Nathan Coley

Nathan Coley, Scottish installation artist. His works are provocative and philosophical, concentrating on largely religion based art.

Moodboard Sky Arts 1

Ok Go

Ok Go's creative team need a pat on the back, consistently quirky and original the band recently broadcast a live performance which was pixelated using the avatars of people who tuned in to watch through facebook and twitter. A creative and interesting way of getting an audience interested in a live performance.

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Light Effects and 3d Mapping

Shit Robot - Losing My Patience from DFA Records on Vimeo.

ManVsMachine

Looking into ManVsMachine's previous work I found that they specialize in idents, and also did work for Sky Arts. Their work involves a lot of digital compositing which unfortunately I don't have the skills to create, but the idea of building something and rewinding it is feasible.

More 4 Rebrand

More 4 has recently had a rebrand by design company ManVsMachine. I like the interpretation of the handmade aesthetic, instead of the hand drawn style which was in fashion a few years ago, creating a logo which can be built and can function in a real environment adds another dimension to the design, allowing it to be more flexible.

 I think the branding carries through exceptionally well into the idents and can imagine these being used in a real setting immeadietly. The branding chosen flows on really well from the original More4 branding with the use of shapes to form the logo but feels more accessible.

GIF Player

An animated gif is a digital file format where multiple images are being looped after each other, creating a short and small sized movie clip. The file type was first introduced in 1987 as a first online movie, but soon lost its function with the increasing speed of internet and the possibility to upload longer and bigger movies. The document type however has gained back some of its popularity and is even entering the field of Art today. In 1832, Jozeph Plateau, a Belgian physicist invented the phenakistiscope. The first device which was able to show a moving image and which is considered to be the pre-runner of modern cinema. The only down part however was the fact that it could only show short movie clips in a loop. An animated gif is exactly that, and after some research on Plateau’s original design, Pieterjan Grandry succeeded to build a device capable of playing animated gifs, incorporating led lights, microchips and magnetic sensors. The Gif player is a wooden box, much like a turntable, with a dimmer to adjust the speed of the animation and a small looking hole in the front.

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I found this really interesting that people were still revisiting the now more or less defunct GIF, which seems to only have a life span on blogging sites such as tumblr. It's inspirational to see such simple things being given a new creative twist. I could imagine this kind of technique used on a much larger scale for cheap and effective advertising, for example on billboards, parts of the image could move, or even the moving photographs which became popular on the internet in which really slight things move, like a skirt blowing in the wind. I could see myself looking twice if I thought I saw a static billboard move out of the corner of my eye.

Survey Results

I created a survey to find out about general expectations in club nights and about interactivity relating to my research question. The survey can be found here. From the responses I've had so far all have been between the ages of 18 and 22, the majority have been male and go to nightclubs more than once a month. Most use social networks to find out about events. Most stated that they don't notice night club visuals. Most also said that they didn't know what QR codes were and wouldn't be confident in using them to access content, however this could have been an error on my part as some people may not have known what they were by name. 53% said they don't see interactivity as a big part of a night out experience, however, 76% would like to see a form of interactivity between audience and DJ, people who specified said that they'd like to have an input on the music played. 92% said they would be encouraged to go to a venue if held a performance as well as a club night event.

Use of Quick Response code in a music video

I've posted this before but felt that it was relevant to the QR code research I'm currently doing, in the video for Metronomy - She Wants at 2:51 a QR code is shown which leads to a download link of the song. I haven't seen anything like this used before in a music video, or in moving image in that the code is cryptic and can only be accessed if the user is paying attention. This creative use of codes gives an idea of exclusivity and I feel that this sort of coding could work well in club visuals to give audience members participation through content.

Apparati Effimeri, 3d Mapping

STEREOSCOPIC 3D MAPPING // STEP 01 from Apparati Effimeri on Vimeo.

This isn't an interactive 3d installation, however the final example shown I feel could be very effective used in a club environment, if a live artist drew the surroundings to highlight as the music played, then the surroundings moved and react to sound.

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Interactive Shadow Visuals

skia @ mediaopera from muk on Vimeo.


Skia by Andreas Haider, an interactive shadow which mimic the users movements, then when the user stands still, bends and warps into different shapes. Using an infrared camera to detect the persons, openFrameworks software, processes and manipulates the shadow.

Holton Rower

Tall paintings by Holton Rower. Large scale paintings mounted to walls.

Coldplay Wristband audience interaction

Recently Coldplay have been using wristbands which are controlled through radio signals as part of their show at arena gigs, shown below in use at Wembley during the X Factor final and in the video, an audience member at the Glasgow concert demonstrates how the audience experience is enhanced by the bands which create a sense of togetherness and interaction with the show.

An interesting and novel way of creating participation and a communal feel for audience members. This technology could be pushed further to react with all notes and beats automatically, or through tracking of position and different colours implanted within the lights could be used to display images when filmed from above.

Experiments for client project

For my short for Sky Arts I'm looking at experimental ways of mixing colour as an initial exploration,