Artwork used for Manchester Events.

Evaluation

Since my last project I feel as though I have really developed my and pushed my skills forward in the visual area that I set out to achieve. I moved out of my comfort zone to be inducted in the metal workshop that I had never used before, and also on the Scientific Microscopes at Manchester University. Within my Self -Initiated brief I looked at Microscopic imagery that was inspired mainly from Pinterest and the Bev Shots series. but also by one of my favourite producers artwork, Jon Hopkins which was created by biochemist turned artist Linden Gledhill and art director Craig Ward. I really liked the idea of being able to use polarised microscopes to capture some great visuals that I would be able to use within my videos instead of just using ones I had produced from drawings, Photoshop and Illustrator. However this was not a huge success as the quality of the images were not good enough to use within my final work however I still believe was a great way to get some first hand documentation of this particular process. 

I then began to feed this work into my collaborative brief which was with fellow mmu student Zachary Snow who is also a 2nd year Creative Multimedia student. I approached Zac before the end of the last project as I was knew I was aware of particular softwares and technologies but wasn’t quite sure how to go about some of them. Me and Zac both quickly realised that we had very similar interests when it come to our work, both wanting to create Audio Visual Art of some sort. With Zac being great with the Software side, and me being able to create the visual imagery used through out the collaboration pretty much went hand in hand.

We come up with the idea that we wanted to create an Installation piece that would involve a Structure that we would then Projection Map onto. However, this was only just the beginning. Zac was going to write his own Audio Visual Responsive softare in OpenFrameWorks which we would then combine my images into and experiment to see how they could be manipulated, edited and mapped. Even though this was a great achievement that Zac was able to do this, I believe this did have massive set backs within out work as you shouldn’t really proto type in C++ when there is already many available software out there that does this job. This therefore meant that most of the earlier stages of out project were spent with Zac trying to create this instead of us being able to try and produce a strong body of visual work.

We began to look at different artists work that inspired the structure which we would create to project onto. One of these being Kit Webster. Not only were the techniques and processes influential on the final outcome, but the design of the structure itself is definitely influenced by his work.
Building the structure was definitely this biggest challenge we come across through out the project. We firstly played around in Sketch Up creating several structure designs before we narrowed it down to the final design. After speaking with the Metal workshop, Wood Workshop and Laser cutting technician’s they were all adamant that the design we had chosen would be almost impossible to create in the time span we had due to the lack of skills we had and over complicated design. We then went back to the drawing board to simplify the structure and get it down to as little faces as possible which was 21. We initially planned to create the structure from Metal and then cover it with a white fabric specifically designed to project onto. But now our only option seemed like wood. Even though Aiden was adamant that the structure would be impossible to create on the laser cutter due to the straight cut angle it gave and the abstract geometric angles our structure consisted off. However, at this stage close to the deadline we felt like we had no other option but to give it a shot anyway. The great thing about Sketch Up was that you could create it to the correct measurements so we re created the individual faces in illustrator to be laser cut. We decided to use 2mm MDF board, as this was light enough to work with. However was a real hassle to construct. We used a glue gun which did the job but left quite a lot of dried residue on the outside of the structure which was quite noticeable and weren’t completely satisfied as and end product. So decided this would be a proto type and that we were going to experiment using another material.

Our second choice of material was foam board. Now we already had the measurements we just increased the size so we could make a bigger structure this time. Because of the lightweight material we were able to join the structure together using masking tape and was much more flexible to work with and the white shiny surface definitely gave it that finishing touch. Considering the first attempt was such a disaster we were both relatively pleased with the outcome.
Since we were both happy with the Structure, we then felt like we had strong enough codes to start experimenting with imagery live in OpenFrameworks. We had several set backs when Projection mapping, a major issue not really having any were to store our structure so having to move it each time we wanted to project, resulting into us having to re map onto the structure every time which was a very lengthy process. Also not having a dark enough room meant that a lot of the projections were just too bright even with the brightness and contrast adjusted, and also not having a good enough quality projector.

Artists who's whom inspired the techniques and processes we used were Jean-Michel Verbeec, Kit Webster and Joelle Snaith. 
After the first few attempts at mapping, we both just were not really satisfied with the outcome and definitely wasn’t a final piece. We had now both started to get bored of the music and found that it wasn’t so suitable as the visuals were just too fast. Even though we had achieved the audiovisual goal we set out to achieve, we decided to re create more visual footage in Resolume and After Effects and edit them together in Final Cut Pro. We also agreed on a new track that we felt was more appropriate from Voice from the Lake. Even though this was not necessarily live visually produced footage as before in OpenFrameWorks we have demonstrated that we are able to do this, however would benefit from this process more as we can compile our best visual footage and re create a video which we will manually sync to the music so that we can manipulate without having the problem of it being to fast like before. I was really pleased with the final video we had created and on our final attempt at projection mapping, felt like we produced a much stronger body of work. The only down fall to this was I felt like the video recording definitely did not do it any justice due to the such bad quality of the video and also projector that we had hired out from uni. We hope to exhibit this final piece as it looked much better in person and actually being able to gain the best sound and visual experience possible.

I feel like I have now been able to build up a strong body of imagery which I can now start to present in a portfolio which I can send to nights within Manchester. Currently having quite a lot of connections with promoters in Manchester for particular nights and events I would be interested in working for I believe this is at a massive advantage as Manchester nights are crying out for this artistic style of work. And I am looking forward to presenting my visual work at nights such as Bohemian Grove, Selective Hearing, Meat Free and Ensemble Manchester over the next coming months. This is a great opportunity for me to really get my work out there as I know I have definitely found my specialist area I will continue to work in. along side this, getting the Artist Liaison role for Future Everything Festival should definitely be a big help for me to meet other like minded people in artistic background and also get advise from visual artists performing at the festivals themselves.

Over this project I felt like I have developed my practice by using a variety of techniques and software such as the Laser Cutter, Sketch Up, Resolume, OpenFrameWorks, 3D Mapping, After Effects, Arduino, Processing, Final Cut pro. Zac was very helpful throughout the project and without his knowledge and skills it would have been almost impossible for me to create anything similar within the time scale we had. However, I felt like he definitely did over complicate the project more than it needed to be, and I didn’t learn much from OpenFrameworks software as it was just too advanced for me. I do believe that I managed my time well throughout this project with the two briefs running alongs one another, making sure to meet up with Zac several times a week. I do hope to continue to work with Zac in the future as we already have a lot of ideas of how we can develop and take both our practice further.

Full Video with Track

Here is the final video of our projection mapped installation which involves a mixture of software including OpenFrameWorks, 3D mapping add on, Resolume, Final Cut Pro and After Effects. 

I am slightly disappointed with the quality of the video as it does not benefit the structure or visuals in anyway and it something which definitely needs to been seen in person to really see the difference. I am hoping that me and Zac will have the opportunity to exhibit our Audio visual installation. 


Final Projection Map from Nicole Gordon on Vimeo.

Final Projection Attempt

A huge time consuming problem we had through out this project was not having a place to permanently set up our structure. So every time we wanted to project we would have to re set up the structure in a room available and re map onto the structure again, which would take a good few hours. This definitely effected the amount of work we were able to produce as it was just soo time consuming as the mapping was the longest part and is most definitely its not something you would rush otherwise you would not get the best quality in the final outcome.

I was really pleased with the final 3D projection map on to the structure with the newly created video and believe worked hand in hand with the final selected track we both agreed on. However, I really do not think that the videos I have documented throughout the project has gave the installation piece any justice and is definitely something that you need to view in person. I still found that the lighting in the room was to bright and the projector was at too much of a low quality to get the best and sharpest visuals unlike on the laptop screen but that was to be expected.

Locating Nights

Now I have been able to create a good body of work including both visual imagery and footage. I now feel confident enough to start to promote my work to nights around Manchester and start to perform some live visuals. I definitely feel like there is a gap in the market and nights in Manchester are crying out for creative artists who are willing to present there work for free even just to get themselves out there. I feel like I have quite a large advantage in this with already knowing a lot of promoters in Manchester especially in the sort of nights and event spaces I would like to present my work in, such as Bohemian Grove, Selective Hearing, Meat Free and Ensemble Manchester and have already been offered the opportunity to do live visual for them at there upcoming nights and now I feel like I have enough work to do so.

Artist Inspiration: Joelle Snaith

https://vimeo.com/joellesnaith
 
Joëlle is a self developed visual artist and designer whose work is focused on audio visualisations and the connection between sound and form. By developing a creative process that involves discovery, experimentation and repetition, Joëlle extracts meaning and purpose from what she experiences in the audible environment.

Joëlle started exploring moving image in 2008, and produced a number of audio reactive animation projects that formed the basis of her aesthetic. Her interest in creative coding and generative graphics led to explorations using the open source programming language Processing, and more recently the visual programming language Quartz Composer to create real-time live visuals. Using generative graphics and procedural animation, she designs elegant and emotive moving images with primary focus on detail. 

               

The structure and organisation of code resonates with her character and aesthetic, but the generative nature of the process often reveals unexpected results, Joëlle finds this element of the process insightful as she learns to embrace the unforeseen and the unplanned. Her work reflects a minimalist approach that generally rejects colour - sometimes organic, sometimes geometric, often abstract and always a visual translation of emotion and environment.

Joëlle has worked in a wide range of creative fields, from web and mobile design to motion and interactive design, having spent the last 10+ years designing interfaces for digital media. She has relished the transition to live performance and enjoys solving problems whilst creating refined, usable experiences and has subsequently worked with brands such as Adidas and Glade Festival, as well as Superbalist and Visi Magazine in South Africa. Joëlle has currently been commissioned to produce a live Audio Visual show for Killawatt of Osiris Records.

http://inverted-audio.com/visual/visualising-sound-with-joelle/

Work Experience: Future Everything Festival 2015

http://futureeverything.org/

Over the past few months I have been looking and applying for roles around Manchester which I think could benefit my work and hopefully gain myself some great experience in the industry I could see myself gaining a career from in the future. I had previously heard of Future Everything Festival in Manchester and had been a big fan of the shows/events and workshops they put on last year such as Robert Henke, who is a live audio visual artist, Tim Hecker and also Emmanuel Biard who is a Visual Artist. When I seen that they were looking for volunteers to work for this years festival I thought that this would be a great opportunity for me to get some experience in something I was actually really interested in.

I attended a group interview where we were able to find out a little more information about the festival itself and the particular roles that they had available. Over both the main venues RNCM and Town Hall., particular roles that I was drawn too were Artist Liaison, green room runner working at the SHED at MMU where they held all the creative workshops and also working on the production side of things too. When I received an email offering me head Artists Liaison and also Co-ordinating assistant based at RNCM I was extremely made up that they had gave me this role and that they put that much trust into me. I think my passion for music and visual side to art really exceled through in the interviews which was what they were looking for.

There’s several installations and live performances I am really looking forward to over the week of the festival and hoping that I get put with some of the visual artists to work with such as Emanuel Biard who I have previously used as artist documentation over the past few projects so would be great to see how he works and get some feedback on my own and how I can improve. Could be a great chance to really get my work out there. 

Emmanuel Biard- The Well

Change of Music

After using the same track throughout not only did we both begin to get sick of hearing the sound of it, but we just felt like we needed to find something much more atmospheric and suiting. We decided on a Voices From The Lake track. Which had a lot of really unusual sounds in it that you could definitely imagine in an installation piece and would work well on good speakers that we are hiring out to use within our exhibited final piece.

Final Cut Pro

Even though the projection mapping had improved dramatically the second time around and the quality of the visual were much more vibrant and noticeable, I still didn’t feel like we had reached the point were it was good enough to submit as a final piece and Zac agreed.

I was really pleased with the final video that were able to put together last minute in final cut pro, even though we had gone in the opposite direction to our apposed brief of doing a more audio-visual live projection, I felt that using final cut was much more beneficial as we were really able to tweak the videos and get the best outcome possible. We were also able to include a mixture of our strongest visuals from both Resolume and OpenFrameworks. Even though the video wasn’t automatically audio visual responsive done through the software itself as before, instead we actually spent time going through the track in individual stages ourselves, and changing the imagery to math the particular beats which was time consuming but definitely worth it as we were able to manipulate it to how we wanted it unlike before when the visuals were slightly too fast for our liking.

Projection Mapping: Attempt 2

Another major issue within our project, was that instead of using a ready available software to projection map such as Mad Mapper that I know I would have definitely been able to get a better understand of, Zac insisted that we continued to use OpenFrameWorks using an add on. this meant that we encountered a lot of problems and set backs every time we set up the structure to projection map as he would always have to change the codes/ we rite things to work with the new videos or images we inputted into the program each time we wanted to change this which just made the whole process unnecessarily long. However, we were able to get some better footage this time around as we had adjusted the visual footage imputed into OpenFrameWorks so the colours were darker.
 
Overall, I would say I still wasn’t pleased with the outcome of the second projection map attempt, the projections just seemed far to green and unlike the original videos before they had been mapped. This was due to the over layering of the masks and the way they were positioned. Similar to that in Photoshop, when you begin to layer up many layers of the same image the over lap creates a really saturated image. We will now come up with a new plan to see how we can overcome this problem and get some better footage.

Resolume

Eventhough I was really happy with the videos we were able to create live using OpenFrameWorks, I felt like we should now experiment feeding in some videos we have pre created using other software such as Resolume to see how well they would work, and if not any better. I found this process more beneficial as we were really able to push the outcome of the videos and tweak them to get the best possible rather than just a randomly produced video through OpenFrameWorks which don’t get me wrong, is the whole point and makes the process fun not knowing the outcome, but can definitely be a big risk take, particularly if performing live at a night, which I don’t think we would be confident enough to do yet until the program was completely perfect and I was able to understand it too .

Inspiration:

Projection mapping @ Portes Ouvertes Design Montréal from smallfly on Vimeo.

Projection mapping we did in our studio for Portes Ouvertes Design Montréal The projection mapping was controlled by the visitors. The structure was designed and built by Mathieu Léger and Moko. Built with openFrameworks Music: TTC - Meet the new boss feat. Out One

Encountered Problems

after speaking to several artists and tutors, I began to realize that the program that Zac was using to create the audio visuals was totally unnecessary and making things more difficult for us than it had to be, when there is already many ready available programs out there which do the job perfectly. But instead he decided to completely re write his own program which took up a lot of the time of the project and encountered a lot of problems and set backs. I felt like because the software was so advanced and beyond my level of coding, I didn’t really get the opportunity to gain much learning from our collaboration like I could have if we had used software such as Mad Mapper, Processing or even Max MXP.

Even though we did manage to produce some good visual imagery and successfully create an audio visual responsive software I believe that if we had spent more time actually focusing on the visuals we could have produced a lot more quantity of work at a better level.

Projection Mapping: Attempt 1

Another problem we encountered was finding a good locating within the university which was dark enough to do our projection mapping, and also a safe place to store the structure without it being used all the time. We managed to find a multimedia room which was relatively dark, but with the walls being white this did effect the projections as it blended with the white structure a little too much. the content in the projections were also to light and even with changing the brightness and contrast on the projector you still were unable to see the detailed quality of the videos, this also did't help with the quality of the projector also. For the next mapping attempt we are going to play around with the visual content and hopefully find a darker room.