Sabbatical over already?

Although I will not return to teaching until fall, I am afraid my first ever sabbatical is just about over. Apart from our car being totalled after my first week in Ohio, it has been a very positive experience. I was privileged to be part of the ACCAD community at The Ohio State University, where I spent six and a half weeks in person and collaborated remotely for the remainder of Spring.

The experience being played at the ACCAD Open House. Photo: Lexi Clark-Stilianos

An initial version of the full VR experience was presented at the ACCAD Open House on April 7. I have been collaborating with MFA student Raven Serenity Glover, they build most of the game mechanics. The experience is not really a game, but we still referred to the scripts that drive the interaction as game events and triggers. I am not enough of a stickler for words to argue every time someone calls the experience a game. Technically it is not, but it seems the default to refer to any interactive work as a game.

Here is reel I created for the ACCAD motion lab, including some sneak peaks of the project:
 

 
What was great about being immersed in ACCAD (which, as most of you know, stands form Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, the same place I received my MFA from) was the sense of community and being surrounded by smart people who all were doing research in fields closely related to what I do. Whether their focus was Digital Art, Art and Technology, Animation, Interaction Design or, well, Gaming, everybody was willing to share their expertise and help out when we ran into puzzles building our experience that a simple Google search did not solve. And, at least as important, they were there to bounce ideas off of and help develop the conceptual framework of the project. Teaching at a relatively small liberal arts college, I have only a few direct colleagues in fields closely related to mine, and am the lone animator there. From all these conversations with professionally like minded people I definitely learned a lot. And did I mention the great students?

ACCAD Open House. Photo: Lexi Clark-Stilianos

The project, for with he working title Inviting Motion stuck, is complete but not finished. We, that is: Raven and I will adjust some things based on the feedback from the open house (and other instances where people played, I mean: experienced the project) and polish a number of elements. With one last push we should be able to get it ready for festival submission soon!

Home, Closed (2020)

 
My latest animation is now available online:
 

Home, Closed from Wobbe on Vimeo.

Been Busy Shooting

Hope to shoot the final shot for the animation I am creating under the working title Covid Stop Motion in our basement.

I created this test earlier:

Something Has Come Between Us from Wobbe on Vimeo.

Downfall

Finished an assemblage sculpture with 3D prints and a broken cellphone. More info: ideepix.nl

Another Year Over

We have entered a new world, and after my first half semester of experience with teaching on-line I found some time to finish a test for the third Vicious Cycles Animation
 

Grinding Light from Wobbe on Vimeo.
 

This is actually the second test, the first one I turned in to a new year's message earlier:
 

HNY 2020 from Wobbe on Vimeo.

Another Semester Done

Another year over, a new one just begun. Or semester, season, eon. I have been busy, one of the things I completed during the last semester was my first VR piece. Here is the trailer:
 

Multi Dimensional Eye Virus VR - Trailer from Wobbe on Vimeo.

Melt

I published my latest animation:

More info

Materialized

Recently I created two 3D printed Sculptures, the second of which, called "Frozen.Motion(2)" got accepted in "Materialized". This show, juried by Joshua Harker, is now on Display at Central Michigan University.

HNY!

City.Flow() on IkonoTV

My video City.Flow() will be shown on IkonoTV as part of a selection of works from Enhanced Vision, curated by Kathy Rae Huffman.
 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Scatter Bosch Image

This Hieronymus Bosch like rendering of a still from Scatter Brain Matter, or The Evolution of Mankind was created by the Deep Dream - Online Generator. That site is owned by Google and the image manipulation is based on their research into using AI for image recognition. They turned an artifact that appeared in the process into a feature for this, it seems.

RIP Bowie

My mom actually alerted me to his passing this morning. Thought about how I could make a tribute to this childhood hero. Didn't.

The Guardian posted a great article on the ambiguous relations ship between Bowie and America, where I now live too. Not too far from New York City, where he died. Within eyesight actually. That article contained a link to "I'm afraid of Americans":
 

Please mister Gravedigger, would care if you found a golden song and put it in your pocket.

(It was pouring when he died, probably, well, the sky did cry heavily a few days before, enough to put water in our basement)

Scatter Brain Matter, or the Evolution of Mankind

I have released my latest short film on Vimeo. After serious discussions around Thanksgiving, I added a subtitle to the work once known as "Mind Matter".

Scatter Brain Matter, or the Evolution of Mankind from Wobbe on Vimeo.

Art Speaks Out

Two of my works have been selected to be part of the "Art Speaks Out" program that is put together by ikonoTV that will be shown as part of the Global Climate Art Festival, scheduled to coincide with the UN Climate Change Conference Paris 2015. I am happy that my animation "Seeing Red" and my video "City.Flow()" will once again be on display.
 

Seeing Red from Wobbe on Vimeo.

Enhanced Vision

My video City.FLow() from 2010 has been included in the Enhanced Vision – Digital Video, the latest online exhibition organized by the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community Committee. The site went live this weekend: check it out!

Dancing Particles

Played with nParticles a bit in an attempt to create frozen motion but created this sequence in the process:
 

I used a Motion Capture (MoCap) example that came with Maya years ago and made it emit particles. Very simple. Find better MoCap data I must!

We are Glass

Not really, but this thing seems to be made of glass. I updated an older experiment to test the new MacPro in my office at Monmouth University. Did pretty well rendering this with caustics and all.
 

 
Oh, you wonder what happened to "Scatter Brain Matter"? Well, the start of the semester got in the way. Need to find two days of time to finish it, but I do have picture lock!

RGB.Machine

For my animation I need something to glow inside of a"crystal ball" so I created something based on the machine from Contact and had it leave particles behind in glorious RGB. I rendered it a couple of times with different settings, here is the result:
 

Almost at the last scene...

I am approaching the last scene of my animation whose working title has been in flux but seems to want to settle on "Scatter Brain Matter". It is going to be a tough one but I have to add a strong finish!

Here is an image that emerged as I was working of the Trumbull inspired sequence that will form the transition into the final sequence:

I may also have been slightly influenced by Dinosaur Train...

Is it just me or does it show a lion with a smiley face on top?

Twodimensional Eye Virus version 0.0

 

Dug up the old javascript files used to create the first of the Multidimensional Eye Virus animations and adapted one for HTML5 canvas. Most of the work was done on the train in and out of the City to teach at PRATT. On a netbook.

Sit back and enjoy!