Experimental Animation.. the Making.

The process of making this animation was an interesting one.

I wanted my experimental animation to contain different techniques of representation. I used stills, video, artificially generated scenes etc.

I m posting content which are intended to reflect the process of its making.

I did some photoshop editing for this purpose-

My animation contained stop-motion content also. I captured these frames using NIKON D60 DSLR camera.

The BLUE and RED "elements" which I used to represent 0 and 1 bits or metaphorically Hindi and English, were actually thermocole balls, colored with acrylic color.

The paths which these balls traverse is actually a transparent plastic pipe. I suspended the balls in water, and sucked them ( with my mouth ) to make them move.

The raw videos are posted below. I used Adobe Premier Pro for editing these videoes -

The video of zoomed "English" & "Hindi" -

Following is a edited clip which I used in my Experimental animation-

Following are two clips. One is raw (original), the other edited.

Installation at the site

After a long period of hard work, the installation found its destination, its site in Goa, Kala Academy, venue for IIJS SIGNATURE,2010.


A video preview is available here -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaftMc9dDdQ

Work on the final concept

I had decided the structure. I had decided what it will do.Now the challenge was completion of the task. The greatest hurdle was the motion of the platform in the vertical axis. I tried to do this motion by following how a piston work i.e. transforming circular motion to linear motion.

The making of the piston mechanism was an iterative process. Subsequently, I realized that it needed acute precision which was becoming hard for me to achieve. So I devised another method to do this. I used a screw attached to the motor axis. As the screw rotated, the nut attached to it moved up/down (depending on the direction of rotation). THIS WORKED !

The MDF boxes, of which the structures of the installation were made of, were made using Laser Cutting machine, by me. The screenshot of the corel file used is as follows-

Following are some snaps of the mess created when Laser Cutting was in process.

Initial concepts 2

I had a little stablity in concepts but explorations ceased to cease. It was clear at that stage that I was going to  do something with magnets and iron-dust. But, the question was WHAT? There were a lot of ideas storming my mind. But obviously, I had to fix on one.

I made an interesting exploration. The basis of my installation was the fact that the particles of iron-dust become magnetized when a magnet was brought near them. Each particle magnetized in turn, hence resulting in a structure in 3D space. I was of the view that if the particles are given some sort of support, so they will not fall under their own weight, and therefore can result in a larger structure. I thought of achieving this by use of some viscous fluid. I did the following experiment, trying to achieve a structure of iron-dust in the cylindrical tube when magnets were applied at both the ends.

This, however did not worked out !

I also tried to used electromagnets. With them, I tried to generate different shapes by changing the shape of the solenoid, This too did not worked well, as I realized that iron-dust magnetized along the magnetic lines of flux and not on the body of the solenoid.

Packaging for transportation

As the installations were to be transported from Ahmedabad to Goa, it needed adequate packaging to survive the journey. My installations were "bubble-wrapped" with their corners protected with jute,card-board.

electronic / electrical components

The installation largely depended on electronic components for its functionality. Broadly speaking, the installation had two aspects-
1) Act as a piece of art, aesthetically sound
2) Interactive, capable of providing people with a engaging experience

The functionality was as follows-

• Proximity of an observer was detected through  Passive Infrared Sensor ( PIR, incorporating an Fresnels lens and a motion detecting IC )
• PIR sent a signal which was received by the IC ( made by me)
• The IC in turn triggered a DC motor ( 100 rpm ) to rotate.
• A limit switch was incorporated to limit the height of the platform housing another "motor-magnet" setup.
• The limit switch triggered  a signal, which caused the DC motor to stop rotating.
• At this point, the stepper-motor,kept on the platform started rotating, in pre-programmed fashion.
• In case, no-motion was detected for some pre-defined time, the PIR resets, sending a signal. 
• Receiving this signal, the IC made the stepper-motor to stop.
• Then the DC motor starts rotating in the reverse direction, hence the platform came down.
• Another limit switch at this point is used to limit the minimum height of the platform.

A AC-->DC (12 V , 1.5 A) adapter was used to supply power.