DD@BB
Description
I’m not sure I could exactly put what I experienced on Saturday night into words but it was captivating to say the least. DD@BB presented Victor Morales in a collaborative performance with two music acts: Dulouz and Zone Motif. It was great being back in the ATLAS building at CU as it has changed quite a lot since I frequented it as a student. All elements of the show were quite impressive and Victor’s creative use of Unreal Engine 4 was an inspiration as we approach the more 3D-centric parts of the Digital Fabrication class. The first level that he loaded was a room with a nondescript female figure that moved around in a way similar to interpretive dance. I mention this below but I’m unaware of any direct audio sensing in the movement of this figure. The camera moved around and Victor took us through the walls and around this figure as she was restrained/anchored to the wall by multiple polygons. In the next level we transitioned to a spacescape with multiple small planets/asteroids and one central planet with a lavalike material texture and “screens” coming out of it. At this moment the screens were very meta and played a screen capture of Victor working in Unreal Engine. The final level transported the audience to a forest with two characters, one of which was spitting fire and dancing around the woods. The environment seemed to glitch out to the beat and kept repeating a few glitches which added to the glitch even more.
Both audio accompaniments put the audience in a trancelike stupor and one viewer even stood on the side dancing to the music. I was unable to get a good view of the sonic performers but I’m always curious what they are doing and how they are interacting with the video and music that is already playing. I felt the audio fit better with the spacescape but it gave a different emotional feel to the other levels that Victor displayed.
Reflection
While Victor Morales has created some wonderful 3D animation he was having some technical difficulties, which I must say he addressed rather smoothly. It was comforting to see a professional have issues in a live performance and have the opportunity to see how he dealt with it. He just addressed it and calmly moved on. However, I felt that the sonic element of the performance was much more interesting. This is a part of my practice that is basically nonexistent and I must say that this show inspired me to dive into this field in one of my upcoming projects. Another part of the show that I felt was rather interesting was that it seemed like there was no sonic-sensing component to Victor’s work; he was just improvising by adding and tweaking elements he felt fit with the melody and beat of the sonic accompaniment. The performance also went on for an hour and a half, which I was not prepared for one bit. It almost seemed like the entire audience would be gone by the time they finished. Towards the end Victor had some more difficulties and was attempting to load levels in Unreal Engine 4. His work was beautiful but I wish he had something prepared for the whole performance instead of just jumping around between pieces.
Project 1 Presentation
I mentioned a lot of the Project 1 Plots in my last Digital Fabrication post so in this post I want to focus on the inspiration I gained from the project presentation as well as their comments on all the fabulous work presented during class. In the process section I’ll speak a little bit to the motivation behind the context of my final plots. And I’ll close with a reflection on both.
Inspiration
Aside from displaying our first plots this was my first group presentation/critique in five or so years. It was a very inspiring experience from the insightful comments to the creative spectrum of projects presented. There were so many plots from my classmates that are beautiful and they had ideas I never would have come up with. It is nice to be surrounded by a group of creative and motivated individuals once again. I feel like I had been missing that in my life for a while.
I’ve taken pictures of several of the pieces to refer back to when I want to achieve a different style with my plots. I feel there is a lot of possibility for mixing the various styles together to create something unique. Keeping a catalogue of these inspiring works will also help me in the future when I may have trouble achieving a certain look in my plotting projects.
Process
I’m currently assisting in the Sustainable Design class and each class we are presented with perspective of the current environmental state. While there are a lot of uplifting stories they are also coupled with a bunch of terrible stories about countries and companies that have done things without thinking about the consequences to the planet and its inhabitants. As an outlet for some of the frustration I have for these issues I decided to address some of the companies who have contributed to our current state.
Once I selected my logos I wanted to deconstruct them into icons that more closely connect to the atrocities they committed rather than their corporate identities. This took a little bit of time and required some well deserved thought. I felt the more difficult part however was finding patterns to put into the background that also became part of the environmental conversation.
In the plot with the river and nuclear plants I wanted to challenge the idea of a foregrounded logo and backgrounded pattern and incorporated the logo and some “landscape” elements into the foreground to detract from the logo a bit. I felt I achieved what I was going for and the sharpie added a wonderful thickness to the drawing that I haven’t seen in many other plots thus far.
Reflection
Overall I’m happy with how my plots came out and even more excited to be part of such a well rounded group of creatives. I cannot wait to see the outcomes of our next two (three) projects! Some of the comments my classmates had came from places I never would have thought to bring up and addressed elements of the works that I never would have seen until they pointed them out.