Narrative concept environment…

Ok, so it seems a bit late in the game to be throwing the word ‘concept’ about, but after really realising what my project actually is (and no, i’m not talking about expensive), it’s seems suitable just to get an image or something out there. Initial, with the help of Joe Barnett;

And a spruced up version (click for full view);

In short; what i’m trying to represent in the image is some future setting, on a public walkway high in a city. In all these places, nodes are around to connect and share etc etc, in line with the narrative. It almost like an information terminal as well as a social device.

The image itself is composites of Maya, and textured in Photoshop.

Narrative Environment

Recapping on something mentioned in a previous blog post about being a narrative structure to a space and bringing a new experience to it. Done some perusing through Vimeo and came across a few examples for examination;

N.WAVES DIPTYCH by Peter Norrman & Leif Jordansson

 Originally conceived as a work about the post glacial rebound and changing northern landscape of a 16 mile long coastal line, the soundscape and video created both a suggestive historic narrative and an ambient reflection of the soft and aggressive changes of this unusual landscape.

In this installation – n.waves – the manipulated video will further explore ideas of coastal landshift, the desolate expanse of the north, temporal changes and shifting movements in the nature and the landscape.

It’s a pretty mazing looking piece. At some points there’s some stereoscopic visuals have 2 perspectives of the same view, which works with the split image planes. Although the video doesn’t directly place you in the environment of the installation, the demonstration of the content laid out is important. I’m a big fan of symmetry and at certain parts with the mirrored images it creates the illusion of depth i feel. The piece uses 5.1. surround sound using a multitude of natural sounds and even some NASA archive recordings, and given a electronic run through, mixed with some orchestral music. The creators aimed to make this seem like a dialogue with a electronic soundscape, and i can sort of understand what they mean. It’s more than just an ambient track over some visuals, it keeps you engaged and interested with some of the ‘bleep-bloops’ almost matching up with the time-lapse footage as if it’s the sounds of that visual, in contrast, the more ambient parts syncing with the airy sense of other shots. The way it’s presented in and the change in pace at places makes it an interesting alternative to communicate a story of a coastline environment using a media format beyond a traditional documentary.

Wasteband by Patrícia Portela

This one is an interesting concept. Admittedly, from the video, i think i’m missing a chunk because of the language barrier. But the description does give me that insight;

Wasteband : strip of time that shapes your days, by extending the waiting moments instead of the action
ones, creating a bigger possibility of accidents and collateral effects in lives that have been over
programmed.
How can you be virtual without being digital?
Wasteband is a virtual performance for 1 astronaut/salesman, 1 musician, and 1 power point, where performers and spectators seat together around a table where vertical images are being projected.
Based on the coincidental fact that both a Chinese ritual and scientific theories prove that the moon will
soon fall on a beach full of frogs on the exact date we perform.
Following the anxieties of Sergei Krikalev at the Mir while waiting to be brought back to Earth, this is a
performance about waiting, wishing and wasting.

I’ll admit, I am reminded a bit of the War Room from Dr Strangelove a bit with the layout. Whether that’s intentional or not, i don’t know, but hey. The theme of the installation sounds amazing, that tie of science and mysticism, and it’s almost an artistic debate. I suppose this relates quite a bit to performance video, using people as part of the piece. And all the video content relevant to the piece.

SOL by http://www.the-product.org/

An interactive spatial installation staging the origin of solar energy.
In an immersive environment the principles of nuclear fusion can be experienced in a narrative and playful way.
Entering a bright and glistening corpus, the visitor experiences the darkness inside the Sun and watches the chaotic motion of Protons.
Interacting with the particles causes them to fuse and to produce energy which manifests as light bursts inside “the core” as well as a rising light level on the outside.

Making science fun!  That narrative here is the process that happens for millennia inside a star. I recently watched ‘Wonders of the Universe’ by Brian Cox on the BBC and have a basic understanding what goes on inside a star and how all the particles on our planet were originally part of a star that went supernova trillions of years ago, X amount of lightyears away. It’s a forever repeating process that in the centre the atoms keep smashing together, combing and making new elements and then get thrown out across the cosmos. The way the piece works by physically walking into something representing the sun, and everytime on the inside when you create a particle makes the exterior flash gives the audience several perspectives of the same story in relation to where they’re standing and who’s doing the action, i find amazing. These alternative views on the same instance in one space is something not easily applicable in traditional film-making. It’s now in today’s ‘New Media’ age that using different methods of makign a moving image and sound we can create experiences that differ to each person.

Untitled [Bioacoustic Phenomenon] by Paul Prudence

The description;

a live generative cinematic exploration of sonically activated biological events, specifically evolving morphogenetic cellular entities that grow in response to sound vibrations. Out of a primordial hydrodynamic environment cellular life-forms develop and exhibit behavioural “intelligence” using sound as an organising principle and nourishing substance. Immersed in their sonorous habitat, plasmas fluctuate while chromosomal figures reverberate and divide according to their respective bio-resonant frequencies. In this sonic ecosystem, a synaesthetic biological narrative unfolds in relation to the development of specific audio modulations and vibrations.

Now, to be honest, that description sounds amazing. The video however, well, at the very least perhaps doesn’t do it justice. It’s an audio-reactive piece using the typical complicated software etc etc, but i just dont’ feel the visuals match up with the description. I mean, i get it, i can understa d how it works and what the visuals represent, but with such a grandiose statement, it’s a bit underwhelming. Having it projected onto one screen screen is too simple and in my opinion, it limits how people can interpret this; to some, it may be some pretty looking lights. I would’ve proposed using the space more or a different projection technique. And example could be using some magnification/macro way, considering it’s based around something on a cellular level. It’s that thing of crossing over from simple visual to something a bit more intricate to communicate something more complex…

Visuals at Smirnoff Experience ‘Graphic’ Party feat. Deadmau5 by mixMotion

The VIP industry party had a graphic novel theme and was entitled “Graphic”. The environment featured a comic book style narrative that followed guests from the street entrance into the party upstairs and reflected thier unfolding story throughout the night.

mixMotion’s contributions began from creative concept designs to final production. We created and projected custom animated comic panels for the large warehouse style windows. A custom designed projection screen was created in the style of a comic book panel for the DJ booth. Special lighting was designed to create the illusion of comic book shading on the guests and the enviroment.

A live Twitter feed was projected in one lounge area, where partygoers’ tweets would show up instantly on the wall, and a live drawing photo area was also set up using video projection to capture photographs of guests as if they were part of the comic. As the night went on and Deadmau5 took to the DJ booth, we VJ’d live on multiple areas, a rear-projection behind the DJ booth, ghostly sheer panels from the ceiling as well as onto the huge window panels that covered the entire south wall, creating an immersive atmosphere emphasizing the mood, colour and theme of the event.

I won’t lie, this pretty much has all the angles covered. Interactivity – twitter, photobooth. Narrative – graphic/comics. Projection techniques – Vjing, custom surfaces, etc. They were given the task of making an event unique with New Media and the result has become this great example of a Narrative Environment. Bringing the audience into the theme of the piece and giving the opportunity to interact as part of the narrative, whilst building up for the visual content for a performance definatly explores a who different avenue to story telling. Where as with film-making and other mainstream video methods, it’s all about sitting there and being told the story, with the only difference in immersion these days is making it 3d and bumping up the sound angles. The attempt at 4d by adding effects like wind and such to a film failed miserably, it’s a bit of a farce really. The open ended route of making the people part of the story is, in my opinion, going to become a more prevalent thing of the future. It’s becoming easier and more varied the methods of bringing digital media events to people, so it’s easy to speculate that say in 20 years time, it’ll be close to a everyday thing, as opposed to special occasions. If this does become the case, then yes, I’ll probably have a smug look on my face in a sort of “I told you so” way, but even smugger if i’m part of the developers of this era.

Fish eye addition

Well, today i was kindly lent a semi- fish eye lens by my tutor Mandy, and it it seemingly improved the image throw of the projector. There’s still a focusing issue, but the image is hitting the screens now as opposed to just covering the floor. Point proved about using a fish-eye to shorten the throw perhaps. Just got to make a few decisions now how to advance this now, for the project as a whole, as well as what i’m to show at the crit.

Projector and mapping set-back…

Not the best time for set backs, but it’s my own fault. I under estimated the position of the projector in relation to the projected image on the mirror. For a image the map from a picture, the camera lens needs to be in the same position of the projection lens. However, when putting a standard projector in the centre on the floor, 1) I didn’t account for the fact that projectors don’t project straight out the lens, but the image is offset. 2) The further the projector is from the mirror, the more the light dissipates when hitting the screen, i.e. it’s too dim to see anything. As you can see here;

But of course, the closer the projector, the less image throw and so the image doesn’t cover the mirror. One way to adapt to this is to experiment with the uni’s short throw 2000 lumen projector. Less distance and alot brighter. However, still, the distance was a problem. The light from the projector straight onto the screen is amazing, but the diffusion from the mirror literally reduces it by 50% . And this particular projector has a mirror on, which tbh, made it quite problematic and unsafe to prop something together.

So, back to the standard projector, but this time propping it up closer to the mirror, using a 3 legged stand and mount. And it wors better, but the problem of the image being smaller is still there. Took some pictures of the effect with the projector offset though.

So… the next step is how to get a projected image that hitting the central piece of the mirror at a size of 10cm and bump it up to 90cm…

Well, i just happened to have a fisheye filter for my 350D camera with me, so popped that over the projection lens, and that increase the size by 20%. It’s just a simple filter made of 2 parts, a macro filter and wide angle filter to get a fish-eye effect. Now, obviously I may have a focusing issue with the fish-eye part, but it works. And, in trying to find a solution to it all, i came across this DIY projector solutions.

http://c4c.posterous.com/diy-fisheye-projection-lens-after-lhoumeau-bl

http://c4c.posterous.com/realisation-projecteur-fisheye-ylhoumeau-diy

In brief;

More on the Lhoumeau projector hack. He uses a 50mm lens, backward, to reduce the projector image size to a small rectangle, then a cheap fisheye lens (Peleng 8mm) to send it out to as much as 135 degrees FOV. If you start out with a circular dome master to project, that would do it for a preview or home dome.

Essentially, this hack was designed for a home-made planetarium, but the principle of magnifying the image would cross over, it’s just need some height adjustment of the projector. The downside is, at this stage of the game, it costs money to buy all the pieces to make the hack, and time. Both of which i don’t have. On top of that, I’ve still got to get the screen looking decent.

What to do?

Installation context

At this stage of the project, it’s time I make it clear what where my installation fits. Although i didn’t fully consider it at first, it’s been brought up that it is overall an art piece. I suppose this is the transgression between some nerd fanatic and becoming something akin to a Digital artist, grasping the tech side of it and producing a creative piece.

Obviously from the get go, I knew i wanted to carry on with the 360 degrees projection, but to move on from the method of projecting and work on the content. Admittedly, i don’t feel totally fulfilled as i would of loved to had more time working on content and less time on building, but hey. What i have done though has broadened up for future projects as it genuinely builds upon ideas that need developing that I’ve had before. One of the aspects was to explore a narrative structure that’s away from the traditional screen. I had previously talked about making a series of stories based around a setting with my friend Joe Barnett, and maybe use some installation ways. What I’ve done here builds the groundwork for a science fiction world that narratives can be built around, and I’ve alreadygot a few ideas floating around.

Doing a bit of research, it seems a name has been given to using space as a narrative format. Narrative Environment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_environment

A narrative environment is a space, whether physical or virtual, in which stories can unfold. A virtual narrative environment might be the narrative framework in which game play can proceed. A physical narrative environment might be an exhibition area within a museum, or a foyer of a retail space, or the public spaces around a building – anywhere in short where stories can be told in space.

So it’s pretty much a possible career direction. Whether there’s much of a market for that, more research is to be done, but all the while this piece instantly comes to mind. In the second year Moth TV did a visiting lecture visit do-dah, and showed some of their work, and this one is about using an Art-deco building and making an experience based around the Greek Myth of Orpheus in the Underworld…

Exposure to that has probably guided me to this direction, and hopefully given a budget, then clearly I can do more extravagant things. But where would this work and indeed myself fit in all of this? Well, most definitely it’s a portfolio piece of course but who’s doing stuff out that specializes in this area?

Few weeks ago for the Professional Development unit, had guest speaker Mark Abraham give a talk. After asking him if he’s done any event projection stuff, he informed me of Frolic Productions, a company who does audio-visual installations, content and equipment rental. They even have their own water screen, how rad is that? And what i can only assume is the same people Hear Colours. Frolic seems the more techy site, with Hear Colours being the more arty.

http://www.frolicproductions.com/

http://www.hearcolours.com/

Glance over their work – Glastonbury, Faithless, 3d Face sculpture and 3d video mapping. With them producing specialised content as well, they cover all the bases I’d be interested in, events, production and installations. It’s quite a niche though. More research will yield more places.

The direction of Narrative environment though is the way to pursue i reckon, and pursue i shall…