radarboy

Groundbreaking computer animator Richard “Dr” Baily was a leader in particle based computer animations. He worked on movies such as Tron, Superman Returns, Blade and The Matrix, but he is probably best known for the beautiful animations for the movie Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris.

Bailey referred to what he did as “Sculpting with Light”, rather than animation, something that really resonated with me.

Bailey produced over 60,000 frames of atmospheric planet animation using his own particle system – called SPORE – developed in C++. You can see a few of the planet animations here in the trailer:

Of SPORE Bailey, commented: “[It's] a system that’s sort of a continuum between order and chaos. Some images reside firmly in the world of order, with the particles animated in a fairly straightforward way. Other images that look really twitchy and electric reside in the world of chaos.

Ultimately, the goal was to build a living system that will breed and evolve designs and animations that I would never have dreamed of, and could not produce by any other means.”

Bailey died in 2006. See more of his work at http://www.imagesavant.com

Nollywood, the Nigerian Film Industry releases approximately 1000 movies a year. South African photographer Pieter Hugo goes fictional in Nollywood. And Italian filmmaker Franco Sacchi documents how to make a film in eight days. Read more about it on radarboy’s King of Africa.

Norman McLaren, was a genius animator and film maker best known for his groundbreaking and minimalist work for the National Film Board of Canada in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. One of the most important names in the history of animation McLaren was a also the godfather of music visualization. He won an Oscar in 1953 for his bizarre short film Neighbours. But here we pay homage to some of his more abstract work, most made without the use of a camera.

Norman McLaren Dots (1940):

Norman McLaren – Boogie Doodle:

Norman McLaren Le Merle (The Blackbird):

And finally, here’s a cool film about McLaren’s working method of drawing sound and played on the Moviola, with the great title of Pen Point Percussion:

Beautiful station ID for Finnish TV by Jopsu Ramu and Tokyo artist and designer and Shun Kawakami.

Check out Shun Kawakami’s other great stuff on his personal site: www.shunkawakami.jp.

Kawakami’s work if very much based in electronic music. And reminds me to an extend of another artist I really admire and have been meaning to post for a while – Carsten Nicolai who is exploring similar themes to myself in his artwork – light, sound and minalism.

Nicolai is well known in Germany for his sound and light specific installations, and his giant dream machine – called Rota, which has recently been turned into an iPhone App. Nicolai is also part of the pioneering record labelRaster Noton. I was recently lucky enough to attend their label showcase night at the WMF in Berlin to witness the future sound of music – a hybrid of dancefloor friendly electro and electronica that made the room and your body vibrate.

Here is Aoyama Spaces, spaces illuminated through a play of sound and light:

http://www.carstennicolai.de
http://www.raster-noton.net/

A great documentary about the invention of electronica. Enjoy…
(Note: This is jusy a preview. You are going to have to download the free Veoh player to view the full three hour doc, but well worth it).

“As innovative as they are influential, Kraftwerk’s contribution to the development of electronic music since their formation in 1970 remains unsurpassed. Having inspired everyone from Bowie to Coldplay, Siouxsie to Radiohead, this bizarre collective have also proven partly responsible for entire genres to develop – electronica, techno and synth-pop to name but three.”

Watch Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution in Electronic

Legs collaborated with fashion designer Alice Temperley to create this amazing (and huge) 10-tiered Zoetrope. An alternative way to show a collection involving a film installation instead of the traditional runway show.

Here’s the vid:

Neil Blomkamp’s amazing film Alive In Joburg is about to be released as a full length feature, produced by Peter Jackson.

Pretty cool, though unfortunately Amercianized, movie site here: http://www.d-9.com/