Last night I took a 42 second fly-through of my Art-O-Matic 2008 exhibit that I recorded on Friday afternoon and stretched & reversed the footage into a 3 minute and 30 second abstract animation. The video starts at the RECORD book, then pans & zooms into Freedom Plaza on Federal Triangle Quilt #4, pans across Nova et Accvratissima Totivs Terravm Oribis Tabvla [2008], zooms up close to Charlotte Spheres, and pans back over to Nova et Accvratissima Totivs Terravm Oribis Tabvla [2008] and ends.
Audio is from two tracks on disc one of Cold Krush Cuts by DJ Food & Coldcut (Ninja Tune 1997). It features a sermon I believe to be from Rev. Billy Graham about the Bug’s eye view versus the God’s eye view.
::::::::::Text of the sermon::::::::::
People who fly have a different view of the world than those who spend their lives on the ground. A very wise man once wrote a poem while he was flying, and he called this poem “The God’s Eye View,” and he said that this view was entirely different than the view he always had on the ground, which he called “The Bug’s Eye View.”
Out there, somewhere, in the air we fly through, exists an old Persian legend much like this poem about a bug who spent his entire life in the world’s most beautifully designed Persian rug. All the bug ever saw in his lifetime were his problems. They stood up all around him. He couldn’t see over the top of them, and he had to fight his way through these tufts of wool in the rug to find the crumbs that people had spilled on the rug. And the tragedy of the story of the bug in the rug was this: that he lived and he died in the world’s most beautifully designed rug, but he never once knew that he spent his life inside something which had a pattern. Even if he, this bug, had even once gotten above the rug so that he could have seen all of it, he would have discovered something - that the very things he called his problems were a part of the pattern.
Have you ever felt like that bug in the rug? That you are so surrounded by your problems that you can’t see any pattern to the world in which you live? Have you heard anybody say lately that the world is a total mess? That, my friends, is the Bug’s Eye View, and seeing only a little of the world, me might be inclined to think that this is true.
A better quality version of the video is viewable on Facebook.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Society is Enriched by Labor :: Socio Ditata Labore
4/8/2008 || 3:46 pm
Saint Louis Lenz Animation
Screen grab links to a 32-second 11.5mb Quicktime Movie
Using the same tessellation that was used in Saint Louis Quilt #5, I created this animation featuring a fish-eye-like glass sphere hovering over the imagery (see Lenz Projection). The sphere’s optics create a +200% magnification of the imagery, so as the sphere moves around in the animation the abstract geography is revealed below in close-up detail. There is a new on-line mapping service in Japan that features this visual element, but I am proud to say that I’ve been making similar maps for nearly 5 years now. My animation’s style features more angular refraction within the sphere to give a sense of roundness to a flat surface. My animation also slightly suffers from over-projection within the sphere but I personally like the pixilated effect that is created.
Click here to watch / download the animation.
1 Comment Rendered || ||
12/17/2007 || 1:43 pm
Birth of a City [Rochester,NY]
link to 3mb 10 second animation of the Inner Circle of Rochester, New York
So late last night I read Geoff Manaugh’s BLDGblog entry about “the City of Retroactive Mathematics,” and made the above animation. It’s composed of three elements: a light source, two spheres of different sizes, and the imagery. Prior to reading his article I was about to make the next Rochester map, so I continued using the Rochester imagery to create what looks like a urban molecule giving birth to a smaller version of itself. Would that be an asexual city?
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: taking a holiday break
8/7/2007 || 9:46 pm
Dupont Lenz Quilt Animation
Click on the screenshot above to watch the 30 second animation of Dupont Circle. [12 mb download]
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8/6/2007 || 1:33 pm
upcoming: Lenz Quilt Animation
Currently working on an animation. It should be finished in a day or two. Above is a screenshot from the first 15 seconds.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Infinite Delmar Loop #2
6/11/2007 || 12:40 pm
Google StreetView I.E.D. - Blowing Up The Spot
So the other day I mentioned I was working on a mash-up for Google’s new Street View feature.
The result is the first google bomb for Street View— an improvised explosive device, with a message called Street View I.E.D..
Check it out: www.StreetViewIED.com
Tune up the volume!
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Meet SloMo the Statehood Snail
6/23/2006 || 12:54 pm
Starscape Animations
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Inner Harbor Fly-Around
 Made in the summer of 2005 for a client, this geospatial animation is a fly around of a Lenz projection centered on a high resolution aerial photograph of the Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore, Maryland |
Fort Armistead Park Fly-Around
 Created for VJs at the 8th Annual Starscape Music & Arts Festival on June 24th, 2006. This animation uses high-resolution aerial photography of the area around the location of the event and creates a synthetic fly-over similar to Google Earth. |
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: should I or should I not?, Support Our Ribbons!, Schillerist
6/18/2006 || 12:44 am
Animations for Starscape
I got a call today from my friend Robin about helping make content for the VJs at the Starscape Music Festival in Baltimore next weekend. I told him I’d love to make some animations for the event. He used my Washington Monument Zoom during Thievery Corporation’s set at Operation Ceasefire, so I’m excited to have opportunity to have more of my work played at another concert. I made one of the inner harbor of Baltimore last summer for a client, but it’s short and I’d like to give the VJs a good minute clip to use.
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12/30/2005 || 6:40 pm
Salt Lake City Quilt with Clouds - Animated
For the last 12 hours I have been rendering my first animation using moving clouds. I didn’t modify the quilt structure from the previous rendering, but I zoomed in closer to the center.
There are 3 pieces that are animated:
1) The Clouds - which were created from an elongated sphere and textured with a pre-made cloud alogorithm. These fly north to south across the left side of the scene.
2) Infinite plane that moves 180 to the right textured with a geographic tessellation of Salt Lake City.
3) Infinite plane that moves 180 to the left textured with a geographic tessellation of Salt Lake City.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: counter-inaugural counter-intel #3, Nationals Press Conference Redux
8/23/2005 || 8:45 am
Washington Monument Zoom
I made this animation for one of the main projects I’m working on right now, Operation Ceasefire. I’m going to make sure it ends up in the right person’s hands and hopefully it will be seen on a projection screen during the concert. I think the only real error in this rendering is that most people will be expecting to see the White House as it zooms out, but the tessellation only contains the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, and some of the mall. Regardless, I think it looks pretty cool. If I had more time, I’d make a few more animations using this same imagery, but I’m not in the mood right now to do so. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, and I’m not sure if I’ll have much time to render anything for the next few days. But I guess, as I tend end my postings, we’ll see 
2 Comments Rendered || ||
8/19/2005 || 5:33 pm
White House Warp - geospatial animation
Wow. This is probably my favorite animation yet. Its not technically special, it’s just fun as a hell to watch. Using Quicktime Pro, I can set it loop back & forth and I’ve spent the last few minutes marveling at my latest creation. If you look closely you can see the White House replicating into a perfect circle.
Up next, I’ve got some imagery of Prague, Sioux City, Iowa, a few topographic maps (a new dimension to Geospatial Art!), and even a subway map of Moscow I want to geographically exploit. Fun.
Yeah for the 9 day weekend- I took next week off!
1 Comment Rendered || || Posted One Year Ago: the double use of satellite images...
6/22/2005 || 12:09 am
Baltimore Mandala Animated
Its nice to take a good healthy spin & zoom….
This is my first animated mandala, and I am quite pleased with the results.
…I wonder what tomorrow will bring!
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2/10/2005 || 10:00 pm
DC Molecule
I used the same source image as I used for my last rendering and mapped it as a texture on to the “star of..” series template and then I animated a fly-through…looks pretty good. So good that I included not one, but threee screen shots of the animation.
1 Comment Rendered || ||
12/4/2004 || 4:26 pm
Mother Earth Animation
I think this is a pretty cool animation. There are two flaws I noticed, but I don’t think they detract too much from the animation.
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: In Adbusters Magazine Issue #51 - The Buy Nothing Day Blackspot
9/10/2004 || 3:52 pm
Namib Desert
This animation shows exactly why I think the whole spherical aspect of the “Lenz Project” is interesting. Albeit very simple, I am still amazed at how beautiful our earth is. Oh yeah, if you ever go to the Namib desert watch out for diamonds in the sand! BTW, deBeers sucks— artificially inflated blood diamonds really show the one you love that you paid too much for that bling! Watch this video for more info.
Next image will be the same graphic as in the animation, but just a hell of a lot larger (10,000 by 7,500 pixels) and should be on-line in about 6 hours.
1 Comment Rendered || ||
8/17/2004 || 9:00 am
..still fasting..
Above is a screenshot of today’s rendering- a 5 second animation of the most recent “Brussels Lenz” (see previous post). If you look closely, you can see why I’ve been so fascinated by the use of the glass sphere with embedded images. Well if you don’t want to look closely, I’ll explain it anyways- I like the way the sphere refracts the satellite images to look similar to the curveture of the earth. If you’ve ever been on top of a high mountain (one that goes above tree line) you might get what I’m talking about. Anyways, I’m not sure what graphic I’ll render next…. oddly at 30 frames per second at 720X480 size, a five second animation takes less time to make than a conventional still image….. hmmm, I think I’m sold on the idea of really large posters.
Adam kicked ass on Hardball last night. I recorded the show and put it on his campaign website. I was amazed at how Chris Matthews kept on insinuating that protestors are violent and bent on destruction. Yet Adam managed to keep his cool the entire time. Much respect!
I encoded the recording using Real Video. This was my first time using this A/V format. I was able to download the Export Plugin for Quicktime, and I am very pleased with the compression that I was able to get. However to encode the 13 minute segment of the show from DV format to Real Video format took over 3 hours! Way too long but the export plugin was able to take a 5,500 megabyte video file and compress it to 35 megabytes….that pretty impressive, albeit time consuming.
On the fasting front, this morning I ate a cayenne pepper. My friend David mentioned how the pepper is supposed to help cleanse the body by way of heat. After not eating any food for 36 hours (while drinking about 3 gallons of water) the cayenne pepper actually made my body temperature rise slightly. It was kinda cool. I am expecting a ketosis buzz sometime this afternoon. It should be interesting. And tomorrow a special friend will be coming to DC to visit me. I’m excited!
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7/29/2004 || 3:55 pm
Olympic Space Rings 2004
Satellite Images of the Olypmic Venues in Athens, Greece in motion…
a thank you goes to Digital Globe for allowing the areas around the Olympic venues to be used for “art”. You can find the rest of them here. You gotta wonder if potential “terrorists” could be using these same images for their own malfeasance.
I really want to update the E Street Risk Analysis with a recent and remarkably better satellite image of downtown Washington, DC. I think I was in my room when this image was taken, so technically I am in this photograph….sorta.
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Jay's Frozen Custard
1/30/2004 || 11:17 am
“Beat It” Kiosk Video
WRGW event I organized called “BEAT IT.” I made every aspect of this video- took all photos, made all computer animations, and even the music. I did not make the fonts. Sequenced using iMovie. I brought my iMac down to the venue and had this video playing in loop the entire night
Render A Comment || ||
4/9/2003 || 10:43 am
The Universe
I made a short “matrixesque” video using A Guy Called Gerald’s track “Universe”
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3/9/2003 || 11:50 am
The Recycling Room
Using Bryce, I constructed a 3D model of a prototype recycling room that could replace the single chute trash for all high-rise apartment buildings.
Render A Comment || ||
11/19/2002 || 9:54 am
Spin Spin Spin
My first iMovie creation! I used a bunch of video clips I obtained from my Remote Sensing class and eventually gave this video to my professor. Part sucking up, part excited about making my first video.
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