Virtual Material tests
In questioning how one thinks about 'virtual material'I am considering how this material is handled and responded to in practice. Earlier experiments revisited CGI animation processes in which a virtual tree was constructed from a digital wireframe and partially mapped with non-imaged maps. Having placed a camera point at the centre of the tree, a virtual camera was passed through the artifact revealing a software glitch, referred to as Glitch 01. Various objects placed in the space revealed by the glitch will form part of the evolution film currently in production.
The virtual Tree test also raised questions of the undo mechanism in cgi in contrast to the trace apparent in traditional model making and drawing animation techniques. The Undo will also form part of the evolution project.
A number of material experiments were conducted using actual wiremesh structures, and paper which has formed the basis of a number of photographs taken to investigate the way in which light refracts through actual, transparent and translucent materials. Questions investigated at this point related to examining the material qualities of the actual in comparison to the virtual, and raised further questions in relation to the handling of this material.
To continue to refer back to the core research questions in the exploration on the cusp of cgi modelling and craft materiality, and in the spirit of identifying alignment and difference between these two processes has raised two core issues, that of 'material' and 'handling' and the convergence of technology in craft practices, and vice versa, craft materiality in cgi processes. From this point the question being asked is how are virtual and actual material handled and How can these processes be converged by not focussing on hybridisation of forms in actuality, or virtuality as a produced artefact,
and not the haptic, tangible physiological effects of handling virtual and actual materials, but the psychological, philosophical and actual experience of this, in contemporary moving image processes, and how craft thinking may be applied to virtual material handling.
This could be considered a form of virtual craft requiring the reframing of cgi as a craft practice with both limitations and positive qualities, virtual material handling as an evolution of thinking in terms of the intellect and the extension of the hand, with roots in craft material thinking.
In the engagement with 'virtual materiality', and the parameters, limits to cgi as both a photorealist medium and as an abstract form, the project has returned to cgi materials and is in the process of constructing a translucent soap bubble using primary photo reference and the process of actual bubble creation and observation.
The virtual Tree test also raised questions of the undo mechanism in cgi in contrast to the trace apparent in traditional model making and drawing animation techniques. The Undo will also form part of the evolution project.
A number of material experiments were conducted using actual wiremesh structures, and paper which has formed the basis of a number of photographs taken to investigate the way in which light refracts through actual, transparent and translucent materials. Questions investigated at this point related to examining the material qualities of the actual in comparison to the virtual, and raised further questions in relation to the handling of this material.
To continue to refer back to the core research questions in the exploration on the cusp of cgi modelling and craft materiality, and in the spirit of identifying alignment and difference between these two processes has raised two core issues, that of 'material' and 'handling' and the convergence of technology in craft practices, and vice versa, craft materiality in cgi processes. From this point the question being asked is how are virtual and actual material handled and How can these processes be converged by not focussing on hybridisation of forms in actuality, or virtuality as a produced artefact,
and not the haptic, tangible physiological effects of handling virtual and actual materials, but the psychological, philosophical and actual experience of this, in contemporary moving image processes, and how craft thinking may be applied to virtual material handling.
This could be considered a form of virtual craft requiring the reframing of cgi as a craft practice with both limitations and positive qualities, virtual material handling as an evolution of thinking in terms of the intellect and the extension of the hand, with roots in craft material thinking.
In the engagement with 'virtual materiality', and the parameters, limits to cgi as both a photorealist medium and as an abstract form, the project has returned to cgi materials and is in the process of constructing a translucent soap bubble using primary photo reference and the process of actual bubble creation and observation.
