Playful Randomness is the name of my first solo show, that took place in one the official Pictoplasma 2018 venues in Berlin. The exhibition was focused around my Random Access Character project, alongside other pieces. All the pieces were exposed in Kunsthaus KuLe, an historical art place in central Berlin. Here is an overview of the pieces I presented.
My procedural character generator was the main piece. It lets you generate an infinite number of different characters, made from various objects and textures. Morphology, colors, movements, patterns are mixed together to create a unique blend and generate a unique character every time.
Digitally augmented objects allowed visitors to interact with it: A "button-dice" would generate a new random character, while a "button-book" would save an animated gif of it and upload it to online collaborative gallery. For this occasion, specific soundscapes and foley were made by sound artist Pierre-Marie Blind. The sounds changed with each character, composing a unique soundtrack for each one.
I made an adapted version of the character generator, which generate faces. Using real-time face tracking, the digital face follow and look at the visitor. Each new person arriving in the view field had a new character of its own.
I also presented some prints from the Turbo Swagg Calendar, as it was an inspiration where the random character generator came from.
Next to the other pieces was a prototype of an ongoing project : a customized craphic card, walking on the ground, held on a leash by a concrete hand. The movements of the craphic card generate visuals. This ongoing project will be further documented in the future.
Two groups of paintings, with video-mapped procedural 3d animations. Each one is a surrealist spaceship, which patterns and colors are constantly renewing.
I gave a talk about procedural generation, video game as art-form, emerging systems as creative tool, algorythm-based art; and also sharing ideas, references and inspirations.
I would like to say huge thanks to Peter Thaler for this opportunity, to Sophie Jackson for her continous help and support, to Florence Maigrot Beghelli for her help and support, to Victor Beaupuy, Leon Denise, Jonathan Giroux, Henri Morawski for their invaluable help to setup the exhibition, to Kunsthaus KuLe for their welcoming support, and to Agata and Laura for their great help, and to the whole Pictoplasma team.