Installation Floor Plan

Sketch of the floor space requirements, mat for viewing

Pyramid Plan

Here is the current spec for the physical build of my final project. The central square represents the LCD monitor which will have a series of animations playing on it.

Wireframe model

Roughly what the finished thing will look like

Games as Art

Empire Détournement

Here is the video that I will play inside the black pyramid.

How to Build a Pyramid

Here are some photos documenting the construction of my piece for Beyond The Screen.

The plastic merchant, who was supposed to be building the pyramid for me, called to say he couldn’t get his machine repaired in time, so I decided to try and do it myself. The broken machine was going to be used to chamfer the edges so that they fit together neatly. I used a file to take the point off the edge I was working on and then used a metal ruler to shave a 45deg bevel.

It hasn’t turned out to be the neatest job, but I have tried it out with my Empire Détournement video and I am reasonably pleased with the result .

Motion Graphics

Here are some great examples of artwork produced by designers and artists using a variety of software and interfaces. The smashingmagazine article this is from also has some fantastic tutorials included.

Original article

Lights on by thesystemis

Interpol – Rest My Chemistry Video by Aaron Koblin

Amoeba Dance

Beyond the Empire

With the concept of my pyramid changing (possible title Aurum Obelisk) I have opened it up to new possibilities.

One of these is to incorporate a reiteration of Warhol’s Empire into the piece. My idea was to record footage of my mini-pyramid displaying the price of gold, then edit this to closely resemble Warhol’s iconic film (of the iconic monument to capitalism) and to exhibit this by playing it on the iPhone inside my mini-pyramid. A little bit confusing, but I like this idea, not only would it be a bit more challenging, but it also opens up the meaning and symbolism of the concept, hopefully without watering it down.

Beyond the Screen

With the deadline looming for this semester I have been putting more effort into my practical work.

In keeping with my growing interests of global capitalism and the corruption of the institutions of power, this project is about all about money, gold, speculation, hoarding and empire.

My initial concept was basically a big black pyramid housing an electronic readout which would display the live price of gold. This was all about questioning the authority of gold as an index of value, and revealing the significance of the pyramid as a symbol of corrupt capitalism, or more specifically the unfair distribution of wealth and power that still surrounds us.

For a few reasons I abandoned this plan – one being the cost of constructing this pyramid. Sooo.. I decided to scale the whole thing down to make it more feasible. This lead me in an interesting direction, as rather than using a hacked electronic readout I realised I could use an iPhone, hidden inside a mini-pyramid, to display the gold price.

I commissioned a local plastic merchant to make this for me out of black and smoke perspex, but before Christmas I received a call to say the machine used to make this was broken! This leaves me in a slight jam, as he assures me it can still be done in time, but I would much prefer to not leave things to fate and to have something looking finished for the deadline.

2010

Ooooook.. I think ‘inactive’ would be an understatement – a year between posts! Nearly.

Anyway, no point in attempting to cover up or explain this, onwards and upwards! But rest assured I have been doing things, and tbh I feel I have more to share with the world now.

So without further ado..

Website spring clean comes early

I have just uploaded the first page of my new website. I went with some snazzy new graphics to change the mood a bit and I will be building custom interfaces for each section to come. Check it out.