A A is For... This experiment for ‘A’ was one of my launching off points. I had been teaching myself Cinema 4D for the last year or so, really trying to find ways to work its use as a program into my projects to make myself learn more about it in novel ways. I also had a borrowed mini-projector that I wanted to experiment with, so the ideas began to coalesce. I’d done a number of complex things in C4D this year, so I thought I’d take this as a lesson in simplicity. Taking a procedural approach, I thought generating a letter that bent around the edges of appearance would be interesting, so tried to imagine how to contrive a type generative technique that worked on these boundaries. One of the fun things about working with generative software like C4D is that you can apply interesting concepts to what is essentially a mathematical model. You can work within the ecosystem and its physics, its animation functions, and make something really interesting with a simple concept. I decided to take the concept of color change and play of light. With simple play of light I figured I could make something dynamic.
A Beginning To translate my experimental thought into a fitting result in C4D, I decided to use tone and rotation as the keys to manifesting a subtle letter form. I chose a weight and typeface that I felt would work well in the projected transference process and set up changes over time to procedurally create the appearing and disappearing letter. I created a texture whose color was set to change over time through keyframing. Duplicating the texture, I adjusted the second version to change at the same rate with a slight delay to its start. Over time, the color of the background and that of the letter meld and for back into each other, revealing and hiding the letter as they slide through the spectrum. I also wanted to use light and motion to accentuate the subtle letter form. Keyframing in a rotation over time, causing the letter to turn both increases its contrast by the changing of light in the scene, and hides it in a
different way, rotating its profile away from the camera. Transforming along these two axes, slight offset tonal shift and rotation, the letter is shown and hidden in turn as it responds to the two changes in its appearance and presence in the virtual environment. I was very pleased with the results of what was essentially a very basic command prompt. I felt that it was fitting for ‘A’, another word among the group whose meaning is personally vague and primarily based upon the meanings of the words around it. Like the use of ‘A’ in a sentence, the form changes, disappears into the meaning of the background of the broader context, re-emerging for the utility of its presence on structure and understanding.
A Projection This next phase is essentially two in one. Having created the simple video of the rotating ‘A’, I knew I wanted to experiment with projection on unexpected surface, using my face as the landing for the video. As with my sound exploration for ‘for,’ I really enjoyed the idea that some manifestations of work in this process would be performance pieces. As with the sound representing text purely in sound, this process of transference is experienced only as a moment. As the projection maps onto my face, the blinding light of the projector filling my eyes to create the moment of capture, a process I’m intimately involved in, but outside of capture only existing in memory.
way of encoding and transforming text, information. Within the blinding light, I can’t comprehend what is being absorbed by my eyes, but the information of the text is all the while being projected into by brain. Just as with the moment of the performance, the information doesn’t ‘stay there,’ in that I can’t recall what I saw outside the concept of being blinded, but the knowledge of the event and its capture on film itself is a remembering.
This is one of the experiments which I enjoy the most, because the final manifestation can and does exist in many forms. I captured still, gifs, and video, all of which each are essentially finals. I like that this transference If the moment itself represents the analog transference process through performance troubles the distinction process, then the capture of the new topographic home of what is considered a final work. In the end, each of the text wrapped around skin and hair is the re-digiti- capture, each evidence of the moment is a final interzation, rendered as a video for consumption outside the pretation unto itself, each showing not only a different context of creation. There’s something I really like about angle of the text played over the face, but a different the idea of the light passing into my eyes as its own angle of the moment itself.
video & other media for this and other explorations can be found online at: www.jonowen.ca/blog/in-out-in
PENNY Ideas from Heaven In the process of discovering novel experiments for the text, it was the words with strong meaning that actually proved to be the most difficult to experiment with. Too many obvious directions presented themselves and it could be hard to find a method that did a good job of exploring theoretical territory while still representing the feel of the word. For a noun like penny, people can expect to see something related the word, but anything too on the nose felt trite. Eventually, after some consultation with my peers, the idea of playing off of ‘penny dreadfuls,’ yellow-back pulp novels from yesteryear, presented itself as an iteration relevant enough to the word but novel enough as an exploration. Using book paper as a medium was far enough from ‘penny’ to still seem interesting, while maintaining enough connection to the word to make sense from a narrative perspective. Going to a local book store, I discovered a trove of old Sci-Fi pulps, buying a couple to hide my intention of just cutting it up. This began the process of transference for the word itself.
Initial Explorations Penny was one of the first words I tried to explore, going with the obvious route at first. I thought to myself, “I know, I’ll make penny out of pennies, and then go from there!” Not realizing that I now lived in a country that discontinued the penny, finding enough to make the word was harder than I thought. So, as an experiment to show what I was working with for feedback, I rendered each letter with the same pennies separately and then combining them together as a proof of concept. I sat with this stage for a while, primarily getting feedback that it was, as I thought, a bit on the nose. I ruminated about what directions I might push it, really wanting to record a time lapse of pennies cleaning and then dissolving in acid. This thought sat in the back of my mind for a while, but the logistics of getting the right kind of vessel to hold them all, getting enough pennies, and setting up the recording all for an idea that still seemed a bit on the nose, didn’t lend itself well to
follow through. I decided to abandon it and consider other options. The nice thing about an experimentation process like this though is that even dead ends like this serve well to illustrate the design process. In the end, I’m glad I experimented with this initially if only to have it show just how much I didn’t want to go in this direction. Having this as proof of concept to discuss with others was what lead me to my final idea, so even having something worked in service of discovering what experiments were apt to move on to.
Cut Piece-of-Eight My first concession was to discover a typeface that applied itself best for the material application, while also fitting well in a feel with the theme of the word and the reflection on the cutting of the book. I needed something that would work well as a cut form, but also have strong enough of weight and body to be easy to manipulate. I considered a few hairline serif faces like Didot or slab serif faces for their ease of cutting, but eventually a sans serif form made the most sense both for cutting application and material strength. Measuring the book for dimensions and sizing the printed digital letters for stenciling, I printed out the text, taped down the book to prevent disruption in the process, and proceeded to cut the letters in relief from the book. Using careful precision with a metal ruler to cut the long stroke cuts and a thin bladed knife for the interior and finer cuts, I aimed to get as deep into the pages as possible to facilitate a good result when displaying the text in the final form.
Even though I took great care to set up the cut in tightest way possible with the old worn book, there were some considerations I didn’t fully calculate. When removing tape, I had to take care to remove very slowly, as the ink from the low quality page lifted easly from the paper. I left the baseline rest of each letter stroke uncut so that I could display the letters as extruding from the page. Having removed the tape, I carefully picked out each letter and its series of cut pages from within, trimming and cutting any section that hadn’t been fully cut, reading to display the physical piece for digital capture.
Paperback Lighter Finalizing the cut words, I set the book up for photo capture, using a light box to get even lighting across the book. I experimented with different bending of extrusion from the page until I struck a good balance between extremity of form and fullness of page backing, as the knife could only cut too deep into the book without complicating the process. Using a macro lens, I captured close up views of each letter and their cut lines. I really appreciated how this view looked with the overlay of the words from the book itself, presenting a dimensional feeling of layered forms of text. The uncut bottom of the text gives the appearance that the word is lifting from the page in a really satisfying way. In retrospect, I do wish I had made the text a bit wider to take advantage of the full body of the page, but I do still feel that the size and weight of the typeface does the composition justice.