IOL Week 7, Metamorphosis.
BInaries: (Moving) Character & (Static) Environment/Obstacle.
-Briefly discuss your choice of opposites/binaries in relation to your project.
I chose character and environment as my binary or opposite. One is moving, and the other is often static. These two factors play a large part in my exploration of movement/traversal and abstraction in a projection-mapped outcome.
I wanted to subtly give the character the properties of the environment, and in effect, cause it to stop moving through transformation.
-What route did you chose A or B? and why?
I chose A, where I would create an animation for each of my binary choice. In IOL, I am gravitating towards creating a series of experiments that involve projection-mapping, traversal, and abstraction. Little animated characters doing parkour and transforming into various shapes, projected in various physical places and objects is a very compelling project direction. Despite my studio project being an interactive project, these animated studies definitely inform my practice aesthetically, as well as my understanding of light and space.
-Describe your thinking behind your approach to the experiments you conducted.
I wanted my character to transform and have properties of the pyramid-like obstacle, such as the sketchy and jittery appearance. Placing the short animation on the projected environment gives it a unique aesthetic, only achieved by projection-mapping. An aesthetic that I am slowly refining throuhgh my practice. The movement I used is a leap and tumble movement, followed by a transformation into a ball. Movement and abstraction, two concepts in which my IOL project is exploring and experimenting on.
-Reflect on the outcome pieces.
I am happy with how my experiment looked in the end, however, I think I can give more relevance to the character's transformation. A future iteration would be transforming the character into an environmental object that is mapped in the physical world as well. Also incorporating colour into the obstacle/environment and the transformation will help emphasize the concept of metamorphosis. Another consideration for my future iterations would be the addition of the character's volumetric shadow to contribute to the movement and abstraction.
-Is there any way your exercise mght feed into your larger studio project or inspire an aspect of it?
My instinctive aim for this exercise was to directly contribute to my IOL project, as well as to inform my studio project in my exploration of mixed reality, and interactive projection-mapping. Metamorphosis is a concept that I might incorporate in my studio project, by means of character movements and environmental interactions.
