Posthuman

Copywright Ident

Quantum Effect

Game design

Working on a game now on a new blog

storyline- posthuman

Storyboard

1. 
   The opening scene that shows the lives of the poor living beneath the city. In the foreground is a human fixing his cyborg arm. The camera zooms into the background to reveal a kid’s face that’s part cyborg. The camera then pans up to enter next scene.

2. The next scene pans through the Engineer’s work place. Showing the brain read by the machine that controls a screen and connected to a video camera. The camera pans to a cyborg running on breathing lungs, typing on a modern keyboard. The scene pans up to show the Earth’s surface.

3. This scene shows the Earths burning surface. Surface temp text appears in right corner. Camera zooms out of sun to show skyline and then zooms into Governments’ building. White flash appears as transition.

4. The government scene starts with a cyborg running in from right. When it reaches the table it extends a platform that the brain sits on. At that moment the brain reading machines appear and the system starts. The camera pans up to follow the cables of the brain machine to reveal the super computer. A CG face with cables and wires with white flickers behind.

Narration for posthuman

Narration

It happened when the planet burned and those of us who rejected the post human revolution were left for dead. Those of us who wanted to keep our human resemblance and not be run by machines.

Our only help comes from the Engineer, a brain connected to machines that read its thoughts and controls a cyborg.

It’s been 5 years since the Earth changed its orbit around the Sun making the surface impossible to live on… unless you embrace the Government.

The 8 minds that created the new way of life and brought humans to salvation.

Connected by machines the 8 brains communicate with each other to control a super computer that regulates life on Earth.

Research

Research

Mind Modulations Blog

http://mindmods.blogspot.com/2006/10/art-of-brain.html

The art of the brain

Motionographer

http://www.motionographer.com/

Cyborg Liberation Front

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0331,baard,45866,1.html

Enough
Staying Human in an Engineered Age

by Bill McKibben

http://www.henryholt.com/holt/enoughexcerpt.htm

http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/

Stelarc’s Dream

http://www.roberthollingworth.com.au/index.html

From the cyborg to posthuman space: on the total eclipse of an idea.

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-3307294_ITM

Posthuman (critical theory)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthuman_(critical_theory)

The Concept

The Concept

The concept is based on the imaginary idea that life on the Earth’s surface may cease to be possible in the future due to a change in the Earths orbit that causes the planet to revolve too close to the Sun. The animation aims to pan from the lives of the poor and segregated to a view of the future government. In this new age a new government rules, made up of the eight minds that created the new way of life for humans. The architects, scientists and engineers who found a way of living with just a brain that controls its cyborg, in place of flesh. Each of their brain waves is read by a machine. The machines are connected to a super computer that controls the city via information from the 8 minds.

The animation consists of 4 parts:-

Level 1, The slums

People who did not give in to the posthuman revolution because they reject the idea of the cyborg. They want to hold on to as much of their humanistic resemblances as possible. As a result of not giving in to the revolution they are pushed below the city to fend for themselves, forgotten by the government.

Level 2, The Engineer

The Engineer is a character who like the others does not follow the rule of the government. He is just a brain on a platter read by a machine that controls everything else including a cyborg running on pneumatic pistons driven by lungs. The engineer did not give up all his human organs.

Level 3, The Skyline

This scene shows the earth’s surface as a dust cloud with the sun close by. New materials were created to build buildings to resist the heat.

Level 4, The Government

This scene shows the government made up of the 8 minds that run a super computer. The brains move around in cyborgs they control and allow interaction of the minds. This is how most people of the future look like.

Treatment

The finished work will be a 1 minute animation comprising of 4 scenes. The concept of the animation is not based on a story of a particular character but of a scenic glimpse of the future. The animation will be rendered with a dark setting to set the mood for the animation. The animation pans from the lives of the poor who have denied the posthuman revolution and live beneath the earths surface to the scene of the government that is a super computer operated by the bodiless brains of the individuals who created the posthuman way of life in order to survive the Earths new orbit around the sun, which made life on the surface impossible to continue.

Different types of media will be used to create the animation. Sketchings, 3D animation and photo manipulations will be used. The organic figures like humans and parts in the scene will be created with hand drawn sketches scanned into Photoshop to be treated and coloured. 3D animation will be used for the animated machinery in each scene. The 2^nd and 4^th scene will be made primarily in 3D. The background textures and cyborg humans will be created through photo manipulation.

Animating the Posthuman

This project includes producing a short experimental animation that features both

innovative concepts and high production values in relation to the theme “The Posthuman”. The theme of human relationship to technology is a common concern in contemporary animation and film making. The underlying concept is how people relate to one another and the world they live in when faced with rapid change and the challenges of survival in the contemporary society. Many different philosophical positions exist in response to this idea. Some believe we are already posthuman –that people are so integrated with technology in the developed world and that without it we would find it hard to survive at all. Others believe that we as a species will be superseded by a transhuman race – that is better adapted to the new living conditions. Some think this is fantasy and science fiction, that essentially people are the same throughout the millennia and that any change is an illusion. Human nature

has not changed since the dawn of time – the same basic motivations drive every

person regardless of how the world may change. Others still take a reactionary

position and seek to point out the problems and issues caused by technological change.

Final storyboard

storyboard

Break down of imagery:

Tunnel - Made up of rods arranged in circular motion and duplicated according to the music beat

Metal Ballz - Roller coaster ride on shiny metal balls reflecting the environment, as part of the journey

Quantum effects title - for outro

Vibrating title

Abstract shapes - Red cylinders etc.

Vibrating rings - represent vibration between energy packets in atoms during stress that can have degenerative effects, which resembles a negative aspect in the multiple options and confusions the advancement of multimedia has also introduced.

Skyline - image to represent the start of the journey from a known world into an imaginary one.

Bounce movie - animated movie of a spring breaking free of its bonds

Digital Enlightenment - Movie of Binary code revolving around person, to show harnessing of technological power.

Storyboard

T0.00 - Red antennas

Looped animation with rotation linked with audio

T0.07 - Skyline and Skyline silhouette

Looped animation starts at top left corner

T0.17 - Image representing rhythm guitar sound across screen

T0.24 - Drum roll

White flash with masks according to beat

T0.2 - Tunnel movie starts and skyline, rhy guit and antennas scale down and fade to right

T - Bassline starts, quantum effect text with twirl effect fades in

Position = audio amplitude

Digital Enlightenment

Digital Enlightenment

Concept

VJ culture in the present day is often complemented with motion graphics projections. These projections are designed to convey the essence of the music in a way other then literally. The visuals projected on random surfaces form an 'immersive environment' as described by Grant Davis in VJ culture (http://www.vjculture.com/). Artists like Martin Wattenberg - The shape of sounds (http://www.turbulence.org/Works/song/), Jake Elliot - Pop Sketch series (http://structuredsound.net/popsketchseries/index.html) are involved in the design and production of mapping audio to visuals. There are endless methods to map out visuals. In the shape of sounds the artists uses the repetition of bars in a song to map out the visuals. In Pop sketch the artist uses pitch and and number of notes to map out visuals. This project is the production of a motion graphics sequence that acts as a visual interpretation as well as a music video for a particular music piece.

Mapping visuals to music using motion graphics is the concept behind this project. different structures will react according to the volume and beat of the music track in use. Music can be described in rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, timbre so choosing a particular style of mapping the sound depends on the software limitations. The audio track will be linked to different parameters of the graphics, eg. scale, rotation, hue and evolution for fractals. the installation involves a simple setup to show the effectiveness of multimedia in converting a specified space into an environment. the installation involves a projected animation on one wall. Two other projectors facing each other on the adjacent walls will play waveforms and fractals in synch with the music. The fractal's evolution will be controlled by the gain in the audio track. Abstract shapes are used to represent the structure of the music, and the environment represents the mood or ambience. the abstract piece may better express both the technical and atmospheric qualities of the music as compared to using found images.

Quantum Effect in Digital Enlightenment

The title of the work is 'Digital Enlightenment'. The title describes the advancement of multimedia as a form of enlightenment in the digital age. Infinite doors are open as the world shifts into a digital age and concepts of space and time become fluid.

The theme for the motion graphics on the front wall is "Quantum Effect". Quantum effect is when a particle shifts from one position to another without occupying the space between. It only occurs in minute objects that do not follow newtonian laws. Quantum Mechanics is the mathmatical theory that explains the behavior of objects at the atomic level. The reason for this theme is because of the advancement of multimedia and the virtual world and the internet. Multimedia allows us to be lost and absorbed in a world with no bounds and realities in cyberspace or even within a room with projections. It can send us to one end of the world and back in seconds, and when viewed theoretically the interactions in cyberspace is no different then particles in quantum mechanics, where the users are the particles zipping from one place to another exchanging information which gives us digital enlightenment.

Research

The research done for this project is from "A Complex System for the Visualisation of Music" by Jack Ox at www.jackox.com, "Form in music" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones at http://cnx.org, Professor Brandts "Sound Reasoning"

websites:

Generator X - http://www.generatorx.no/

Information Aesthetics - http://infosthetics.com/

Think in Pictures - http://thinkingpictures.blogspot.com/

Visual Complexity - http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

VJ culture - http://www.vjculture.com/

Concept art

Created this in my spare time, will be using it as the base of my animation. I'll probably tear it up into layers and visualise moving through the image.

rough storyboard

Concept art

calling it Quantum Effect - as in the energy and reactions that occur at the atomic level, which differ from physics at our level. Particles zip through space from point to point w/out traveling the space between. I felt this was similar to present day life of the average internet user who travels space and breaks down boundaries without actually traveling. Aside from that its the basis of life on Earth.

Music video

Figured i'd do a music vid similar to the kind u see in VJ culture. That means its not exactly a music video although thats the concept. Its gona b an abstract piece that brings the viewer on a journey. Will b using a remix of a few of my band's tracks, as a soundtrack.

First post

This space will be used for puttin up workings and sketches with the development of my work. the 1st project is to create an exhibition environment that will absorb the user or make the user feel transported in the form of abstract piece or music video etc.