Light Art 2016

I’m a senior majoring in Civil Engineering. I grew up in Dorchester surrounded by a big family.  I play all sport but my two favorites are basketball and ice hockey.  On my free time I like to either play sports or draw.  When I was five, I won a drawing contest and receive a scholarship to a modeling program.

I have a few different experiences with art  from pencil drawing to computer software art.  In high school I did some art drawings using water color, chalk, pencil, and paint.  When I came to WPI that is when my art experience opened up more.  I learned about Photoshop, Maya, and Zbrush, which is used for 3D Modeling.  I really liked the Zbrush software the most

I do not have a lot of experience with programming or electronics.  In high school I did a program at MIT where I learned about a little about programming, but it did not really interest me which reasoned in me not learning that much from the course.  I also did a course on electrical engineering, where I did a light project using sound waves from a speaker to light up the word on the brass board.  The louder the sound the bright the words would light up.  Sadly I have not used that skill in a long time.

I’m not that interested in writing, theater, or dance, but I have practiced dance and theater work when I was young.  I have some experience in those two fields.  In the future I would like to practice music.  I have all always wanted to know how to play an instrument.  I do not know much about craft art but it sounds interesting.

I love designing things and thinking of new projects I can create, design, or build.  I love sneakers and have about 50 pairs of sneakers.  One day I would like to design a pair of popular sneakers for the world.

The most recent art project I am most proud of would have to be from my 3D modeling class.  I learned how to use Zbrush and made a detailed sculpture of myself.  I have attached some pictures from my work below.

This video was made as a demo to show off a new Phillips 4k tv, but uses light art to make it an even more stunning video than the normal demo videos. Enjoy!

My name is Cameron Back, and for my project I studied costume design projects from both thinkgeek.com and starsdesign group.

For the past two years, stars design grouop has been developing and brainstorming ways to apply EL wire to simple costumes and apparel on behalf of thinkgeek.com

As a design group, their primary purpose is to design clothes to be sold by thinkgeek.com, but what excites me about their work is the spectacular effect these kinds of details can have on a costume or hoodie.

These works were the main reason why I chose to enter this practicum, and have already inspired tons of ideas for my project in this course.

*(change slide)*              star lord

Thus far they have overseen two successful profects: the starlord hoodie being their first attempt at applying this design. Much like their previous work, they used more screen printing than light, but in this design, it allows the LEDs to show off the piece without distracting from its main design.

*(change slide)*              black widow

Their next project, which I am much more excited about, was the Black widow tee, inspired by the design shown in  Avengers 2. In this design, they focused a lot more on the light of the suit, and allowed the Ewire to be the main attraction of the design.

What I particularly like about this design, is that the EL wire allows the design of the suit to form to the human anatomy.

By spreading a strand of EL wire along the joints of the neck and shoulders, it makes a simple tee look far more sleek and impressive than the original design from the movie.

 

 

Before I show any more I have to say that none of these following designs or concepts can leave this room, or be posted about on any media site since stars design group has a legal contract with Lucas arts and marvel over many of these designs. therefore, none of these designs may be posted on the project blog or any other internet site.

The artist group chosen for the Light Artist Presentation was called Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF). MLF are a London-based design studio formed by several visual artists who are always looking to create real-time interactive experiences that immerse and amaze their audiences in completely unexpected ways. The creative techniques they use to produce the art experiences range from photo-real virtual reality to robotic performance and real-time mapping, pushing boundaries, redefining expectations and exciting audiences worldwide.

MLF’s most recent exhibit project is “Laser Forest”, an interactive musical instrument/environment that was also commissioned for the STRP Biennale, a cultural organization that makes sense of creative technology. Laser Forest is a huge forest consisting of over 150 green laser beam rods that generate otherworldly tone when tapped or strummed. As a group, all the laser beams become a collaborative instrument, as well as an ethereal playground. According to MLF, the idea of this project was to tap into people’s sense of wonder and playfulness and let them discover more about their senses in a magical environment. Set up in an empty factory space, the Laser Forest is a piece of an ethereal wonderland where both children and adults can lose themselves immersed and mesmerized by the bewitching environment.

The second project chosen is called “In the Eyes of the Animal”, a 360 therianthorpic VR experience of the sculpture-laden Grizedale forest in the Lake District of Northern England. In simpler words, this VR headset allows you to become a warg as in the TV show Game of Thrones, but only better since the LiDAR and CT scanned woodland and aerial images deliver a mythical and magical experience to viewers. Sub Pac devices on the headset also enables the users to hear as well as feel the natural sounds of the animals and become submerged in this simulated world. Barney Steel, creative director and co-founder of MLF, also explains that: “Using VR to immerse someone in the sights and sounds of animals creates empathy by simulating the way that others sense the world. This type of first person perspective experience is—in my opinion—VR at its best.”

Lastly, this project by MLF is called “Meet your Creator”, an orchestrated swarm of 16 quadcopters dancing and shining light beams at the same time. In this tightly choreographed show, light is sculpted around the room using mirrors attached on the quadcopters and synchronized spotlights that follow around and shine light beams directly at the mirrors on the drones, creating reflected dancing light beams. The performance took months of planning and was simulated in Cinema4D to ensure that the logistics were correct and the drones were all going to dance in synchronized fashion. The quadcopters were tracked using a VICON tracking system, featuring 20 cameras, and the tracking input was used to control the robots.

In addition to light art exhibit projects, MLF has also created mind-blowing minimalistic kinetic lighting designs for commercial purposes as shown below. Overall, MLF are a very creative and interesting group of visual artists who not only portray the aspects of art to the fullest but also show how state-of-the-art technologies can be combined with art to take immersive interactive experiences to a whole new level.

Micah is a visual and new media artist that takes an engineering approach to her work. She has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Micah hacks/reverse engineers electronic devices and computer programs to create interesting words of art that bridge the gap between art and technology. In collaboration with Adafruit, Micah developed FadeCandy, an open source NeoPixel driver designed for LED art. She uses FadeCandy in her own art projects, such as her piece “Triangle Attractor” as well as “Ecstatic Epiphany”.

Triangle Attractor

From her art portfolio website she describes Triangle Attractor as “… a generative algorithm based on this triangular form. Bundles of glowing particles fade into existence to be immediately drawn to three attraction points at the corners of the piece. The forces from these competing gravitational attractors chaotically separate the particle bundle, until the algorithm loses interest and the cycle ends. Colors are sampled from a photo taken at the High Desert Test Sites. Negative space in the sculpture is made tangible by a set of triangular plastic cut-outs from each layer.”

Ecstatic Epiphany

From her art portfolio website she describes Ecstatic Epiphany as “… a human-scale window into an imaginary space, installed in public behind an existing glass block wall. This piece is for anyone on the sidewalk to watch and control. Walking past it, your movement is amplified into a shift in perspective. Sometimes this is a passive action, other times it can lead to a dramatic change as chaos unfolds in the generative algorithms. The choreography of this mathematical world forms a continuous cyclic narrative of creation, depression, agency, and rebirth. Each moment is unique, echoed but never repeated.”

Micah has many other really interesting artistic/technical projects documented on her webpage. Check out more of her work at http://www.misc.name/. Also check out her technical blog: scanlime.org as well as her youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/micahjd for some of her really neat hacking projects.

 

Urbanscreen is a diverse team of media artists, musicians, architects, and technical specialists based in Germany. Urbanscreen develops mainly projection based installations. They are known for projecting visuals, accompanied by music, on buildings and sculptures. They aspire to blur the line between reality and the virtual world to provide immersive and captivating experiences. Below are a few of their works.

On of the works they are recognizable for is their projection show on the Sydney Opera House. They first had to generate a 3D model of the building so that the their projections aligned with the shape of the architecture. They then developed music and visuals, including green screen work, to put on a show on the building.

The another piece they did was commissioned by a hotel and is displayed in the lobby. The Solanum is a three dimensional sculpture that consists of circles that are different sizes and at different levels. They then project onto the sculpture to create stunning visuals such as making the circles look like 3D spheres.

A interesting research project that they worked on was called the Searchlight. For this project they 3D scanned an entire room so that they had a virtual version of it. In the room they had a project that could move and project on any surface of the room. They were then able to project objects and textures like balls bouncing around the room. They planned to apply this technology to museums as a guide that would lead patrons around and give them more information of certain pieces of artwork.

 

Jim Campbell was in in 1956 in Chicago. When he was 22 he graduated M.I.T. with a bachelors in both Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. These degrees would become the basis for his brand of art. He currently lives in San Francisco.

Campbell’s style stems from his love of ultra low resolution. Whereas most high definition displays have around 2 million pixels, his art installations have around 200 to 2000 pixels. Sometimes he uses RGB pixels to give some color to his work, other times he simply uses single color pixels to break down his work. The point of his ultra low resolution is to break down and discard the details of a scene and leave it with just the large brushes of outlines and colors.

 

The technology he uses is simple in it’s function but complex in it’s use and design. It consists of LED’s arrayed in matrices spanning whatever size he is using for that installation. To control those lights, he designs his own PCBs and combines them with embedded chips to control their function. All this is designed and created by him with the assistance of his helpers. His knowledge of Electrical Engineering comes into play here.

The first Art Piece is called Home Videos (David). This shows the home videos of the family of David, who is a boy born around the same time as Campbell. The installation shows in characteristic ultra low resolution, the aging of David and his early life. Campbell has other “Home Video” sequences, including many he shot, but he most likes David as it is similar to his own life.
The next Art Piece is called Journey. This is a 750 foot installation that hangs in the San Diego Airport. This follows the people going on their own journey with the journey of a swimmer moving their way along the installation. Campbell got the video base by filming people from underwater.

Finally, there is the installation Scattered Light. This is an array of incandescent bulbs that are stuffed with LEDs that hang in a seemingly irregular and chaotic arrangement. Viewed from all angles but one, the lights seem to twinkle with irregular timing and be completely independent. However, if you view the installation from head on, you will see ethereal people walking across the lights. These people were recorded in Grand Central Terminal, for their chaotic and crazy movement. 

Chris Wood studied furniture design at Middlesex University and has an interest in light that led to her exploring the visual qualities of glass. Her works usually involve pieces of glass in various arrangements that interact with the light to change depending on the position and angle of the viewer, as well as the light source.

The materials that Wood uses range from common wine glasses to dichroic (two-color) glass, to specially shaped crystals. She creates minimal structures that support simple arrangements that interact with the light to form complex patterns. Some of her works are situated in an outside environment, some are wall installations, and others are a standalone indoor work.

One of Wood’s pieces is called Corona: A series of dichroic glass panels are arranged in a circular shape over a reflecting pool. Each piece will appear different to the viewer depending on the angle that the viewer looks at it.

Source: Chris Wood’s website

Another outdoor installation that Chris Wood created is called Mirror in the Fens; this piece uses mirrors placed at different angles to rows of crops in order to visually reposition the land. These reflections also change with the viewer’s position, and creates an effect similar to cutting and pasting a section of land from one picture into another.

Source: Chris Wood’s Website

Another piece that Wood exhibited was an indoor installation for the 2015 Festival of Islamic Arts, called Light Rain. This piece was created with water bottles, sand, light, and the sound of rain. The lighting from the inside of the water bottles creates a unique pattern as the light refracts off of the ridges on the bottom of the bottles- these patterns are then arranged to form a new, unique pattern.

Source: Chris Wood’s Website

More examples of Wood’s works can be found on her website, at http://www.chriswoodglass.co.uk/index.php

My light artist is Dan Flavin. He was born in April 1933 and died November 1996. Although classified as a Minimalist, he saw himself as a “Maximalist” because he would make the most of materials typically considered harsh. Throughout his career Dan’s main medium was fluorescent light bulbs. This temporary material also separated him from typical minimalist artists who used materials like stone or metal. Unlike those materials, the light bulbs would eventually burn out. One of his main inspirations was Marcel Dunchamp’s “Readymades”, which were found manufactured objects that had been manipulated slightly in some way.
On his artwork Dan Flavin once said, “It is what it is and it ain’t nothing else.” It is lighting responding to different architectural settings.
His works:
The Diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi)

icon V (Coran’s Broadway Flesh)

greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green)

All images taken from www.nga.gov/

Janne Parviainen was born in 1980 in Finland. For the past fifteen years he has been a very popular photographer, and for the last three years he has been dealing with light painting. He also is a painter mostly using oil colors on glass as his medium. The reason he started light painting was by accident. Once when he was taking a photo a night of a street he bumped into his camera causing it to take a picture. The street light caused a streak across the photo thus leading Janne to discover light art. Janne uses a DSLR camera for his photos as well as a tripod, he says this is necessary in order to keep the camera steady or that sometimes its easy to just set the camera on the ground. For the light source he uses LEDs or simply a flashlight. For the most part besides his personal website he says that he prefers to post his photos on flickr and that is where he gets the most online “traffic”. The way his light painting is done is by using a DSLR camera and making it so it takes long exposure pictures. He then moves his light source through the “frame” of the picture leaving behind a drawing. Sometimes Janne involves physical drawings such a chalk or permanent marker as well as the light drawings in a photograph. A must for Janne he says is that after taking the long exposure picture that photo is never run through a program such as photo shop. When asked by an interview why he does light painting he simply said: “Light painting is the most liberating form of art I have encountered; it sums up so many good things in one package that I could never let go of it anymore!”.