July 14, 2008

'House of Cards' built from data

Note: see also a later post, Maltaannon's House of Form.

 Be patient when you visit the Google Code site/viewer for a piece of Radiohead's new video RA DIOHEA_D / HOU SE OF_C ARDS. The video was visualized from the app Processing with data sets "shot" with lasers (narrow wavelength lights). Google has the video, a data set with which you can manipulate interactive video, a how-it-was-made video, and a complete set of links (credits here). The music and background videos below from YouTube come via Stereogum.

Update: Create Digital Motion mentions a few precursors in style, and Motionographer notes an interview with video director James Frost on Creativity Online. By the way, Frost says he was inspired by 'Flight Patterns' visualizations of Aaron Koblin, who uses AE.

Motionographer also notes MOMA’s recent exhibit, Design and the Elastic Mind, which looks at "design translations of disruptive scientific and technological innovations, and reflects on how the figure of the designer is changing from form giver to fundamental interpreter." Perhaps some artists are catching up to thinkers on technology like Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, and Langdon Winner. Although there is a sort of internal mass culture conversation on technology, like with Radioheads's OK Computer and the 1st movie in The Matrix series, we still can't seem to broach religious topics without freaking out with denial or Manichean dualism.


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