreted.


Kit Wise makes digital images using composite photographs from the internet to create amazing cityscapes.

Kit Wise, KTM SEA MOW RUH, 2010

He created Nocturne, an installation creating a 360 degree cityscape at night, composed of around 500 images of cities at night, all from the internet.

Nocturne, installation, 2003. 

Detail from Nocturne installation, 2003.

The idea of creating a digital or virtual world and what it conjures- illusions of space - is interesting to me. I think it would fit particularly well with the projection space we are working to at Horse Bazaar. I'll start sketching...

Dr Lakra.

These works are by Mexican tattooist and artist, Dr Lakra.
Using the technique of altering found images, Dr Lakra has drawn intricate tattoo designs on old magazines and advertising material. I like them because they are kind of macabre but funny at the same time.

Amie Dicke.

We looked at Amie Dicke's work today, it really intrigued me. Firstly just aesthetically, then even more so after looking into the process she has used. For these works, Dicke has cut away and coloured fashion magazine images of models, to create faces and figures made of black webs of connecting lines: 

The process of cutting away from the original image is powerful here - the use of negative space is something I'll consider. So far I'd only been thinking about making an image by 'adding', but subtracting elements could be more interesting.

Bits and pieces.

Today in class we looked at collage work.
Firstly, Guiseppe Arcimboldo (1526-1593). His paintings show a collage process- though it occurs before painting:

Arcimboldo, Quatre Saisons

Jumping forward a few centuries, Richard Hamilton's collages come under the Pop Art movement. Using cut outs from magazines and advertising material, Hamilton was critiquing the consumerism that had taken over post-war USA.

Richard Hamilton

Collage is useful technique to look at, as what i'll be doing in photoshop will be a form of collage. From Arcimboldo's painting, to Pop Art cut-out collage, to now - digital collage.
It has allowed artists to appropriate media of the time, this is something I could do for the project.

Hello, Photoshop.

Third class today, had a run through of Photoshop.
I'm learning it all pretty much from scratch. Selecting objects, cutting, using tools like the magic wand, and all the other basics.
I'm starting to experiment with perspective, by creating rectangular shapes and skewing them, as a sort of outline that I could fill in with images.
Also learning how to use the ruler to create lines to 'snap' images to.
For now, I'll keep experimenting...

Dan Mountford.

Came across on Dan Mountford's images on Ffffound. Mountford is a British designer and student who has created some fantastic photography using double exposure.
On Mountford's Flickr it states that these double exposures are done in camera, then slightly edited in photoshop (the colours, tones etc.).

I could apply this technique of the blending of images to my panoramic image, using photoshop.

Pablo Valbuena.

Last week in class we were introduced to the work of Spanish artist, Pablo Valbuena. His work was really impressive and something that I hadn't seen before. I decided to look a bit further into it and into Valbuena's practise.
Valbuena specialises in projection mapping, where light is calculatedly projected onto architecture or sculpture and the projection is adapted to fit a specific surface; the forms are augmented with light.


His projects deal with the idea of extending physical space with perception:   "I am interested in using light as a physical material, suitable for building space like concrete or bricks. I use video projection with perspective and anamorphosis techniques to build ‘perceptual extensions’ of the actual physical space, extending the limits of what is physically real to what is perceptually real."
http://www.v2.nl/archive/people/pablo-valbuena


Here are some images from Valbuena's work Quadratura.

Quadratura probably stood out most to me of all of Valbuena's works that I looked at. It really struck a chord with me visually, and I love how atmospheric it is, even just in the photographs; I can only imagine what it would be like to see the installation.
I'm interested in the way that Valbuena articulates architecture, and the way that he explores the perception of space.
I think I want the panoramic image that I create to explore this perception too, by involving simulated architectural elements.

Panoramic.

I thought a few searches for panoramic images and what they are would be a place to start...
So what defines an image as panoramic? 

Panoramic image is a kind of image with elongated fields of view, which is obtained using specialised equipment and panoramic software. A panoramic image covers a field of view of, approximately, or greater than, that of the human eye - about 160° by 75°. This means that a panoramic image generally has an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger, or the width is at least twice as its height. Some panoramic images have aspect ratios of 4:1 and sometimes 10:1, covering fields of view of up to 360 degrees in horizontal line. Both the aspect ratio and coverage of field are important factors in defining a true panoramic image.

(From easypano.com)

So basically, it has to show a view that is greater than that of the human eye, and this means that the image usually has a an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger.
Here is an example of an early panoramic photograph:

View from the top of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, Albumen prints, February, 1864, by George N. Barnard

As you can see, this is a composition of three photographs put together. This can be done a lot more seamlessly with software now.


Here is an example of modern panoramic photography:

http://www.richardosbourne.com/panoramics

These photos are interesting to me because they provide an overall view of what a panoramic image can look like; they're helpful in considering the way I want my panoramic image to look, even though the kind of image I plan on creating is a composite one using photoshop. 

Horse Bazaar.

So, the panoramic image created for project one is to be designed to fit the space, and the space is Horse Bazaar, which is a bar in Little Lonsdale St in the city, most notable for its projection screen environment.

According to the specifications on the Horse Bazaar Website, there is a video projection surface of 20 metres on the wall at the rear corner of the bar.

'The complete screen comprises 6 video projectors all tiled together by a computer cluster to create a seamless 12 metre digital canvas...

'The screen around the bar is in a 90 degree configuration:

*The back wall 4.25 metres across (2 projectors: the 1st 2 projectors in the template)

*The main wall 10.8 metres long (4 projectors: the next 4 projectors in the template)

I'll keep these specifications in mind when I'm designing and creating my image.

I've also checked out the DIS1103 blog for some examples of work from previous classes that have been displayed at Horse Bazaar:

Project one.

Well for the last week I've been stewing over ideas for project one, but first thing's first, this is the project:

• A panoramic image;
• Created in Adobe Photoshop;
• To be displayed as a projection at Melbourne venue, Horse Bazaar;
• Due week 6.

According to the online brief of this project, we design the image to the parameters of the Horse Bazaar projection screen. (More on those specifications later).


The brief also mentions as an idea 'the psychology of space'. I like this idea, I'm going to look into it - the feelings or emotions tied to space and environment, and the way that architecture is perceived by the human mind is interesting to me. 

Blog beginnings.

So, first post.

This blog will be a kind of visual journal, a record of the progress I make in this class, Digital Processes for Art and Design.

Mostly it will document inspiration - artists, events and exhibitions, photos and other images that I come across.

I've just been to my second DIS class, and I'm on the way towards creating my first project - a panoramic image - which will be projected on screen at Melbourne venue, Horse Bazaar.

Over the next week I'll attempt to get this blog up to date on what ideas I have, and what I've looked at, tried, and worked on so far both in and out of class. 

I'll post more about these artists and why their work interests me, or influences mine. I'll look into the venue for the first project, Horse Bazaar, to get a sense of what the project will look like when it is displayed.

I'll also brush up on my photoshop skills and start putting my project ideas into practise, and see where this takes me...