Udart » Portfolio

Concrete forest

Udart — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:20:17 +0000

Concrete Forest – an art project that turned into a party from Obscura on Vimeo.

The video shows the result of a fun little project we did in collaboration with artist Louise Bech Pedersen. We cut out these animal figures of a special acrylic rear projection material and used them for mapping using Modul8 and MadMapper.
Doing the mapping was trivial using these tools – it was the acrylic material itself that proved to be a bit of a challenge. The light projection properties of the material were terrific, a clear and bright image from all angles. For people like us who are used to projecting onto fabric or walls it was a joy to see the brightness of this professional screen material.
However the material was a quite brittle and cracks appeared a few places even when using a saw made for use with acrylics. And the deer lost the tip of the antlers when one of the party goers tried to bring it down with an empty vodka bottle!

Using Unity3D for mapping

Udart — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:51:54 +0000

video installation “Another place” from Obscura on Vimeo.

The above video documents a recent project Obscura did. Actually I was mostly on another project at the time but I followed with great interest the work that my colleagues Frederik and Kasper did here. For all of us this installation was a learning experience in using Unity 3D for mapping onto a spherical object. It took a bit of trial and error but Frederik and Kasper decided to make a workshop out of it instead of worrying too much about the finished result.
They ended up with these little creatures created in Open Frameworks which were piped into Unity 3D via Syphon. They then made a Unity app for mapping onto the sphere. A regular 3D mapped rendering would not do here, as the small boids react to the presence of people in the room via a motion tracking camera.
Using Unity went resonably well – it has a bit of a learning curve, but it definitely has potential for installations that combine live interactivity with mapping, although they ran into some issues that stem from the fact that this is created as a game engine and not a mapping tool.
We feel that we have only just scratched the surface here. In tandem with Syphon you could use Unity to map all sorts of live input onto complex shapes.

Two months of work and 75 minutes later

Udart — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:07:57 +0000

For the past two months my work day has been dedicated to a project that I am very proud of. Our visuals group Obscura was asked by Danish band TV-2 to create a visual backdrop for their new tour. TV-2 is a household name here in Denmark, they have been in the studio and on the roads for 30 years now. But whereas the music and lyrics are distinct and catchy they never had a very clear visual universe.
Luckily for us the band were very open for ideas and while brainstorming together we came upon this idea: One long video (75 minutes) through the whole show, without using any cuts but instead letting each element slowly appear on the screen in one continuous movement. The idea of the video was to start at the invention of moving images around the 1880s and move forward in time through a collage of clips from the history of film and images.

Here you’ll see a short edit of some of the scenes (with another musical score). I recommend going full screen.

Showtime from Obscura on Vimeo.

Orchidelia – miniature mapping

Udart — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:12:30 +0000

Here’s a short segment I did with a video projector and an orchid – not an image of an orchid but a real live house plant. I projected images made with eMotion and the Quartz Composer Soundflower patch onto the petals of the flower.

A happy turn of events

Udart — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:16:09 +0000

Thought I would briefly let you all know that I have now become a full time visualist. Until recently I had a part time job as a web developer to support my crazy addiction to visuals, but a happy turn of events have allowed me to dedicate myself fully to visual projects from now on.

This has become possible because I have joined the Copenhagen based group Obscura. Obscura now consists of 4 people Frederik Hilmer, Thea Collett, Kasper Rasmussen and myself. Obscura does large scale visual installations for events be it concerts, award shows, parties of different kinds and hopefully there will also in the future be room for a few self financed experimental projects.

Here’s two of our recent jobs

Mapping at Carlsberg, Kulturnatten 2010

Giant visuals at The Royal Library

Actually although Obscura has lead a quiet existence when it comes to exposure on the web, Frederik has been working under this name solo for quite a few years dating right back to 1998 when he started out making installations using slide projectors. Today he’s still the anchor person of Obscura with his attention to detail and dedication to inventive solutions involving many pieces of specialized gear.

Obscura doesn’t have an active blog at the moment so until further notice I’ll continue to post here on Udart. Also there’s an Obscura Facebook page (in Danish).

New music video for Nattefrost

Udart — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:42:54 +0000

The Danish act Nattefrost have asked me to create a music video for one of his latest tracks. Instead of just copying the visuals I use when performing with him live I decided to try and do something else. I came up with this idea of filming miniature projections. Have a look.

The track is taken from the album “Transformation”.
To buy the NattefrostÂ releases please visit
www.groove.nl

For more info about Nattefrost please check the websites
www.nattefrost.dk
www.myspace.com/nattefrostmusic

Developing visuals synced to a music composition

Udart — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:29:38 +0000

Recently I have had the pleasure of working with Linda Edsjö a classically trained percussionist and composer Simon Christensen in developing visuals for a piece of modern compositional music. The project was unusual for me as we decided to try to connect the visuals computer with the computer that was running the musical backing track. That way it was possible to obtain a perfect sync Â between music and image.

The music was composed as a piece in the Max/MSP software and this was linked to Modul8 (the visuals) through midi. The music software was sending midi on every beat and another midi signal whenever the music entered a new section of the piece.

To achieve the result I wanted I had to program two small modules for Modul8. These modules were in charge of turning layers on and off, applying effects and switching between images.

Excerpt from percussion concert 7 April 2010 from Udart (Vibeke Bertelsen) on Vimeo.

Video on walls

Udart — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:50:31 +0000

At live concerts video projectors will typically point to the stage and video will light up behind the band. The challenge is to enhance the message or mood of the music without obstructing the listening experience. But at this installation I made for the local Stairway Festival the projectors pointed to the side walls of the room instead. Here the video images became part of the light design and the aim was to transform the rather dull and sterile looking room into something interesting and appealing.

A couple of pics from my current project

Udart — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:29:05 +0000

My current project is an experimantal short film. I had the idea one day looking at an orchid in the window sill. I have used no post processing tricks just the plant and some visuals beamed onto it with the video projector. The visuals were made with eMotion, Â the QC patch Soundflower and a particle screensaver.

I hope to be able post the film soon although my little baby girl keeps pushing my personal deadline for when it should be ready. That’s okay – these days I only do projects with a very flexible time frame.