Late Night Render

So, I'm going to keep this post brief, as I want to avoid blogging for blogging's sake. I'm currently taking part in the Video Mapping Workshop being run by Jaygo Bloom in the VRC. Basically we're exploring the visual possibilities of mapping images (static or moving) on to physical objects.

My interest comes from the idea of working within a virtual environment with architecture and juxtaposing this against the physical. There's no better an example of architectural video mapping (in an installation enviroment) than the work of Pablo Valbuena. Jaygo gave some examples of his work today, but missed out one of my favourite of his pieces (video below).

Modernism (in terms of form and structure) seems designed for the preciseness of architectural video mapping. This output also fits nicely with the concept of Virtual Modernism I discussed in my previous post. The use of 3D simulation gives modernism the clean lines, and completed fictitious utopian narrative it so desires.

Moving forward I have to consider how this technical craft can be applied to the realities of modernism (i.e. its demise). There's a fine line between nostalgia/ rhetoric (remembering modernism for what it was and could have been) and contextualising the movement in the present (without resorting to the typical MODERNSIM = FAIL conclusion). Perhaps I want to resort to nostalgia and rhetoric - a little socialist ideology is always welcome in our every expanding globalised capitalist democracy. I'm still not sure.

Anyways, I've nattered on. Once the workshop is complete I will update with some images and a more detailed account of what went on. I will also be updating about my visit to the GSA Archive where I viewed the original architectural plans for Gillespie, Kidd & Coia's St. Brides in East Kilbride.