Interactive Animation as Fine-Art

[PROMPT: USC MFA Animation Seminar for Fall 2013 focused on Animators who crossed-over to Fine-Art. Professor Christine Panushka introduced us to a wide range of success stories, from the seemingly untouchable heights of Ric Heitzman (of Pee Wee Herman fame) to the emerging Alison Schulnik, whose work (and being) temps you to touch. For the final assignment Panushka asked us to make Art inspired by a seminar speaker and/or their work.  I attended Jodie Mack's show at RedCat, as an extension to her lecture* at our Seminar. ]

Here's the comment I posted on the seminar blog about Jodie Mack's Lecture:

How much more proof do you need to write/animate what you know. Jodie Mack's anti-animated musical awesomeness is Jodie Mack. Thank you, Ms. Mack, for telling the tragic story of another mom (yours!) and pop business failing in the age of the internet. Dusty Stacks of Mom, the Poster Project is at once deep and whimsical. Jody sugar coats the hard reality of her mother's failing business, while celebrating her (and her obvious influence on Jodie's aesthetic sensibilities.) When not telling stories, Jodie Mack's abstractions may be better suited in an environment surrounding the audience, rather than on a single screen where staring at her rapid-fire images feels like its damaging my retina.

Viewing "Let Your Light Shine" through spectrum glasses gave me a rush. The effect of white lines animating across a black background, projected on a large movie screen in total darkness, alongside a theater full of the like-minded/sighted, was euphoric. I wondered if I could control the dosage of excitement by adapted it into an interactive installation.
This frame from Let Your Light Shine shows how spectrum glasses separate white light into its component colors. But the image does not fully represent the effect, as the color seems to fill the theater. This volumetric effect surpasses stereoscopic images (S3D) as it also extends past the edge of the screen.

During the winter break I used the lobby of the new Interactive Media Building as my studio, as I needed the extra room to whip a 15 ft. silk ribbon in front of my Body Scrub device.

Here's what I made:
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55 Powerful Symbols 

A Serious Tongue Lashing is a virtual funhouse mirror reflecting the world as the icons of religions and regimes, of the logos of capitalism and consumerism, and of symbols that mean-well or are just simply mean. 

User/participants can stop for a moment to see their reflection as they deconstruct the mechanics to understand the algorithms at play. 


Or they can  simply play by picking up the included whip made of two 15 ft. long x 4 in. wide heavy silk ribbons,  Slightly longer than the 12 ft. viewing-range of the device, swinging the whip will slowly push the user-participants out of the picture where they see the whip looks like the forked tongue of a snake. 

Closeup view next to full shot of user-participant as they move in and out of the viewing range

Compilation of video captured during development

A Serious Tongue Lashing was made with the Body Scrub device. 
Full credits and exhibition history can be found here.

Video recording from the security cameras in the lobby of the Interactive Media building of USC Cinema

The initial test for the title sequence Tongue Lashing:

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Dancer/Choreographer Stephen Hues sets the screen on fire with new experiments for Firebird Rising. His use of fabric to mimic fire motivated my use of silk ribbons in Tongue Lashing.

Special thanks to Marientina Gotsis for access to the Creative Media and Behavioral Health lab and its dancer-friendly floor.

The Cat and the Coup

This webpage was made for curator Dr. Linda Komaroff as part of the acquisition process at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)  

The following  8 items from the installation were acquired by the museum as a gift of the artists.

The Cat and the Coup, Where's Waldo edition, 2012, 
Archival Injet Prints

The Cat and the Coup is an eccentric historiography of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Iranian coup.

Click to enlarge image.

The Cat and the Coup, Where's Waldo edition, 2012, 
Archival Injet, Printer's Proofs

 1.   January 1962 - March 1967

Image size: ~27" x 40"; Paper size: 32.5" x 44"; Frame size: 34.5" x 46.5"

 2.  Auugust - November, 1953

Image size: ~54" x 40"; Paper size: 60" x 44"; Frame size: 62" x 46.5"

 3.  October 1951 - April 1953

Image size: 20.5" x 40"; Paper size: 28" x 44"; Frame size: 32" x 46.5"

 4.  March - May, 1951

Image size: 34" x 40"; Paper size: 42" x 44"; Frame size: 44" x 46.5"

 5.  March 1951 - March 1967

Image size: 60" x 18"; Paper size: 68" x 24"; Frame size: 70" x 27"

The full image is designed to fold like an accordion into a 5 page book.

 6.  the Cat

In the print edition of The Cat and the Coup, the Cat is represented by over-sized magnifying glass, covered in mink fur* and with an articulating tale.

* The fur was recycled from coat fragments purchased on eBay.

All prints are adhered to acid-free foam core, sit behind museum Plexiglas,
and are mounted in reinforced white frames (2" deep x 1.5" wide.)

These prints were created at Anderson Ranch Arts Center during a 3 month residency.

 7.  The Cat and the Coup, 2011

Interactive Non-fiction (a.k.a. Documentary Video Game)

Title Screen

 8.  Full walk-through by expert player; HD, 9 minutes

Abridged walk-through; 5 minutes

The interactive version of The Cat and the Coup comes installed on a 24" white iMac,
 generously donated by the USC School of Cinematic Arts' hardware recycling program.

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The project was started in 2007 with a seedling grant by The Advancing Scholarship for the Humanities and Social Sciences at USC. The Beta version of the game was released in 2011. In 2018, The Cat and the Coup was remastered in 4K and ported to the Sony PlayStation 4 console. It costs $2 to download.This new version is available for free on Steam and Itch.io Please visit our website for more information, including full credits, sources, reviews, essays, awards, and to download the game for free for PC and Mac.

Mini Lecture Tour

On Tuesday, October 8th, 2013 I traveled from the bright side of the Bay to the capital of Silicon Valley to present 3 talks and 3 Lightning Talks

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9:30–11am; Creative Responses to Catastrophe, 

California College of the Arts, Oakland

Course: Creative Responses to Catastrophe, Instructor: Anita AmirRezvani

45 min. presentation of my projects related to the course topic followed by Q & A from the 15 enrolled students.

Projects Presented:
1. Personal catastrophe, Bani Adam. 1989-2000
2. Sociopolitical catastrophe The Cat and the Coup, 2011, 2012

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3–4:30pm; on Collaboration, 

San Jose State University, Collge of Humanities and the Arts

Projects Presented:
1. The Night Journey, 2007 – Game Innovation Lab collaboration with media-artists at Bill Viola Studios.
2. The Cat and the Coup, 2011, 2012 – collaboration with videogame designer Peter Brinson.
3. The Body Scrub device, 2013 – created for Animation students interested in Interactive Installation

Sponsored by the Design department’s program in Animation/Illustration and the Game Development Club of the Digital Media Arts program in the department of Art and Art History. Special thanks to Game Development Club faculty adviser James Morgan for installing the Body Scrub device at SJSU in advance of my talk.
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7-8:30pm; Decoding The Cat and the Coup

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library on the campus of San Jose State University

Decoding The Cat and the Coup; On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-backed military coup in Iran, which overthrew democratically-elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, I walk through the narrative architecture of The Cat and the Coup, print edition (2012.) My collaborator, USC Assistant Professor of Practice of Cinematic Arts Peter Brinson describes, via pre-recorded video, the allegorical mechanics of the video game (2011). After an introduction by program organizer and the Director of SJSU Persian Studies Dr. Persis Karim, SJSU History Professor Dr. George Vasquez provides context by describing world events and the political environment surrounding the 1953 coup d’état.

My mother and me, at the best library we have ever seen.

Sponsored by Persian Studies at SJSU; made possible by a grant from the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute. Co-Sponsored by the SJSU Department of History, Middle East Studies and Global Studies

Dick Davis Tours the USC Interactive Media Bldg.

Dick Davis, widely regarded the finest living translator of Persian literature into English, stopped by the Game Innovation Lab to play The Cat and the Coup. Professor Davis is visiting USC as part of the 2013 Visions and Voices program to speak about: Epic, Romance, and Mysticism: The Greatness of Persian Poetry.

Professor Davis is pictured wearing an HMD developed at the MxR lab at ICT. He is experiencing iMaP student’s Nonny de la Pena’s Hunger in Los Angeles immersive journalism project. Special thanks to Alex McDowell’s  World Building team for allowing us to interrupt a work session.

During his visit, I realized the cover art for his translation of My Uncle Napoleon was illusrated by Ardeshir Mohasses, whose work inspired the art-direction for The Cat and the Coup.

CNTV 101 and 501; Lightning Talks

USC Cinema faculty present Lightning Talks to all incoming Cinematic Arts students.

I talked about my journey to, and through, the Cinematic Arts.

Interactive Animation at Firebird Rising

Ballet, circus acrobatics, puppets, and even a stilt-walker are choreographed by Stephen Hues for Firebird Rising at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood. This high-octane musical mash-up of Stravinsky and electronic dance music is synchronized to animation projected on and around the performers. 

Choreography: Stephen Hues
Performance: Jennifer Curry Wingrove, AJ Abrams
Music: Kate & Martin St. Pierre
Animation: Kurosh ValaNejad

The animation for the Coda section was made with my Body Scrub device spatializing the frames in this sequence:

Dancers Jennifer Curry Wingrove and AJ Abrams rehearse the Coda section in front of my laptop and sensor.

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Rehearsal, May 19, 2013

Ms. Wingrove channels 1890′s Broadway dancer Annabelle Whitford. 
Wingrove’s Serpentine Dance beautifully illustrates the Body Scrub’s ability to portray spatial depth. The Serpentine Dance was a frequent subject of early motion pictures, as it highlighted the new medium’s ability to portray movement and light. Two particularly well-known versions were Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894) from Edison Studios, and an 1896 Lumière brothers film.

 Filter Tests & Rehearsal Footage