Structural Patterns

Alex Villar climbs up a scaffold and breaks into a business

I just came across video documentation of a new public performance by Alex Villar – “Breaking into Business” that he executed as part of the Open City festival in Lublin, Poland. In “Breaking into Business”, he literally performs the concept of “Open City” by walking through the city pushing a scaffold on casters, setting the scaffold below a business window, climbing up the scaffold and into a window. As I watched the video, I kept wondering if all these places had agreed to his visit or what was the reaction within the location as Alex stepped into the building from a second or third story window. Unfortunately, the videographer only follows Villar on the street and we never see the interaction within the building. As is the nature of Alex Villar’s performative work, the focus is on his action, movement and intervention in and through the urban space.

Rotoscoping is a sequence of traced drawings to create an animated version of live footage.

On July 30th and 31st, Brooke and I will be teaching a rotoscope workshop at the Santa Fe Art Institute.  It’s a 2-day workshop from 10am to 2pm each day and it’s open to 12 participants.  We’ll present as much as possible during the two days and give everyone a clear understanding of what rotoscoping is and how to execute a rotoscope animation.  The workshop will be divided between presentation and production.  Join us, it should be fun! Contact Cathy at 505-424-5050 or info@sfai.org to register

Rotoscoping, one of the oldest techniques for animation, is the tracing of live-action footage, frame by frame, to create an animated version of the movement that may later be modified to create a fantastic short.

Participants will be shown basics of video editing, using Apple’s Final Cut Pro, and introduced to Adobe Flash, the software used for animation and basic drawing. In order to rotoscope, the still images from the videos will be exported from Fincal Cut and brought into Adobe Flash for tracing. Participants can elect to creatively modify or transform the recorded motion rather than strictly follow it.

One of the earliest examples of rotoscoping is Max Fleischer’s, “Out of the Inkwell”.

Rotoscoping is the second exercise that I present to my Intro to 2D Animation students at Hunter College and they have a great time with it. Here are a few examples to extended rotoscoping projects:
“What Are You?” by Daniel Salgado, Untitled by Ryan Cruz, Untitled by Mica Tan.

The Muñoz Waxman Gallery of the Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Arts currently houses a giant child’s dream.  Once you walk past the reception desk, imagine walking into a cave and as you come out the other side, you discover a huge sail boat anchored in the main space.

First view of the THE DUE RETURN upon exiting cavernous entrance portal

My wife took our nearly three year old son to the installation last week and he went nuts.  I didn’t get to see it, so  I decided to take him back today, it was a lot of fun – a rich imaginative space for young children and just cool for everyone else.

The installation was executed by a collaborative group called Meow Wolf and apparently over a 100 artists contributed to the installation.  If you spend enough time in it, it’s easy to see how over a hundred people could have a hand in it, because it’s so detailed and rich.  Although I eventually found at least three ways to get into the second level of the “inter-dimensional ship”, initially it appears that steps carved into stone and dirt are the way in… here’s an image from behind the ship picturing the steps and bridge onto the ship:

Image from behind Inter-Dimensional Ship

Once we were on the deck, my son headed straight to the navigational bridge which is filled with monitors, buttons, switches, leds… The monitor’s present Processing sketches that allow for interaction via a variety of switches.  Two slightly older kids, perhaps 4, 5 or 6 were already at the helm and navigating the ship into a battle.  Iggy jumped right in, though he immediately started calling himself the captain.

Navigational bridge of THE DUE RETURN

Close up of main monitor in the Bridge, a fun Processing sketch.

At the back of the bridge, there are stacked televisions with single channel camera feeds, so that you have a view of other parts of the ship.

Security Monitors on THE DUE RETURN, as in most of the ship, some things function others adorn.

Captain's Quarters

Chamber below the boat's bridge, might be the clinic

Single sleeping chamber, stacked above another sleeping chamber.

Behind the ship as it escapes some floating glow things.

Throughout the ship you can find 2D barcodes that lead you to webpages that tell the story of the ship and it’s crew.  You can learn more about it at THE DUE RETURN’S web site and apparently there’s a link to a related iPhone app… every media available is part of this ship!  It was also a performance space from end of May through June.  But ultimately, it’s a child’s dream come true.

Two pieces that struck me while visiting the Museum of International Folk Art today:

Bicycle Paper Mache Figure Store

I couldn’t get close to this bicycle, so I shot it from above.  Since the Chivas mascot is prominent amongst the paper mache figures, it’s safe to assume that it’s a Mexican shop on wheels, beautiful!

Decorated Head Set

I failed to write down where this head piece is from, I believe either Bolivia or Peru.  A video next to a few of these featured the man who makes them from discarded objects.  During a festival, men wear these things on their heads, there’s an entire armature within it that the performers need to hold, so that the piece stays in place.

Documentary film maker and colleague Kelly Anderson has just launched a kickstarter campaign for a doc in production titled “My Brooklyn” revolving around urban planning and gentrification in Brooklyn, particularly changes occurring in and around Fulton Mall. Check out the trailer and support the film if you like what you see!

My Brooklyn trailer from Kelly Anderson on Vimeo.