2017 The Riverside 小溪

2017
The Riverside 小溪

The new media art has broken through the original space-time view of conventional artistic creation, while different cultures were shuttling, encountering, rejecting, permeating, and merging among the "wormholes" brought by the "broken" space-time. My project proceeding from individual cultural identity presents two rivers from two locations with the underlying narratives through the virtual generated animation extracted from the Real-time data source. It attempts to capture the "culture wormholes" in the context of the new media era. The piece was created using a combination of fluid simulation, real-time motion graphics, and projection mapping. The fluid simulation was created in Houdini, based on a 3D scan of the natural riverbed. This was then exported as layers of particles and geometry into vvvv and rendered in real-time using various motion graphics techniques. The sculpture was mapped using 6 HD projectors. The projection mapping technique employed a Brightness Accumulation Map to achieve even coverage and complex edge blending for shadow filling. The map was created using proprietary tools built using the RULR toolkit. The map was imported into vvvv and applied to the six projector outputs. Parameters in the system were controlled by a clock allowing the piece to change in real-time according to Beijing's sun and moon position. Thus, the natural state of the east 8-time zone is experienced in the zero time zone. Walking along the riverside, we recalibrate where our natural culture comes and goes and feel the turbulent dataflows in between.