nullpointer

Generative animation

I have recently been working with Southbank Centre London, in collboration with Bernadette Roberts and Gaia Nova to produce large scale generative animations for their multiprojector screen setup in the festival hall. I wrote an interactive animation program using C++/openframeworks that would generate a large range of minimalist and hypnotic animations using simple geometric forms and colors. I designed the system to run live, with scheduled events triggering the software to animate to specific states for film playback or text display. In this way it was hoped that the system could be flexible enough to respond to quick scheduling changes and adaptable to a variety of events.

Unfortunately the final av/projector system chosen did not support this level of dynamic programming. As with many vj-style systems the software provided is geared towards playback of pre-rendered material rather than realtime graphics. This meant that for the initial phase all animation sequencers and events were rendered to file before playback.

Although the flexibility of the system was not enough to support the dynamic elements of my programming the actual animation work was rewarding in its own right and the output resolution of 4096×768 gives the projections a bold and almost physical impact.

production shot during install (more images to follow)

An example of one the animation sequences (the small resolution doesnt do it justice!)