Opening animation for TISEA Electronic Theatre.
This animation was commissioned for the opening of the TISEA (Third
International Symposium on Electronic Art) electronic
theatre. TISEA was held in Sydney, Australia in November 1992.
TISEA Opening Animation. Copyright 1992 Jon McCormack.
The idea behind this animation was to look at the implications of
artificial life to the notion
of what life is, and our relationship
to our machines and the culture that is begining to surround us through
technology.
All the animation is entirely procedural -- created by the machine.
The colours, textures and motions were evolved using genetic
evolution techniques. They are three dimensional
surface equations, dependent on time. The equations that represent the
surface are quite complex, but their complexity was evolved from
much simpler equations from which they began.
The work tries to extract properties of real objects (e.g water) and to
abstract those properties in an algorithmic sense. Such abstracted
properties can then be manipulated within the computer which creates
the animation. This is a key element of computational
synergistics where the computational power of the computer,
combined with real-time visual feedback allows the development and
understanding of a phenomenon that would be difficult or impossible
to develop without such a close relationship between mind and
machine (see also supplemental material).
All procedural software was written by Jon McCormack. The animation was
rendered with Wavefront Technologies
Advanced Visualizer software.
The titles and digital composition were created with Wavefront's
Video Composer (now known as just
Composer).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
This work was produced with the assistance of the
Australian Film Commission. In particular I would like to thank Gary Warner
for his support. I am also grateful to
Wavefront Technologies for supplying
their Advanced Visualizer
visualisation software, under their Independent
Artist Program. Animation and computing facilities were provided by CIPAG,
Monash University.
A bigger version of this image can be obtained by clicking on the small one
below.
Here is a brief Quicktime movie (2.44Mb) from
the animation.
VHS Copies (both PAL and NTSC) are for sale for non-broadcast (ie home)
use only. Please contact me by
email
if you are interested in purchasing
a copy. Residents in the U.S.A., Canada and Europe may be interested in
distributers who carry my work.
A documentary of TISEA was made by director Johnathon Cohen.
You may also be interested in my appearance
in the film. This animation (and music) appears in the documentary.
A list of screening venues is in progress but is not yet available
on-line.
Back to my home page.
Back to art projects page.
Jon McCormack / jonmc@indy04.cs.monash.edu.au