China, My China

Studio Artist user Victor Ingrassia recently completed a music video called "China, My China" for the group "The Diving Bell". "The Diving Bell" is out of Seattle, and the song and associated video were released on FIN Records.

Victor had this to say about the new music video. "I've been working on it since last November. I was able to work in 1080p using SA4, FCPX & Motion5. 95% of the content was created in Studio Artist 4. I used Motion 5 for some graphic elements as well as to make the blossom snow. Final Cut Pro X was where I composited and edited it. The speed of the new iMac, along with how sweet Studio Artist runs on the Intel processor, combined with FCPX's background rendering allowed me to work experimentally and intuitively… often tossing material back and forth between Studio Artist, Final Cut & Motion. I was able to explore dangerous paths that would have wasted time I didn't have, were I still using my old G5 tower. I worked mostly from found and stock footage using a combination of auto rotoscope and hand drawing. I had a great time making this and stretching my Studio Artist skill set."

I really like that the Fin Records label was inspired by Black Sparrow Press, Charles Bukowski's publisher. Fin Records and the group are premiering the new music video this weekend at SXSW.

Victor is a master at manipulating Studio Artist video processing effects, and has a ton of great Studio Artist processed video examples on both his web site and his vimeo site.

Pinar Du Pre's New Mixed Media Show

Studio Artist user Pinar Du Pre has a new mixed media exhibition currently at the Gallery Linart in Instanbul. The exhibition features artwork that combines digital painting along with additional natural media hand painted treatments.

Pinar describes her artistic process as follows.

"First, I design an illustration or a photo montage of what i would like to represent. I then import that image as a Studio Artist source image. I primarily use the Vectorizer, playing around with the various controls until I like the way it looks. I may manipulate the generation of bezier paths to generate backgrounds with less detail and a simplified look, while preferring more detail in the foreground of the figures. I then export the fine tuned Vectorizer output as an EPS file and merge the paths in Illustrator or render them directly into Photoshop.

This way the image has lots of partitions. Which I then start rendering with additional digital treatments. At some parts I will hand paint effects with Studio Artist, or overlay additional patterns or picture elements within individual partitions. I then print the final digital results on canvas.

At that point, I start hand painting with real paint on top of the digitally printed canvas. I use dimensional acrylic paint to add a kind of 3D quality to the artwork. I then finish everythign up with a high shine layer of epoxy. The finished paintings have a glassy art deco air about them, while still being ultra modern."

More information on Pinar's current exhibition, including a slide show of the artwork shown in the exhibition, as well as a description of her artistic philosophy, can be found here.

More information on the Gallery Linart can be found here.

Pinar's main web site is at www.pinardupre.com.

Anthony Bouttell's Wind Surfing Imagery

Wintertime in Hawaii is the season of big wave surfing and strong trade winds that also fuel a very active wind surfing and kite surfing scene. Studio Artist user Anthony Bouttell has an online gallery of Studio Artist generated wind surfing images that give a feel for the wind surfing action happening in Kailua Bay on the windward side of Oahu.

Anthony describes his work as "photo-graphics. "With photography, the mere act of taking a picture has altered the image. Choosing the camera format, the film speed, aperture, type of lens, and a host of other parameters have all contributed to a unique vision of the subject. The darkroom now exists inside of the computer, which simply extends this creative process into the digital realm".

Anthony's web site is at www.illustrativeman.com.

Artificial Afrika - A Tale of Lost Cities

Studio Artist user Vernon Reid is premiering 'Artificial Afrika - A Tale of Lost Cities' at Dixon Place in New York City every weekend this month. This multi-discipline piece explores the Dark Continent merging world music, hip hop, film, and visual art. Artificial Afrika examines the idea of Africa, not only a continent with a multiplicity of cultures, languages, and peoples, but also Afrika, a country of the mind.

Grammy award winning Reid is joined in collaboration with Akim Funk Buddha and DJ Leon Lamont. Studio Artist was used heavily to create the multi-media imagery in this critically acclaimed show. The next 2 shows are February 24, 25 at 7:30pm, Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, NY, NY. The Lounge opens at 6pm.

For more information on the show at Dixon Place check out this link.

Apocalypse Cow

Studio Artist user Victor Ingrassia recently completed the visuals for a video made for Fin Records called "Apocalypse Cow". The video is associated with composer David Hahn's recent limited edition colored vinyl record release on Fin Records.

Victor had this to say about the project. "I used Studio Artist for all the animation. I captured the original source video in a wide range of resolutions; much of it small low quality web video. I liberally upscaled and enhanced these captures in Studio Artist in preparation for animation at 720p HD.

My toolset consisted of a mixture of preset and custom image operations, vectorizer and paint synthesizer patches. The finished animation includes a mixture of auto rotoscoping and hand auto drawing. I animated in a range of frame rates (from 6-30fps) to optimize the look and feel of different sections. I explored alpha for the first time in Studio Artist to create elements for compositing in Final Cut Pro. 

It was an interesting challenge to create video for such a short piece. Great care was taken to not waste a frame and moving forward with confidence was critical."

This project lead to Victor being commissioned for a Fin Records music video, with an anticipated release date in Match 2012. Victor's demo reels showcase a wide variety of Studio Artist auto-rotoscope and paint animation styles, and are available for viewing on his web site. Victor also has a number of awesome Studio Artist generated video examples on his vimeo page.

Occupy Online Collection - A Study in Controlled Randomization

Studio Artist user Tucker Stilley has put together an online gallery of his most recent experiments in controlled random generative art creation. The finished art gallery images are derived from working with collections of images randomly web spidered from online articles about the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Tucker worked in tandem with his cybernetic collaborator Nguyn-9000 (aka Studio Artist) to put together this series of art prints.

Tucker uses Studio Artist's Gallery Show features to help him explore the possibilities of working with controlled generative randomization as a creative process. He generates a large number of art images using automated Gallery Show runs that process his web harvested topical imagery, and then culls through the results looking for keeper images. Tucker's end goal was a series of detailed giant prints, so the actual finished processed images are 60" wide.

Tucker has this to say about his recent experiments. "I have been using Studio Artist for almost a decade now and every day I am surprised, I haven't even scratched the depth of possibilities. I got very interested in Studio Artist's generative and random qualities when I became paralyzed. In this case, I became interested in the effect of custom presets applied to vast folders of images spidered off the web. The resulting composites were dreamy and freakish and called out for action.

If you've ever "tried" to make something random - but controlled, you'll know what I mean - it's hard work! "

Tucker talks more about this and other projects on his blog.

For more information on Gallery Show check out these Studio Artist tips.

Charis Tsevis in the News

Studio Artist user Charis Tsevis's work was quite prominent online this fall in the aftermath of Steve Job's passing. Tevis's stunning Studio Artist generated photo mosaic imagery was featured in many Steve Jobs tribute articles.

The Greek Reporter featured Charis in an interview article that discussed his approach and techniques used to generate his artwork. Charis talks about his use of Studio Artist to build photo mosaic imagery and other visual effects, as well as his thoughts on being a digital artist in modern Greece.