Underwire | Wired.com: Last April director Ben Tricklebank was testing out a concept for his collaboration with data visualization artist Aaron Koblin – a long-exposure photography project called Light Echoes – and in the process was projecting a series of rainbow-esque color bands on a canyon wall using an RGB laser. Koblin had purchased the laser on eBay for $600 and sent it to Tricklebank, who then mounted it to his car and was photographing the colors it spit out to see if it could leave very temporary graffiti on the landscape. He was in the middle of nowhere outside of his current hometown of Los Angeles and thought he was alone. He wasn’t.
15 comments:
I think this is a really neat project. I love the blending of technology and art involved. The pictures that result are stunning. I am left wondering how easy this project would be to replicate in a small, monochrome scale with an arduino and a small laser diode.
This is an incredibly cool concept I wish I'd thought of first. But I'm curious about how the different pieces communicated with each other, it's not like there's a protocol for a utility cart to talk to the boom lift to the laser controls. But I love playing with light and photography, and applying it to a 3D surface is a concept I've never seen done quite as beautifully as this series of pieces. This is the type of concept art that I think is incredibly multidisciplinary and reaches across any (nonexistent, in my opinion, or at the least incredibly blurry) boundaries of art and science.
Additionally, Ben Tricklebank's name sounded familiar, so I looked up his work. Some of you might find his prior project familiar: http://www.exquisiteforest.com/
I love this idea! In the article, the author mentioned Doug Aitken’s 'Station to Station' which caught my eye. Here is the link to their website: http://stationtostation.com/
It looks like 'Staton to Station' is organizing some really cool events. Even better- they had a featured Pittsburgh event! (Which we just missed...) It's cool to once again see how Pittsburgh is growing to be such a cultural city. Here's a short video clip from the event:https://vimeo.com/74265342
Recently, I have become very interested in impermanent art installations, such as light projected images. I think being able to use nature as a canvas is taking art to a new stage that most people don't dare going. This light installation art not only creates amazing images on a grand scale, but interacts with terrain in a different way than any other artistic medium. I'd love to see Trickelbank and Koblin in action, using nature as a canvas for their artwork.
I don't really understand this project, but I probably read the article wrong. They said at first that the project is supposed to scan the changes of the environment over time, but I saw it as just a changing of manmade projections. I've seen photographs that people have taken in the desert of the stars, where the exposure lasts for a few hours. The results show the stars moving in a curve while the earth rotates. That shows a change in the environment. I think the projections forcibly changed the environment. Then they said that it's about placing new environments on top of the old environments, but I didn't understand why they chose those specific photographs to project onto the landscape. They seemed really cool looking but random. It would be neat if the images were inspired by sound waves emulating from the land at that specific moment or something. I guess what throws me off the most is that once we see the projections on the land, the environment underneath the projections get lost. I originally thought this project was supposed to combine new environments, not one overpowering the other. But like I said, I'm pretty sure I misinterpreted this idea.
This is really intriguing. It is so neat how the projections interact with all the different surfaces, until now I have really only seen things like this projected onto flat screens. Also the juxtaposition of the uber-modern projections and the landscapes that have been weathered is such a fun concept to play with. I do have to say that the tittle of the article was quite misleading though. It made it seem like the were permanently adding color to things and when I saw the word canyon. It kind of freaked me out. I was thinking it was just really fancy graffiti. Which I guess it actually is but just temporary graffiti. I am also really impressed that they were able to capture the projections so well on camera. When doing susan projects last year that was something I often struggled with, and they seem to be able to capture it perfectly.
I am having the hardest time picturing what this looks like. It sounds like a really, really cool idea but I can't Imagine how it actually works. I bet if it were used correctly this could look really cool on stage. It seems that more and more art is becoming digital and the relationship between the arts and digital technology is becoming so much stronger. I bet it wont be long before we see this concept on stage and I can't wait to see how it works, and if it even does.
The video of Koblin and Tricklebank's work is beautiful! This is such a cool concept. I was worried that this article may be too technical for me to understand, but it was written in a way where I could follow along well. The combination of art, technology, and nature is really amazing and made something really incredible.
The article also makes it seem like Koblin and Tricklebank work very well together and I think that shows in the success of their final project. Collaboration is such an important aspect of art and when people are able to come together with their ideas and make a final product like this, its very exciting.
In the beginning of the article I wasn't quite sure of what the concept of the piece was, but after reading it and watching the video at the end I see just how spectacular it is. I've always been fascinated by photography and lighting, and seeing the final product of this piece was really cool. This piece was really interesting, because a lot of the time photography is the canvas for a subject (such as a landscape), but in this case what would normally be the subject was the canvas, and photography was just a means to capture it. My favorite part of this article though, was not the concept or use of technology, but the amusing story about the "poor old guy".
Lasers are already starting to catch on in the entertainment industry. As the article states, the benefit of a laser over a flat image projection is the ability to focus each point that the laser plots. The means that an image can be projected over an uneven surface, and still be sharp without any keystone affect.
I think an interesting unexplored use for lasers (of this style) in entertainment will be blackout scene changes. In a blackout, moving lasers could “paint” the spikes on the floor, as well as indicate the path for the stagehands and exits for performers, especially during a change that has lots of big moves. With this laser, the whole change could be programmed as one “cue” consisting of multiple colors, speeds and times, all in focus.
After reading the article, watching the video, and looking at the images, I still don't understand how this works. I think the idea is quite brilliant and the product was truly stunning. What I don't entirely understand is how this differs from projection art. From what i understood, they shot out images from a laser and a camera recorded the results. If that is the case then you can only see the resultant image though a camera. it seem like because of the recording technique needed it would have a limited scope in terms of public display. That aside, I would be interested to see more of this type of work and learning when and why this would be more practical than a projector.
This is very cool. I first heard about Aaron Koblin from the "House of Cards" Radiohead music video mentioned in the article. The imagery that he is making with lasers is something that artists everywhere should be taken note of. The idea that of creating images from pure raw data is reflective of our lives in this modern world, where everything is becoming digital and the world of analog is soon fading away.
This article is really cool! I find it fascinating that we are adding more and more technology to art because it starts making the possibilities endless. In fact this concept of using lasers to create imaging could make designers completely rethink how they go about creating something. This article is very interesting to read at time where I am experimenting with using light to project imagery on different surfaces. I look forward to seeing more of this technology implemented in modern art.
This is a very cool concept and one I haven't seen executed in such a way before. It looks really cool and manages to paint the landscape without actually destroying it. Although I am struggling to think of a practical application for it other than art. Maybe if they manage to find a way to move the laser at high speeds we could use it in theater or art installations but at the moment it needs a long exposure camera.
Wow what a cool and innovative medium for art. The concept of using a laser to help form images for long exposure camera shots is just so cool! I was amazed by the clarity and vividness of the images they were able to capture. I can't imagine how stressful it was for them to get this all done in a single night of shooting, especially with so many new and unique elements to their project! Good for them! I hope to see "laser art" be employed in even cooler ways in the future. This is certainly just the beginning!
Post a Comment