Eyjafjallajökull

Eyjafjallajökull
an audiovisual installation by Joanie Lemercier (AntiVJ)
Inspired by the icelandic volcano, which wreaked travel havoc across europe in april 2010, Joanie Lemercier
[AntiVJ] presents the latest incarnation of its audiovisual mapping project. Painted directly onto a large
wall, a wireframed scenery is slowly revealed by gentle light effects. The audience’s sense are progressively
challenged as optical illusions question their perception of space.
VIDEO OF THE PIECE:
http://vimeo.com/32811205
The installation has been presented in the following places:
- Empac, New York, USA: 30 April - 2nd May 2010.
- London, UK: 10-14/11/2010, Onedotzero festival, BFI.
- Bristol, UK: 3/12/2010, Plan 9 exhibition space.
- Beijing, China: 17 Dec 2011 - 03 Jan 2012, China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts,
JOANIE LEMERCIER -
Né le 21 Juin 1982 a Pithiviers, France.
Expartié en Angleterre en 2004, Joanie Lemercier commence a décliner son travail de graphiste sur des
formats différents, (graffiti et peinture grand format, vidéo projection en clubs et galleries). Rapidement
repéré par la scène électronique Anglaise, il se produit dans de nombreux clubs et festival a travers le
pays, puis a travers l'Europe (Glastonbury [UK], Printemps de Bourges [France], Electric picnic [Ireland],
clubtransmediale [berlin]) et co-organise une soirée Audiovisuelle a Bristol: "Cuisine", ou il invite la plupart
de ses artistes visuels favoris (Legoman, Studio_VJ, Sanch).
Petit a petit, Joanie Lemercier se tourne vers de formats de projection différents (multi-projection, supports
en relief, matériaux transparents) en s'éloignant radicalement du format standard "écran rectangulaire
plat" et en explorant la technique du mapping, des 2006, puis en présentant ses premieres installations
audiovisualles (Light sculpture, clubtransmediale Berlin: http://antivj.com/clubtransmediale/ )
Avec d'autres Artistes Européens, il va créer en 2007 "AntiVJ", un label visuel dont le travail est basé sur
l'utilisation de la lumière projetée dans l'espace tridimensionnel et sa perception par le spectateur, et qui a
pour vocation de produire et développer installations, lives audiovisuels et projection architecturale.
Les différents projets du label ont depuis été présentés dans de nombreux festival internationaux (eArts
[Chine], Sondgo [Corée du Sud
2011 Collaboration avec le musicien Flying Lotus (Warp): show audiovisual a La Roundhouse (Londres).
2011 Présentations et workshop dans trois écoles primaires (3 semaines), a l’école des Beaux Arts de
Mulhouse, écoles d’Architecture de Helsinki et de Nantes.
], multiplicidade [Brésil], Mutek [Canada], Onedotzero [NY]).
Projets et étapes importants:
2006 Commence a expérimenter avec la technique du mapping
2007 Installation Light Sculpture V1 au festival Club Transmediale, Berlin http:
www.antivj.com/clubtransmediale/index.htm
2007 Premier mapping architectural de grande envergure, Light Up Bristol – www.vimeo.com/859097
2008 Mapping architectural pour Nuit Blanche Bruxelles – www.antivj.com/nuitblanche_bxl/index.htm
2008 Résidence et nouvelle installation au festival eArts, Shanghai - http://vimeo.com/4098730
2009 Commence a expérimenter avec la stéréoscopie
2009 Mapping du grand orgue de la cathédrale de Breda, Hollande http://antivj.com/grote_kerk/index.htm
2009 Premier mapping architectural en Corée du Sud, dans la ville de Songdo – www.antivj.com/songdo/
index.htm
2009 Développement de la première version du Mapping Software ANTIVJ 1.0 - www.mediasandbox.co.uk/
antivj
2009 Commission du Technology Strategy Board Anglais pour explorer de nouvelles techniques de
présentation de contenu stéréoscopique www.pmstudio.co.uk/project/projecting-holograms
2009 Le Stereoscopic show en tournée au Brésil www.antivj.com/pog
2009 Nouvelle création: projections mapping sur une tapisserie des Gobelins de 1787, parlement de
Bretagne, France
2010 Nouvelle création Eyjajallajokull développée pendant la résidence a Empac/NY,commissionnée par
onedotzero www.antivj.com/empac
2010 Mapping AntiVJ sur le château des Ducs de Bretagne, présenté dans le cadre des journées du
patrimoine. Scopitone, Nantes.
2010 Premiers tests dans le dôme stéréoscopique NVC, en Suède.
2010-11 Scénographie du projet Murcof + AntiVJ, présenté au Canada, Mexique, Italie, Portugal, Chine.
2011 Nouvelle installation Light Canvas présentée a Oslo Lux, Norvège, puis a Wellington, Nouvelle Zélande.
2011 Premiere exposition solo au lab-labanque a Béthune, France.2012 Préparation d’une nouvelle
exposition a Brooklyn, NYC, avec 6 pieces prétentées.
ANTIVJ, VISUAL LABEL
AntiVJ is a visual label, initiated by a group of European-based artists whose work is focused on the use of
projected light and its influence on perception.
Stepping away from standard set ups and techniques, AntiVJ presents live performances and installations to
challenge the senses featuring video-mapping, tracking, stereoscopy and holographic illusions.
Taking visuals away from the restrictions of flat rectangular screens and into the real world, the label
transforms objects, sculptures or ject; or buildings into hypnotising canvasses to create immersive sitespecific experiences.
Over the last few years AntiVJ artists have been working on all kinds of projects, from large scale mapping
projections (the Old Port’s metallic conveyor’s tower at Montreal’s Mutek festival; in Songdo, South Korea’s
futuristic city-proon the 25m high baroque organ of the Cathedral of Breda) to installation work (the Light
Sculpture installation series showcased at Club Transmediale ’07, Geneva’s Contemporary Art Center ’08 and
New York’s Empac festival ’10) to space/stage scenography and audiovisual collaborations (developing tools
to produce and control in real-time 3D stereoscopic content for French retro-futurist electronic band Principle
of Geometry).
www.antivj.com
http://blog.antivj.com
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
- Architectural mapping in Songdo, South Korea.
- Audiovisual performance on Breda cathedral organ, for the cultural night, Netherlands.
- Light sculpture v2, BAC Geneva, Switzerland.
- Murcof + AntiVJ, Mutek Montreal, Canada.
Eyjafjallajökull
an audiovisual installation by Joanie Lemercier (AntiVJ)
Story
Last year, onedotzero approached me to be part of one of their event, a festival they organised at empac,
upstate New York, with a selection of screenings, installations and live performances http://empac.rpi.edu/
events/2010/spring/onedotzero/
The original plan was to fly to empac to do a 3 weeks residency, to develop a new project from scratch,
which would involve projection mapping onto objects, a sound track by minimal techno producer
Sleeparchive, and potentially a live performance on the day of the opening. As the video explains, the
original idea and schedule felt apart when the volcano erupted, and the 3 weeks long residency turned into
just 5 days on site, to setup the installation and prepare a live performance.
2D/3D mapping
Considering the constraints, it wasn't realistic anymore to plan any 3D mapping, or project onto a complex
structure. The tools and workflow I was using at the time, wouldn't have worked with only a few days for
production, so I decided to use a different technique: a projection mapping, but this time on a flat surface,
an idea that is similar to an experiment I did in Bristol back in december 2008 for a gig with dubstep
producer Shackleton.
http://blog.antivj.com/2009/live-painting-shackleton/
http://vimeo.com/2690618
The idea here is to project a layer of light onto a painted visual, and use this "virtual layer" to create depth
effects and enhance the visual by adding colors, animations and motion to the still graffiti.
I liked the challenge of using the production tricks I've learned from architectural mapping projects, and
play around with the audience visual perception, to make this 2D visual appear as if it was an actual three
dimensional structure.
Technically, this process is almost like "reverse mapping", as all the production can be done on a computer,
without worrying about projector alignment, and I just trace / draw over a projection of the still image
I designed. This, compared to a complex 3D mapping such as a baroque architecture project (http://
vimeo.com/3041995), is a total relief.
Minimal vs organic
I've been obsessed by geometry and minimalism for years, and most of my work has been very clinical,
cold, and more abstract that figurative or realistic, and I wanted to start working with more organic shapes,
and start using curves, less angular patterns. Being fascinated by the relationship between maths, geometry
and nature, and I wanted to explore that idea in my work, and incorporate some visual elements that would
connect geometric patterns and ocean waves, terrain, mountains relief, wind, snow and rain motion.
I started off with a simple grid with a 100x100 resolution, in a x-y-z space, and I set a rule of only moving
theses points onto the Y axis to generate a series of 3d models, as a starting point to find inspiration for the
project.
I started manually, but to make the patterns more interesting, I starting using different kind of noises: perlin
noise http://www.noisemachine.com/talk1/ , simplex noise, turbulence and voronoi, I could then turn my
grid into landscapes, ocean, dunes, mountains, by only playing around with the noise values: scale, offset,
contrast..
STILLS OF THE EARLY EXPERIMENTS OF GRID DISPLACEMENT AND SHADING.
STILLS OF THE EARLY EXPERIMENTS OF GRID DISPLACEMENT AND SHADING.
THE SAME GRID BEING TURNED INTO A VOLCANIC LANDSCAPE
After countless hours of random experiments, and render with different types of shading, I then focused on
the perspective and and the choice of the field of view I would use. I did experiments with isometric, birds
eye view, with or without foreshortening, and I ended up using a One-point perspective and a 50mm virtual
lens, to guide the audience sight to the center of the piece.
THE VOLCANO
Once I had chosen the technique, and played around with the models, camera, shading, I
was so obsessed by the volcano that ruined the residency ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
2010_eruptions_of_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull ), that the narratives and the content for the piece appeared
to be quite obvious at that point: the main visual of the piece had to be the volcano, so I modeled and
mountain like landscape and got inspired by pictures and videos of the Eyjafjallajökull, and the animations
were going to be its story:
The early seismic waves that were recorded at Eyjafjöll at the end of 2009 and gradually increased in
intensity until on 20 March 2010, the first small eruption(rated as a 1 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index.
Beginning on 14 April 2010, the eruption entered a second phase and created an ash cloud that led to the
closure of most of Europe's IFR airspace from 15 until 20 April 2010. Consequently, a very high proportion of
flights within, to, and from Europe were cancelled, creating the highest level of air travel disruption since the
Second World War.
(source wikipedia).
The end of the piece is a bit more abstract and futuristic, with waves of light going through the wireframe
soil and the volcano.
Unfortunately Sleeparchive couldn't come due to the flight cancellations + Visa problems, so I ended up
working with field recordings of the eruption, and an beautiful track from Robert henke (monolake) http://
www.monolake.de/
TECHNICAL ASPECT
At the end, the project is a large marker pen drawing on 2 walls (6m x 3.5m high), with a dual 1920x1080
projection, running at 30fps and produced with cinema4D. The piece has then been edited with Vegas 10,
encoded in a GPU friendly codec and screened through a custom patch made with vvvv (http://vvvv.org/
). The piece is then streamed from a laptop with a dualhead2go, or with a custom media server when the
project has to be shown for several weeks.
FUTURE OF THE PROJECT
Considering the constraints, the project was developed only under a few days, and even if it has evolved
since then, the next step will be to screen the piece at 60 frames per second, and ultimately at 120fps, to
reinforce the realistic aspect of the projection. I am slowly moving from classic production to realtime tools,
and the idea is to turn the piece into a full realtime patch (with physics and multiple point light shaders), so
it might then be possible to screen a new version of the piece actually being mapped onto a real erupting
volcano, when the right projectors becomes available. :)
HOW TO SETUP THE PIECE
The two FullHD video projectors are attached to the ceiling.
- Grid patterns will be used to check that the image is aligned with the wall.
- Projectors are centered and aligned on the middle of the image and perfectly perpendicular to the wall.
- No Keystone or image distortion will be used (projector reset might be necessary).
- Cabling will be either DVI (ideal) or VGA. Signals boosters might be used if cable lenght are > 10m.
Booking and contact:
Joanie Lemercier
[email protected]
0044 7809208315
AntiVJ is a visual label
-----------------------------------------Pervasive Media Studio
Anchor Square, Harbourside
Bristol, England BS1 5DB
United Kingdom