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.

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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 →

Seoul’s art scene is buzzing.

I’m currently in Seoul, South Korea, to be part of the Da Vinci creative festival, at Gumcheon Art center. I was invited by Mimi Son & Elliot Woods, to present an installation alongside with some of my favourites visual artists, Zimoun (CH), Herman Kolgen (CA), Kimchi & Chips (UK/KR), Ben Kreukniet from UVA (UK) with also many upcoming South Korean artists.

It’s been 5 years since I first came here for an architectural mapping project in Songdo, a futuristic city that has bit abandoned since then, and I’m really excited to re discover the city in a different context..

This month the Seoul art scene is buzzing, with the opening of SeMA Art Bienniale, several mind blowing exhibitions (Troika at Daelim museum, a new gigantic piece from Olafur Eliasson at Leeum (pictured above), artworks from Zimoun, Carsten Nikolai, United Visual Artists and the list goes on…

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TRIANGULATION

I’m obsessed with geometric patterns.
I can’t stop drawing them.
And the triangle is my favourite shape over all.

To pursue my never-ending quest of finding the perfect triangular pattern, I make simple tools.
This tool will allow you to generate Delaunay and Voromoi diagrams from a set of point, and export the result as an svg file.

Read more →