Music Video
Running time: 4’40″
Music : Crøm-lus (Poppy Edwards)
Producer: John Tonks

Crøm-lus
Strange Jealousy is mash up of warped sounds, acoustic instruments and synth sound design. Sounds and motifs flow in and out throughout the song, sometimes deliberately detuning, giving a feeling of uneasiness. This uneasiness links to the song’s emotion, the subject of which touches on family, love and its peripheries. This song has references to the aesthetics of trip-hop, jazz and Dub, with “instrumental inversion and ghostly voices, distant horn sections, odd perspectives, deep illusions and unexpected noises” [David Toop]. Perfecting this song came from the genius ears of Producer John Tonks, who has worked with many artists I admire from Tricky, to Massive Attack and Neneh Cherry.

Georgios Cherouvim
The visuals of the video are generated algorithmically and feature visually complex patterns that emerge through the simulation of a self organizing behavioral system. Such patterns appear in nature and the brain is tuned to categorize them as organic, which also carries an inherited feeling of unease. This is used in the video as a vehicle to reflect on the emotions of the song. Taking the lead from the lyrics, the patterns evolve and shift between ambiguous shapes to the recognizable form of the two faces, an elegant interplay between synthesis, metamorphosis and decomposition of organic patterns and the human figure.

The video was shot and edited as normal and then used to drive the behavior of a multi agent based system, obeying a set of simple rules and forces. The most characteristic behavior is the slime mold (Physarum Polycephalum) which creates a distinct network of interconnected branches. Over the years slime mold has fascinated many scientists and artists. Even though Physarum Polycephalum is a single cell organism, it exhibits a remarkable sensory-motor behavior and has the ability to create complex networks while searching for nutrients. Despite the lack of a central nervous system, it is able to effectively locate, migrate towards sources of food and over time optimize its complex network of interconnected branches, to effectively transport the nutrients over its constantly changing body.

The system was implemented in Touch Designer, with the core logic coded in GLSL with compute shaders and can also be performed in real time. Off-line motion vectors were extracted from the video using Furnace in Nuke.

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References

Jeff Jones (2011) Influences on the formation and evolution of Physarum polycephalum inspired emergent transport networks

Guodong Rong & Tiow-Seng Tan (2006) School of Computing, National University of Singapore
Jump Flooding in GPU with Applications to Voronoi Diagram and Distance Transform

Thomas Diewald

David Reeves

Touch Designer

Optical flow in Nuke

Screened at :

ÉCU 2019
(Paris, France)

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

Reduced 3D model rendered with custom line shading algorithm in houdini, exported as vectors and laser etched on wood panel panted with acrylics.

Scan Cosmo Wendman
Laser  Gabriel Pulecio

20Nov17 | Venus De Milo

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

20Nov17 | Venus De Milo - detail

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

The two painted panels are scanned and brought into the computer. The same 90 particles fall and collide with the bright brushstrokes of each painting, creating the two variations. The particle trails are laser etched on the original painting.

Scan Cosmo Wendman
Laser  Gabriel Pulecio

20Nov17 | waterfall 01

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

20Nov17 | waterfall 02

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

20Nov17 | waterfalls

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

Low polygonal model rendered with custom line shading algorithm in houdini, exported as vectors and laser etched on wood panel panted with acrylics.

Laser @ NYC Resistor

14Feb17 | Rhino

40x30cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

14Feb17 | Rhino detail

40x30cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

Low polygonal model rendered with custom line shading algorithm in houdini, exported as vectors and laser etched on wood panel panted with acrylics.

Laser @ NYC Resistor

14Feb17 | Turtle

40x30cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

14Feb17 | Turtle detail

40x30cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

square 01

The painted with acrylics wood panel came first, which was then scanned and brought into houdini. The painting’s shape was used as an initial state for the differential Line Growth procedure. On each iteration the points are relaxed by distancing themselves from their neighbors. The whole line is also re-sampled on each iteration to continuously increase its definition. One of the frames from the process was exported as a vector file and burnt with a laser cutter on the 15x15cm wood panel. The total length of the line is approximately 12 meters.

13Nov16 | Square 01

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

13Nov16 | Square 01

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

The path of the laser cutter.

square 02

The painted with acrylics wood panel came first, which was then scanned and brought into houdini. Circles were scattered on the painted surface around on the brightest area. On an iterative process, the painting’s intensity determined by how much each individual point would be pushed towards it’s normal vector and allow the shapes to flow within the painting.

13Nov16 | Square 02

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

13Nov16 | Square 02

15x15cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

Reduced 3D model rendered with custom line shading algorithm in houdini, exported as vectors and laser etched on wood panel panted with acrylics.

Scan Cosmo Wendman
Laser  Gabriel Pulecio

13Oct16 | Pieta

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

2Oct16 | Pieta

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

2Oct16 | Pieta

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

3D model rendered in vectors and laser cut on a painted wood panel.

Laser  Gabriel Pulecio

2Oct16 | Warrior

30x60cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

2Oct16 | Warrior

30x60cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

2Oct16 | Warrior

30x60cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

3D model rendered in vectors and laser cut on a painted wood panel.

Laser  Gabriel Pulecio

28Aug16 | FaceCut

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

28Aug16 | FaceCut

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics

28Aug16 | FaceCut

30x40cm laser cut, wooden panel, acrylics