My final project of Visualizing Data class started from my curiosity. What kinds of wine and coffee are people mostly enjoying around the world? I made the list of grape varieties and coffee varieties which would be used for getting data from Twitter. I visualized Twitter data in New york and Paris.
There was a little girl who couldn’t understand many things in the world where she belonged.
She couldn’t understand why there is suffering, sadness and badness.
She couldn’t understand why space and time should be as it is.
She couldn’t understand why and how the universe becomes like this.
She couldn’t understand how many dimensions we can be aware of.
She couldn’t understand what life is and then what death is.
She couldn’t understand many things.
What and why it is.....
Now the little girl has grown, still looking for the answer.
She just try to contain her consciousness in her work at certain time.
Yes. She is me. I think there is no way to express my thoughts thoroughly in other media, not writing, speaking, music, visual art or performance, only the form of my work. It is an abstract animation, visual music and synesthetic cinema. It consists of visual, sound and motion combined together into my own invented language which will I hope allow me to communicate with an audience.
When we say expanded cinema we actually mean expanded consciousness. Expanded cinema does not mean computer films, video phosphors, atomic light, or spherical projections. Expanded cinema isn’t a movie at all: like life it’s a process of becoming, man’s ongoing historical drive to manifest his consciousness outside of his mind, in front of his eyes. (in the Preface of ‘Expanded Cinema’)
I’ve just finished ‘Dancing, Moment’, the project for Big Screens show 2009.
This project is about my accumulated consciousness since I started to doubt.
To me, ‘Dancing, Moment’ means ‘Life’.
It can be life of one day.
It can be life of universe.
It can be life of an atom.
It can be life of a person.
It can be lives of all creatures.
It cab be life in this space and time.
It can be life in another space and time.....
I respect people’s own consciousness.
I hope my project evoke people’s own emotion and allow them to experience their own narrative.
I appreciate Daniel Shiffman for providing me the opportunity to participate in this project with his great support and advice.
I appreciate Nancy Hechinger for her great guide and class which let me trained to show and tell my thought to people.
I appreciate Marina Zurkow for her great advice leading me to find my way.
I appreciate Winslow Porter for his support of making music in the early stage of my project.
Thank you, Alasdair Turner, for his Nurbs code with processing.
And I appreciate all my big screens project colleagues.
This is my current status of BigScreen project which will be displayed on wall screen at IAC building on Dec. 4.
I started the idea as an interactive animation for this project using computer vision. However, there are constraints for the idea; The IAC doesn’t allow us to use their cameras installed above the wall screen. And at least 300 people are expected to be at the show, which would cause serious problems in precise and subtle tracking of people and installing my own cameras in the space. All these constraints made me go to plan B, the linear animation.
These are still images of my animation.
This week’s assignment is to download the demonstration code and uncover the mystery phrase hidden within: imagesAsData.zip
I replace the image Mr. Rogers with one of Miro’s painting having same pixel dimensions, 48 x 48. And then I hooked up the mystery image’s RGB data to X, Y, Z values for the pixel agents.
So, the two-word mystery phrase is ‘Space Neighbor’.
‘Bicycle Built for Two Thousand’ is one of most interesting works of Aaron Koblin. The visualization of sound by 2,088 voices keeps my eyes on it when the song "Daisy Bell" is played. ‘Flight Patterns’ is another fascinating work of him. It’s so beautiful. His concept of making art work with many internet workers makes me think about several things; what can technology do in digital artwork, what is interactivity...
The Karsten Schmidt’s works show me how advanced the programming is in motion graphics field. ‘Forever at Victoria & Albert Museum London’, a digital installation spawning an endless sequence of unique animations to an ever changing soundtrack, is one of my favorites. ‘Advanced Beauty 3 of 18’ also fascinates me because it is about the themes of synesthesia which is related to my ongoing research and work.
They, Koblin and Toxi, looks similar in aspect of using programming as their tool for creating artwork. However, their approach to art seems to be quite different.
This is the second trial of Weather assignment.
I tried to express windy with two elements of ‘wind’, chill and speed, from ‘Yahoo! Weather RSS Feed. And I also made ‘visibility’ changed according to the RSS value. I learned XML and RSS and how to use them for visualization in processing.
Additionally, this assignment gave me the opportunity to study about bezier, library for animation, array, class and particles.
Here is the processing sketch and the code.
This week’s assignment is visualizing weather aspects using Yahoo! Weather RSS Feed. I grabbed the current New York weather and picked 3 aspects, ‘chill’ and ‘speed’ of wind and ‘visibility’ of atmosphere.
Here is the processing sketch and code.
http://itp.nyu.edu/~sjh376/VD/week5/applet/
Personal Essay
The Paper Assignment of ‘Show and Tell Studio’
SooJung Huh / imsjhuh@gmail.com
I never thought that my whole life could change in one moment until I saw ‘Paradise’.
I was an undergraduate in a visual design department, hoping to become a graphic designer. The professor came to class, turned off the light and introduced several short animated films.
Colors danced and lights celebrated all around me.
Phantasmagorical images were brought to life and animated the darkness.
I forgot the time and the space that I belonged to.
I couldn’t breathe.
That was the moment when I first met ‘ Paradise’, a short animated film by Ishu Patel, an animation film director famous for his creative works and his unique techniques. In this film he used a variety of techniques to create images that have the depth of holograms. Before I saw the animation, I had focused on non-animated visual art such as painting, drawing, illustration and design since the age of 6. ‘Paradise’ opened me the door toward time based art and freed me from ‘static’ images. I began to imagine abstract paintings such as Kandinsky’s, Miro’s and Klee’s animated to music or rhythm.
Graphic design was no longer be my main interest. I became obsessed with animation. I was eager to make such animations but didn’t know how to make them. I ordered reference books abroad and tried to find proper materials. I kept researching and experimenting over and over.
At the first stage, I practiced as many traditional techniques of animation as possible and then developed my own style.
Norman McLaren was another important influence and inspiration during that period. His experiments in sound particularly had the major impact on my own animation works. Not only did he resort to parallelism of sound and image, but also he drew the artistic impression through mutual interaction between them. Under such influence, I made a film animation “Triangle, Circle, Square”, an experiment in animating abstract images, synchronized with the music. Animating to the music, I gained full understanding and confidence in “motion” and “timing”.
Norman McLaren defined animation as below.
‘Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn; What happens between each frame is much more important than what exists on each frame; Animation is therefore the art of manipulating the invisible interstices that lie between the frames.’
I couldn’t have understood the true meaning of that definition until I made that animation.
Since then, I have become more eager to experiment with the synchronization of music and abstract image.
For me, the moment of both making and enjoying animation is an inexpressible joy, like Paradise.
I’d like to share, if possible, the moment with people through my ongoing work.
[Big Screens Class description]
This class is dedicated to experimenting with interactivity on large-scale screens. Students develop one project over the course of the semester, culminating with a showing at InterActiveCorp’s 120 X 12-foot video wall at their corporate headquarters on 18th and the West Side Highway.
[Proposal]
I’m thinking of making an interactive abstract animation for Big Screen project. The animation consists of characters and scenes which interact with identifying marks of people.
I got inspired by the abstract shape and color of Klee.
This is the sample image for color and shape of my project.
For the visual style of animation, I’ll use the result of my NPR (non photorealistic rendering) research focusing on oil painting.
Here is the links for the research.
http://soojunghuh.blogspot.com/2009/07/painterly-expression.html
What is the “Gotham” typeface and what is its design inspired by?
The Gotham font was initially commissioned by GQ magazine, whose editors wanted to display a sans serif with a “geometric structure” that would look “masculine, new, and fresh” for their magazine. Although the magazine was initially considering a series of fonts that either looked like techno CD covers or were more traditional like Futura, they agreed that they needed something “that was going to be very fresh and very established to have a sort of credible voice to it,” according to Jonathan Hoefler.
Frere-Jones’ inspiration for the typeface came from time spent walking block-by-block through Manhattan with a camera to find source material, and he based the font on the lettering seen in older buildings, especially the sign on the Eighth Avenue facade of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. “I suppose there’s a hidden personal agenda in the design,” Frere-Jones said, “to preserve those old pieces of New York that could be wiped out before they’re appreciated. Having grown up here, I was always fond of the ‘old’ New York and its lettering.”
The lettering that inspired this typeface originated from the style of 1920’s era sans-serifs like Futura, where “Type, like architecture, like the organization of society itself, was to be reduced to its bare, efficient essentials, rid of undesirable, local or ethnic elements.” This theme was found frequently in Depression-era type in both North America and Europe, particularly Germany. This simplification of type is characterized by Frere-Jones as “not the kind of letter a type designer would make. It’s the kind of letter an engineer would make. It was born outside the type design in some other world and has a very distinct flavor from that.”
(Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed between 1924 and 1926 by Paul Renner. It is based on geometric shapes that became representative visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–1933. Commissioned by the Bauer type foundry, Futura was commercially released in 1927.)
What type foundry drew and released Gotham?
Hoefler & Frere-Jones is an influential type foundry in New York City, run by designers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones. Founded in 1989 (as “The Hoefler Type Foundry,”), H&FJ develops fonts for both the retail market and for individual clients.
How much does this type foundry charge for the “Gotham Bundle” for a single computer? $299.00
Who is Matthew Carter and what did he contribute to digital typography?
Matthew Carter (born in London, England in 1937) is a type designer. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Carter’s career in type design has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital type.
Education
New York University - Master of Professional Study, Interactive Telecommunication Program, 2010, USA (Thesis Paper(PDF file))
Chung-Ang University - Master of Image Engineering, Future Media Art Lab, 2008, Seoul, Korea (Thesis Paper(PDF file))
Korean Academy of Film ART’s - Directing Animation, 2003~2004, Seoul, Korea
Seoul National University - Bachelor of Fine Art, Visual Communication Design, 1998, Seoul, Korea
Scholarships
Chung-Ang University Scholarship 2007
Tisch School of the Arts Scholarship 2009-2010
Experiences
Directed and Created Linear and Interactive Animations (2004~2010)
Clay animation, Paint-on-glass animation, Sand animation, Paper animation, 2D&3D Computer animations, Interactive animations, Animation for Installation
Researcher in the Future Media Art Lab at Chung-Ang University(2004~2007)
Research on NPR(Non-Photo realistic Rendering) technology
Freelance Designer & Animator (1998~2004)
Web design, Design & Illustration for CD Jacket, 2D computer animations for Kid’s educational contents, Visual contents for a church(CD Jacket & Promotional Movie)
Skills
Softwares for visualization, animation, web design, video editing, sound/music and interactive media (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effect, Processing, openFrameworks, Flash, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, Pure Data, Max/MSP/Jitter, Sound Forge, Ableton Live)
Strong skills in visual storytelling, data visualization and motion graphics
Teamwork with various backgrounds professionals
Digital sound and music making
Achievements
“Dancing, Moment” (Abstract Animation displaying on Wall Screen at IAC building)
“Painterly Rendering With Designed Imperfection”(Movie File(139MB))
“Flower Dance”(3D Abstract Animation)
Seoul Film Festival
Indie-Anifest 2006
CICDAF(China International Animation and Digital Arts Festival)
Publication
'The Study for Non Photorealistic Rendering by Aesthetic Approach'
(Association of Image & Film Studies, Vol. 11, p.183~211)
Researches on NPR(Non Photo-realistic Rendering)
Developed algorithm for 'Painterly expression', ITP, NYU, 2009
Participated as an art director in the project of developing NPR(Non-Photo Realistic Rendering) technology, FMA Lab of Chung-Ang University, Seoul, Korea, 2006
Projects - Linear and Interactive animations
‘Missing Mysticeti’(2010, Color, 0:03:00, 2D Computer, Installation)
‘Dancing, Moment’(2009, Color, 0:04:00, 2D Computer)
‘Drawing Music In Time’(2009, Color, 0:04:30, 2D Computer)
‘((H))Art’(2009, Interactive and real-time)
‘Mr. Tech’(2009, Interactive and real-time)
‘Flower Dance’(2006, DV 6mm, Color, 0:02:43, 3D Computer)
‘Circle, triangle, square’(2001, film, 0:03:30, Pen drawing)
‘When I met them’(2000, film, 0:04:00, Oil pastel)
‘1 Minute’(1998, digital, 0:01:15, Sand animation)
by Gene Youngblood
PART TWO:
SYNAESTHETIC CINEMA: THE END OF DRAMA
“The final poem will be the poem of fact in the language of fact. But it will be the poem of fact not realized before.” (WALLACE STEVENS)
Slavko Vorkapich: “Most of the films made so far are examples not of creative use of motion-picture devices and techniques, but of their use as recording instruments only.
It has taken more than seventy years for global man to come to terms with the cinematic medium, to liberate it from theatre and literature. We had to wait until our consciousness caught up with our technology.
The new cinema has emerged as the only aesthetic language to match the environment in which we live.
Emerging with it is a major paradigm: a conception of the nature of cinema so encompassing and persuasive that it promises to dominate all image-making in much the same way as the theory of general relativity dominates all physics today. I call it synaesthetic cinema.
Herbert Read:
We’re beginning to understand that “what is significant in human experience” for contemporary man is the awareness of consciousness, the recognition of the process of perception.
Through synaesthetic cinema man attempts to express a total phenomenon—his own consciousness.
Synaesthetic cinema is the only aesthetic language suited to the post-industrial, post-literate, man-made environment with its multi- dimensional simulsensory network of information sources. It’s the only aesthetic tool that even approaches the reality continuum of conscious existence in the nonuniform, nonlinear, nonconnected electronic atmosphere of the Paleocybernetic Age.
Synaesthetic Synthesis: Simultaneous Perception of Harmonic Opposites
Synaesthetic cinema is a space-time continuum. It is neither subjective, objective, nor nonobjective, but rather all of these combined: that is to say, extra-objective.
Syncretism and Metamorphosis: Montage as Collage
The harmonic opposites of synaesthetic cinema are apprehended through syncretistic vision, …
Syncretism is the combination of many different forms into one whole form.
Synaesthetic cinema provides access to syncretistic content through the inarticulate conscious.
We begin to realize that Brakhage is attempting to express the totality of consciousness, the reality continuum of the living present.
Evocation and Exposition: Toward Oceanic Consciousness
Thus, by creating a new kind of vision, synaesthetic cinema creates a new kind of consciousness: oceanic consciousness.
Synaesthetics and Kinaesthetics: The Way of All Experience
Kinaesthetic, therefore, is the manner of experiencing a thing through the forces and energies associated with its motion.
One cannot photograph metaphysical forces. One cannot even “represent” them. One can, however, actually evoke them in the inarticulate conscious of the viewer.
Synaesthetic Cinema and Extra-Objective Reality
Michael Snow: Wavelength
Like all truly modern art, Wavelength is pure drama of confrontation. It has no “meaning” in the conventional sense. Its meaning is the relationship between film and viewer. We are interested more in what it does than what it is as an icon. The confrontation of art and spectator, and the spectator’s resultant self-perception, is an experience rather than a meaning.
The very essence of cinema is the fact that what we see there is not there: time and motion.
