Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity
Master Of Animation, Games & Interactivity

THEME: Play and Objects

CONTEXT:

Scintillation by Xavier Scintillation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ8aWGT6KaU
In this week’s response, I wanted to combine physical objects, stop-motion animation, and projection mapping. Xavier Chassaing’s Scintillation is the only example I found that was somewhat close to what I wanted to achieve combining projection mapping and stop motion animation. I think the aesthetics of the physical objects, its reaction with light projections, and the dynamism of stop motion animation is something that isn't extensively explored yet. The camera's settings also plays a large part in bringing out the details of the physical objects and the nuances of light.

My object of choice is the little fish container that sushi bar’s use to put soy sauce in. For the past few weeks, I’ve been eating sushi nearly every other day. I collected these little disposable plastic fish containers or vials because I thought it was extremely wasteful to just keep throwing them away. This week’s theme provided me with an interesting opportunity to make use of these containers in a short animation experiment.

METHOD: To combine projection-mapping and stop-motion animation using disposable plastic fish soy sauce containers.

RESPONSE: Styroquarium is a short stop motion animation experiment combined with projection-mapping. Little plastic fish soy sauce containers swim around, then initiate a group escape from a styrofoam aquarium.

REFLECTION: This is my first time doing a stop motion animation, and I wanted to challenge myself if I could combine this with projection mapping. I found it very fun, despite being an ambitious and physically exhausting endeavor. I had to take nearly 200 photos, and go sit/stand back and forth on the projected scene, carefully moving the objects, the video mapping program to move the projections, then take a photo for each frame. Unintentionally, I found myself in a repetitive pattern of what may be solitary play with the little fish containers, and the projected images. As soon as I reached more than halfway of what I wanted to achieve, my systematic step-by-step workflow on it became rather meditative.

The combination of projection mapping and stop-motion taps into my studio practice of exploring hybrid reality. Yet again, I have gravitated to using my Styrofoam blocks, now adding in another form of disposable, or perhaps in my case, recyclable little plastic fish vials. I took a big risk with creating Styroquarium, as I didn’t know if it would actually look presentable. I am however, happy by this experimental result, and may consider stop-motion projection mapping animation in a future project.

About This Work

By Carlo Tolentino
Email Carlo Tolentino
Published On: 18/09/2019