This was an attempt to create a ‘meta-documentary’, by tracing original nature documentaries using OpenCV and representing the result as a documentary of its own, based on ideas presented in Philip Ball’s popsci book “Critical Mass”. I’ve rendered the images with Processing, and edited afterwards in Final Cut Pro. Although the original camera work & cuts provide most of the dynamics.
Abstract Life from Tiemen Rapati on Vimeo.
Please watch on Vimeo in HD & turn your sound on.
This project was about visualizing periodic bills (like energy, telephone or cable tv) in the future. I was asked to look somewhat ahead and design how such a thing would look in the 2030’s.
From literal to philosophical, I ended up envisioning a world in which every object would have an ‘online’ identity, a digital representation, say– a facebook page. Every physical object would be reduced to its properties, be it value, energy usage, lifetime, color, previous owner, parent class or atom arrangement. A concept quickly getting abstract beyond the point of no return, and I immediately started out visualizing the concept using a structure that would represent ‘the digital genome’ of the real world. A structure that would contain the digital avatars of all physical objects.
For this, I used as placeholder a text, dividing it’s hierarchy into branches of objects. Each node in this structure should represent a physical object, with it’s properties attached. In this case, a chapter of the book “The Dark Tower”, by Stephen King has been chopped up. The text comprises of paragraphs, each paragraph contains sentences, sentences often are compilations of subsentences and all these consist of words. And words of letters.
As part of the last phase of my education at Arnhem I’m very happy to announce that I will be doing an internship at FIELD in London. I will be working with them from July to October this year.
FIELD is a graphic design studio using generative strategies, led by Marcus Wendt and Vera-Maria Glahn.
We design custom software tools and processes to express an idea across a wide range of media: from print to animation, interactive installations and websites. Our goal is to merge code-based design with established digital content creation methods. And to create room and connection points for a collaborative and iterative process.
Inspired by modern art, nature, science and technology, we aim to create animate images with a life of its own. Generative Processes, Interactive Systems, and Artificial Life are the reference points from which we draw ideas, methods, and mindset into our design process. We believe this FIELD is still largely unexplored, and that there are exciting visual places yet to be discovered in this landscape.
Though FIELD only started last year they’ve already built a really impressive portfolio. Here are some gems that sucked me in.
Interim Camp
I first saw it a year ago when it featured on Processing’s Exhibition page. Prepare for a long journey. Take the time, screw the volume up and watch.
–
Dokfest Identity
Real nice concept that combines dynamic data visualization and 3d visuals into a festival’s graphic identity.
–
LDN24
Will be seeing this when I get there!
It took three hours to send the image data through sound to the laptop depicted above. The image shows the environment that is hardcoded in the image by the laptop on the table, listening. The colors show recorded sound that’s outside of the spectrum that is used to send the image data. The image has been built up gradually from left to right, top to bottom.
Sound Copy is a collaboration project of Jasper van Loenen, Bart van Haren, Sander Sturing & myself.
Last few days were pretty much about OFLab Breda, an OpenFrameworks workshop by Zach Lieberman & Todd Vanderlin. With the technical guidance of Zach & Todd we were encouraged to develop a project in these few days that was to be exhibited at the Graphic Design Festival. Along with the festivals theme “DECODING” the Arnhem team consisting of Jasper van Loenen, Bart van Haren and Sander Sturing came up with the idea of transmitting data by sound, hence making the transmitting process physical. Background noise and sounds from the environment provide distortions and artifacts.
Other than the live installation, we presented the project as a series of “Sound Portraits” portraying several of the Lab’s participants.
Among the participants portrayed are Takayuki Ito, Emily Gobeille, James Acres, Zach and ourselves
I think it’s safe to announce the exhibition of the Dynamics in Color project in the form of a video installation in Science Center NEMO Amsterdam. The installation will record live on the first floor, and project on a single broad screen.
I’m really excited to see it working. I believe Theo Watson said one of the biggest compliments an interactive installation can get is that children start playing with it without the need of an explanation. The environment of NEMO should be ideal to see this tested. Fingers crossed!
Dynamics: Walking from Tiemen Rapati on Vimeo.
The installation will probably be running in April.
I’ve gone astray experimenting with math & typography. For each specific math subject I try to create a family of type renderings.
Basic geometry, “spatial relationships”:
Specific colors correspond to the the angle of the 20 million lines drawn.
Trigonotype:
The type is constructed out of a lot of translated (co)sines.
Derivatives: dx/dy type
Along each point of the outline of this Helvetica, a line is drawn according to it’s tangent.
See flickr for more renderings..
Last saturday Charlie, Thomas and I were invited to create the visuals to a party hosted by Studio K & Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. DJ’s were provided by the Stedelijk (who knew a museum has dj’s?) and we had decided upon creating sets on the fly by means of combining self written processing sketches & imagery. No vj-software or whatsoever, just two video mixers to make smooth transitions. Apart from one laptop suffering cola-damage, it went fairly well.
Sketches included: audiotypography, visual soundscape ( = sandersketch 2.0), rotating sound, rgb dynamics and audio snow.
Veejaying using only Processing from Tiemen Rapati on Vimeo.
At the TodaysArt festival at the Hague the public library featured an installation we developed along the lines of the festival’s “conflict” theme. During the night hours, we project on the windows an aggressive dreammachine-like flickering.
Since the very moment paper press was invented, type has been a weapon, with paper being the battleground. The recent shift towards digital media has expanded and intensied the written warzone even further.
The audio-visual installation named ‘Typographic Gun’ explores the subjective potential of the written medium. The library becomes the epicenter of a conflict between two opposing texts, opinions or ideals. The subjectivety is hidden behind interpolating typography, alternating at 5 to 20Hz, melting the two channels together, but at the same time generating the conflict by means of anticolors and after image. Any spectator can choose to block out any of the information streams by means of a color filter. And every book that has been loaded into the system produces its own unique soundtrack, converting sentences to a rythm of microtonal sound that add to the conflict experience.
typographic gun from thomas vissen on Vimeo.
Martijn van Boven
Charlie Berendsen
Marie-Anne Huiskamp
Joost de Nooy
Sander Sturing
Thomas te Braake
Tiemen Rapati
Here’s a new rendering of the Space Type experiment.
In collaboration with Architecture History students from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam we were asked to develop a cultural comment on the urban development in the Amsterdam Zuidas. This area, originally meant as an commercial district, was now been made ready for residents. Our projects should be part of the gentrification process.
But all culture aside, I was fascinated by the way nature was treated on the Zuidas. The planners of the Zuidas had given shape to the most modern view on the relationship between man and nature, and I can tell you– it is interesting.
One example that triggered me were the trees on the Zuidplein. Originally, there weren’t any. But as unpleasant drafts developed on the square and in the underground bicycle parking. So trees were to be placed in order to solve this turbulence. Only problem was, that with this underground parking there was no soil to put them in.
And this, then, was solved by installing massive 3 cubic meter concrete flower pots for each tree. The soil in those planters was monitored by sensors wired to a computer that controlled the watering of the pot.
So inspired by this example I pitched the concept of abstracting nature by indexing it on its functionality only.
I teamed up with Sander Sturing from my class, and Martijn van Beek and Niels Bakker from the VU who provided us with the historical context. We started to develop a way of navigating this environment. Artificial and natural objects were indexed on their capacity to fulfill our specific needs and entered into a database. This video documents an installation we used to visualize the concept of abstracting nature by indexing it on its functionality only. An extreme point of view, taken to highlight the level of cultivation the new to be cosmopolis of Amsterdam, the Zuidas, aspires.
Human Nature from Tiemen Rapati on Vimeo.
Sunday November 24th 2010
11.00 – 17.00
Project Space Onomatopee
Kanaalstraat 8, Eindhoven
Free entrance
THE KIOSK showcases the work that was created within the scope of the ‘Typographic Voice’ minor, which ran through the months of september to december 2009 at the ArtEZ Academy of Arts Arnhem. This minor focused on the changing role of the designer, transitioning from maker to author, and assessed the affects current technology has on stable and unstable media, language and communication. Students were encouraged to interact during all phases of the project by ‘open sourcing’ their creative process on the Typographic Voice Blog.
The design of the exhibition was based on this conflict of language, form and medium. It is an attempt to take concepts that are native to the virtual domain and translate them directly to the project space of Onomatopee, displaying the work in such a way existing relationships between pieces become visible. This relational context should result in a visual interaction between the work.
Every student was asked to select a maximum of three pieces to showcase at the exhibition. These pieces were hence provided with a descriptive text and tagged with several keywords the student defined himself. These keywords (or ‘tags’, as known on the internet) vary from formal characteristics as ‘black & white’ or ‘catalogue’ to more abstract concepts like individuality and language. The extent to which these keywords match ultimately determined the position of each piece in the project space. This results in a spatial distribution of work where physical distance actually resembles the substantive relationship between the typographic pieces.
Visitors of the exhibition can navigate the space by use of the handouts provided at the entrance. Twelve piles correspond to the 12 most popular keywords used to describe the exhibited pieces. Every handout displays all pieces tagged with the respective keyword, and provides for each a description and information on where it is to be found. The visitor’s selection of handouts then determines how he or she explores the work exhibited at the Kiosk. (text: tiemen rapati)
Concept, design & programming:
Charlie Berendsen & Tiemen Rapati
Realization: Leonie Krol, Dominique Banning, Ralf de Graaf, Marjolein Hameleers, Charlie Berendsen & Tiemen Rapati
UPDATE: See photos of the project
