unit #203 688 Richmond St W.
Toronto, Ontario

Crossings: In the Space of Day and Night
Two Screenings of a Computer Generated Animation by Yam Lau and Tania Ursomarzo

sg03 Studio
unit #203 688 Richmond St W. Toronto, Canada
27 May 2006 one night screening and reception
9:10 (dusk) - 12:00 (midnight)

Meeting House Square
Dublin, Ireland
11-13 May 2006
9:10 (dusk) - 12:00 (midnight)
Presented as part of Despite my good intentions, A wander beyond organized by Caoimhe Kilfeather and Michelle Phelan

www.wayupwaydown.com

This project is an attempt to explore new forms of spatial _expression_ and presentation. It involves the elaboration of a traffic intersection in the city of Toronto through the media of video and 3-D animation software.

The space chosen - the intersection of Bay and Bloor Streets - is a space that highlights the rules/rhythms of the city as incarnated in the movement of the pedestrians. Hence, the way the site is used and animated by ancillary activities constitutes the content of the source video footage.

At the same time we discovered that through the application of 3-D animation and modeling software, representational space could be expressed diagrammatically. That is, although representational video footage of a busy traffic intersection is incorporated in the animation, it is complicated within a schema developed in virtual space that functions as a kind of shorthand of the intersection.

What we characterize as a schematic, "shorthand" _expression_ is embodied in the structure of a film studio that is set up in virtual space. The parameter of the studio is defined by a floor-mounted circular camera track that is framed by a square scaffold suspended directly above. In the center of the studio are four folded screens on which the footage of the intersection is played. The configuration of the screens is set up to express the figure of an intersection, a crossing. A virtual camera dollies around the screens presenting a narrative in the round. The logic of such a setup is an attempt to complicate a series of two-dimensional footages in another dimension. The unfolding of this logic determines both the cuts of the animated sequence, as well as the movement of the virtual camera, leading to a complication between different spatial expressions.

What is accomplished here is specific to the medium, and hence virtual. In this work we discovered that the virtual has a quality that can also be characterized as "organic", that it too generates a movement that signals life.

yam lau tania ursomarzo
toronto 2006

Added by cwhardwi on May 24, 2006

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