The making of a digital panorama.

I’m working on a new piece for Cheongju Craft Biennale, opening on September 13th in South Korea. I’ll try to document the project and share insights on this page.

1- Experiencing Nature

As much as I love my work, it involves spending a large part of my life sitting at a desk, starring at a computer screen, and it’s not necessarily pleasant.
Forcing myself outside cities tends to brings some sort of counterbalance to this weird lifestyle, so I’m taking the habit to regularly escape the city/desk/computer scenario and I often find myself in remote locations.

After landing in Seoul, I headed South East and found my way to Sobaeksan National Park, to spent a day going up Birobong, a 1439m peak.

 

Alone on stone steps
Body aches and out of breath
Vanish at summit

No-logram

INTERACTIVE SCREENLESS PROJECTIONS

I’m obsessed with projections in mid-air, ever since I first saw Princess Leia ‘so-called’ hologram, and I dreamed for years of having a go at Tom Cruise’s UX in minority report.

I’ve used various techniques to explore similar aesthetics: peppers ghost (used in the Tupac Coachella concert), semi transparent screens, mirrors and lenses, which are often referred to as “holograms” but are in fact cheap tricks and just 2d projections.
To avoid misleading use of the word hologram (remember the heated debate with Kickstarter’s CEO about the Holus scam?), I use the term No-logram (not a hologram). Read more →

Kanazawa art residency: digital meets traditional Japanese crafts

We are in Kanazawa, Japan, for a two weeks residency, to discover the traditional Japanese crafts works developed since the Edo era (1603-1868): gold leaf and lacquer, as well as the more recent art of glass making.

This project started at a UNESCO Creative Cities meeting during a conversation between the mayors of Kanazawa (JP) and Enghien-les-bains (FR), the two cities co-producing the project with the Centre des arts of Enghien-les-Bains, a subsidised media arts center.

We are exploring possible connections between the traditional Japanese arts and the digital arts, and how softwares, algorithms, computer driven machines could be combined together with the use of gold, wood, paper, lacquer or glass. Read more →

The making of “ATOMS”

I’m lucky enough to work with art institutions and creative festivals, and it’s very rare that I consider working with a “brand”. But when Barneys NYC approached my gallery to offer me a “carte blanche” to create four installations for their flagship store in New York, I was intrigued. When they offered to share the creative direction with legendary Brooklyn born rapper JAY Z, I was in. Read more →

The making of Fuji

I’m really happy to introduce a new audiovisual installation named FUJI (不死). The project was developed during an artist residency in Takamatsu, Japan, in the art island district. I was invited to present Eyjafjallajökull, a project inspired by Icelandic volcano’s eruption in 2010, consisting of a large drawing animated through projections of light. But the proximity of mount Fuji urged me to develop a new piece.

ASCENSION

During my stay in Japan, I had a chance to actually get to the Fujiyama and climb it for a day. We couldn’t get to the top this time, but during the ascension through the fog, the changing weather would let the summit appear for a few moments, making it seem unreachable and almost unreal. It felt like an intangible monument to the glory of nature. Photos by Juliette Bibasse. Read more →

Five ideas to enhance experiences in museums

Through my practice as a visual artist, I was lucky enough to present my work in a variety of locations and contexts, from large public spaces, media art festivals, to small galleries. Recently, I also started conversations with art institutions, and had a chance to show some artworks at MAMCO, Geneva (2008, 2009, 2012), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010), BFI London (2011) and CMoDA, Beijing (2012). I also conducted a workshop with young audience at Musée d’Art et d’histoire, Geneva (2013).

I dedicate a large part of my time to research and understand new and upcoming technologies, and I had a chance to share some ideas with curators and museum professionals. Here’s a brief list of ideas that I think could help enhance or create new experiences in museums. Read more →

2015 projects

I’m obsessed with light.
Technology allows us to manipulate light in such way that we can send a pixel hundred of meters away and have precise control over its properties, brightness and colour, at very high frequencies. Low cost projectors give us millions of these pixels to play with, a great opportunity for creatives and artists to use light to modify the space around us.

New frameworks and open code will redefine boundaries, Elliot Woods’ hacks will double up projectors brightness and reach high framerates, super-bright LEDs will push limits even further, and bring us new perspectives on what can be achieved.
Technology keeps shaping the new art forms as much as it’s shaping our everyday lives.

Within that exciting context, I’m planning the coming year with a variety of projects, mostly focusing on challenging our visual perception and creating experiences that question the very nature of reality.
Read more →

Kickstarter is broken.

Last week, after 30 days of investigations about a very suspicious project, I published an open letter to Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler.
He replied over the weekend (read the comments), after the project succeeded, only to confirm most of my doubts. Here are my reply and comments.
Read also: “Kickstarter failed us” from Raphaël de Courville.

—————

Dear Yancey,

You guys are really hard to reach!
I’ve been trying to get in touch for over a month, but didn’t get any significant feedback until now, so I read your letter with great attention.

Let’s be clear: Holus has been advertising a “revolutionary 3D holographic experience” what is basically a “2D display reflected on a piece of glass“.

As you confirmed, they used:
– misleading use of the words “3D” and “holographic” (the fact that other companies also did it, is not a valid excuse, imho).
– prohibited CGI (silently replaced after 75% of the backers were fooled, and already pledged $220.000 CAD ).
H+ clearly broke your rules, but still, their project succeeded.

What is the point of having rules, if these are not enforced ? Read more →

Is Kickstarter covering up a scam? An open letter to CEO Yancey Strickler.

Dear Yancey,

I love Kickstarter. When I backed my first project in 2012, I was happy and excited to be given the opportunity to support creators with my pledge. Since then, Kickstarter has been an endless source of inspiration and allowed me to acquire tools which affected my workflow as a visual artist in a significant and positive way.

However, there’s one project that is forcing me to change my mind about Kickstarter and its apparent integrity: in less than 24 hours from now, a shockingly misleading project is about to end, and 290.000 $ from backers will be gone into what I think is a huge SCAM.

I’ve tried everything I could to share my concerns with your team: forms on your site, emails and tweets, and I met 4 members of your staff in person at Sonar festival, but I was left with a deafening silence.

Today, I can’t trust you anymore, and I am about to delete my KS account and encourage my friends to do the same.

[UPDATE: July 10th] The Holus project just reached its funding time a few minutes ago, with 297.790 $ from backers.
Despite the diffusion of this open letter on social networks, Yancey Strickler didn’t care to comment, neither did Kickstarter.
I feel cheated by one of the rare companies I was trusting and believing in, so I just deleted my account.

[UPDATE: July 14th]  Yancey Strickler finally responded to this article, and I wrote a new post: KICKSTARTER IS BROKEN

Here’s a short version of the story:

Read more →

Mapping Toolkit 2D

The mapping toolkit is a series of tools for creatives, to create visual content for projection mapping.
It’s comes as a pack of patches / modules  developed with vvvv.

MAPPING TOOLKIT – 2D
A tool to animate vector files (svg format), and simply produce visual content in realtime.
Points, lines and polygon animations are available. Read more →