Animated logo I did for someone that was doing a film on a jazz composer

Roll over the images to animate them.

Roll over the image to animate it.

I am animating a workshop on Unity3D. Come and try this great software.

11.00-12.45 Thames Valley University

http://mercury.tvu.ac.uk/showcase/

See the demo

For this project I was looking at Interactive and Immersive Virtual Artworks.

I focused on virtual sculpting tools. Indeed I wanted to virtually reproduce the symbolic gesture of a hammer on the stone. I realized that today many artists are actually using computer for their creative artwork, using software such as Maya, Google sketchup… but those softwares are quite difficult to use. You really need to have computer skills. Another thing is that they are mostly additive: the sculptor adds material to create a mesh. Whereas, sculpting is traditionally negative : Leonardo de Vince used to say that he was just unveiling what was inside the stone.

I have found at the London Natural History Museum, kits of virtual paleontologist : the child digs and excavates the skeleton of a mysterious prehistoric animal. This is how came to me the idea of a virtual archeology game in 3D where the user would have to look for an antique vase.

As I wanted to simulate the movement of the hammer, the use of the mouse was not very convenient. So I found a way to plug-in the WII remote control on my computer. The user hold it as he would hold a hammer.

Technically I developed the game with Unity3D (with javascript scripts to read the 3 acceleration of the WII remote control) and created 3d object in Maya.

See the demo

See the animation

Picasso used to say “I paint against paintings important for me, and also with the ones that are missing in the imaginary museum”.

After been to the exhibit “Picasso Challenging the past” at the National Gallery, I decided to develop a project that would consist in challenging Picasso the same way he did with many painters. I have chosen “La joie de vivre” painted in 1946 by Picasso. It seems that he was himself inspired by Matisse (“La joie de vivre 1906) himself inspired by “Les baigneuses” from Cezanne!

For this work I tried to focus on every elements of the painting and reinterpreted it with my own sensibility.

I first work on a 3D reinterpretation of the women “Venus”, an added each elements to finish in a valse with Picasso himself!

see the animation

Watch the film
A reflexion about how we can be prisoner of daily life

At the origin of this project there is a reflexion I had about remediation, its impact on today’s life and the development of new art forms. I tried to see New Media as a mean to give us another vision of “traditional” art.

An other inspiration is the film: “Le mystère Picasso”. Indeed, Clouzot, a French filmmaker won a price in Cannes in 1956 for his film “le Mystère Picasso”. He filmed Picasso painting using a fixed camera behind the canvas. Picasso was using special pen for black and white painting that were able to go through the canvas. The use of colors is remarkable, because when the artist draws with the pencil or with the charcoal, the film is in black and white; but when he starts to paint in colors, the colors appear. multiplying the processes of approaches and the points of view.

This film made me want to explore an artist creative process, and this is how I came to work on Giacometti’s creating process.

I had seen the exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts “Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists” in October 2008.
And the James Lord book ” A giacometti protrait” help me to develop my project. What I kept in mind afterward is how Giacometti needed to do and redo many times his work before to be satisfied. He wanted to paint or sculpt what he was seeing but his vision itself was moving all the time.

The project concept is to be an animation available in a museum to understand better the creative process of an artist.

A sculpture being made

The first part is about a sculpture creative process. It consists in an interactive animation : the spectator can through the touch pad, play with it to make it grow up and down.

see the work

A painting being made

I tried to recreate the painting process from different pictures of a painting at different stage.

see the work

Watch the film

As I was filming my children on holidays I was seeing myself years ago… Here again I played with mixing materials from different time.

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Growing up with a father who was found of filming his family with super 8 I was quite interested when I discovered my husband’s family’s films. Discovering movies not seen for more than 35 years, I realised how life is such a repetition. And this is how came to me the idea to mix images from different families  : we do not know anymore which family it is and when it was : it could have been anyone wheneven. This is a very universal message about what we transmit to our children… We all try to reproduce something with our own children. I tried to do a film about how each life is the echo of another.

For this project I wanted to start from super 8 films. So one first issue was to digitize this material. I used a quite efficient but long process following the principles of the Internet site : http://homepage.mac.com/onsuper8/process.html.

I was inspired for this film by Emir Kursturica and how he used super 8 films. Indeed in many of his films there is at least a sequence of “film inside the film”, where a movie is being watched, or where a character imitates a famous role from another movie. For instance here in Arizona Dream.

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I have done a few short films, working mainly with Final Cut Pro and After effects.

I have also being working with super 8 films, transferring data and mixing materials from different time and place…

June 2007 Echoes of lives

The project
The film

August 2008 Carte Postale

The project
The film

January 2009 Routine

The project
The film

July 2009 Henley souvenirs

The project
The film

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For this project I was inspired by my memories of the “Pont Neuf” wrapped by Christo and flowered by Kenzo. I wanted to bring back to life these memories, involving the audience with an intereactive work. The spectator movements interact with his vision : the film stops as there is no movement in from of the webcam.

The main concept is to bring back to life ephemeral art that happened on the bridge: Christo and Kenzo ‘s work. The work gives different visions of the bridge mixing different materials: 3D animation and photos.

This project wes developed as “Street Art” work : it is to be viewed in a large screen on the street or in a subway station by people willing to go to the bridge, or close to it. The spectator is not looking for a piece of art but its attention must be caught by the work.

I am using Webcam technology to input interaction on the project : the spectator movements interact with what he sees.

As I wanted to go further on interactivity so I started to develop the possibility to send a message on the screen.

The project development

I would like to invite people through a website, to participate to the project.

They would be asked to send histories, memories, pictures, films, paintings about the bridge. A selection would be made and the work itself would be modified from times to times to integrate new materials.

The work should be more interactive, offering to receive data on a cellular phone with photos or links to websites relating to historical data, painters inspired by the brige, the movie “Les amants du pont neuf”…

By the way, this was my first work in Flash!

See the animation

I did this pop art portrait animation using flipping page in Flash.

You have also animations inside the flipping book.
Have a look at it and turn the pages using your mouse!

Sophie de Launaguet