Tag Archives: Virtual Reality

Garden’s Project 6: Bits and Pieces

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Garden’s Project 6: Bits and Pieces

It’s a full month since I last posted, not a lot to report to be fair but here goes.

Garden's Project 6: Bits and Pieces

Garden’s Project 6: Bits and Pieces

I attended the Aesthetica ‘Future Now’ online conference, including a portfolio review with Charmian Griffin who is Head of Digital at Artangel [https://www.artangel.org.uk/]. I showed her the film of Miro World [https://www.ian-latham.com/miro.html] and got a favourable response and some useful advice about finding opportunities to show and gain support, funding or otherwise. The channels she suggested were Sheffield Doc Fest [https://sheffdocfest.com/] obiviously too late to enter for 2021 and the Copenhagen Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX [https://cphdox.dk] which has, like DocFest, an art strand. Charmian also suggested some potential funding/support sources.

As to the festival itself the highlights for me were the ‘Digital Ecologies, 3D story telling’ talk with Jakob Kudsk Steensen. [http://www.jakobsteensen.com] A really interesting discussion about his current project, based in the Camargue near Arles, and how the pandemic shutdown has affected his working process positively and negatively. Steensen’s work is classified as ‘slow media’ which he describes as using media technologies to foster attention and aid concentration. He seeks to positively use the way the technologies dictate the way you look at the world. There are really good examples of this on his website, ‘The Deep Listener’ [http://www.jakobsteensen.com/#/the-deep-listener/] the first Serpentine Augmented Architecture commission and ‘Catharsis’ [http://www.jakobsteensen.com/#/catharsis] which is a VR world, shown as a film, both indoors and outdoors at the Serpentine. The website has a conversation section where you can see Steensen describing his process and motivations, the Louisiana Channel “Our Middle Existence” is particularly interesting.

I also watched a really interesting interview with Bieke Depoorter [https://biekedepoorter.com/latest-news/new-book-agata] about her new book ‘Agata’.

Alongside this I’ve continued drawing every day,

Draw Every Day - May 21 - iPad drawing

Draw Every Day – May 21 – iPad drawing

This was the 365th consecutive drawing using the iPad, the May 21 Gallery is here

  • Draw Every Day – May 21
    Draw Every Day – May 21
    Draw Every Day - May 21 One drawing each day for May, alternatively drawn with right and ...
    See photo »

I changed tack after the year and I’ve moved into drawing in a ‘real’ sketchbook, with proper pencils!

A drawing of an iPad showing a drawing of a fallen apple blossom

iPad drawing – Moleskin sketchbook and water colour pencils

I’ve also been working on the Gardens Project, the Glover Street section, where I have a slide that can be climbed and some other playground furniture.

You should always look down on a circus 2

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You should always look down on a circus 2

I’ve been busy, honest, working on drawings and sculptures for the circus piece as well as drawing every day and continuing with VR stuff.

I added four drawings to the circus

  • You Should Always Look Down on a Circus
    You Should Always Look Down on a Circus
    You Should Always Look Down on a Circus comes out of a recurring dream that i first visualised ...
    See photo »
, this is one…

circus pastel 1 of 4

circus pastel 1 of 4 pastel on paper A1

I made some of the elements in VR using masterpiece VR and reduced the polygons in 3ds Max to take them into Unity.

I’m also making the harlequin, juggler and tumbler in plaster, the harlequin is the tallest piece standing at about one metre.

I had another early morning revelation about drawings I’d made that might be good to create in masterpiece VR so I started a few of these, I’ve made a new gallery

  • 1985 sketchbook
    1985 sketchbook
    1985 sketchbook I upgraded my computer, extra RAM, to allow me to use my VR modelling ...
    See photo »
for the drawings – an old sketchbook that I’d buried as inadequate – so that I can view them in VR as guides when I build.

This is a film of one of them in VR.

I’ve also been looking through the camera trap I have in my garden, a few days ago I got this film of a fox.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this yet, there is at least a drawing or two in it, but we’ll see in time.

Garden’s Project 5: Miro Deviations

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Garden’s Project 5: Miro Deviations

I’ve been working on the Garden’s Project for a while now, and as I’ve said before I worked a new world, ‘Miro World’ alongside it.

Garden's Project 5: Miro Deviations

Miro – I Work Like a Gardener

Miro, J (2017). I Work Like a Gardener. New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press.

This book is a conversation between Joan Miro and Yvon Taillandier about his life and work. First published in a limited edition in 1964 I discovered this new edition last year and have started working with Miro’s paintings as a result.

‘Miro World’ is a 3d interpretation of a small set of paintings from 1924-25; The Hermitage from 1924, Catalan Landscape from 1924 and Dialogue of the Insects from 1924-25. The paintings are all from the time when Miro had just developed the language that symbolises his Catalan heritage and the mark making that anonomizes the imagery and brings it from a collective unconcious.

I made the worlds to test things I wanted to achieve for the Garden’s Project initially but it developed a life of it’s own. The journey starts in the landscape of the hermitage, at a campsite with the constellations of summer overhead, a woman at the campfire, a farmer in the distance with a bull in one direction and a river in the other. You explore the landscape to find doors which you pass through to the other spaces. The next is the hermitage, later in the day, and both these worlds have a sound track of ‘concierto de aranjuez’ by Rodrigo in an interpretation by Luis Manuel Molena and the Orquestra de Camara Musica Eterna, released under a creative commons license.

From here you progress to the Catalan landscape, facing the hunter with his rifle and a freshly killed rabbit, there is a sardine in the background and the soundtrack is a ‘sardana’, a Catalan folk dance – ‘Joves Ileons’. This reflects the writing in the original image that says ‘sard’, and may be a reference to the dance or to the sardine.

From the Hunter you progress to the dialogue of the insects, finding yourself in the long grass with strange creatures flying and running around you. The soundtrack is a field recording of a summer meadow, when you find the door you return to the hermitage.