Computational Art
In Bb 2.0 is a "collaborative music and spoken word project" from Darren Solomon. With just the native YouTube playback interface, multiple clips can be played and controlled to create your own soothing musical mix.
Related:
MetaFilter thread on In Bb 2.0
Bb Buddha Machine, a randomizing version for continuous playback (Via MetaFilter Projects.)
Star Trek: Voyager Singularity (Fast version) (Excerpt) (Flash Video)
"Every episode of Star Trek: Voyager playing at once in a grid", made by Artie Vierkant.
This post is an ongoing collection of YouTube-based tools for making split-screen media. These web-based tools allow you to select the YouTube clips that you want to use as part of your own multi-channel mashup. I'll update this list as I find more; newer additions are nearer the top of the post.
YooouuuTuuube lays out the frames of a YouTube clip within a grid. The frames can be scrolling by as the clip plays, or be shuffled around the screen. Examples: Alice and Auto-Tune the News #2. See the related MetaFilter thread for more samples.
YouCube creates an interactive 3D cube whose faces are composed of YouTube clips. You can rotate the cube to control the visible faces and the audio mix. See the demo video for YouCube.
Post Modern Brady Bunch (QuickTime)
Visual riff on the opening title sequence of the Brady Bunch by Evan Roth, co-creator of the White Glove Tracking project featured in an earlier post.
Wild Beasts - Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants (Flash Video)
Another sweet video by OneInThree, this time for Wild Beasts, featuring endlessly spiralling subframes. The team began with existing code by Josh Sommers for generating a Droste effect image, then created proprietary solutions so that live action footage can be used as source material. Read more about the making of the video.
Related:
M.C. Escher and the Droste effect
Droste effect images by Josh Sommers
Another gallery of Droste effect images
Thanks to Ross Cooper.
A Moment on Earth Mosaic (Flash)
Interface for browsing photos from the project A Moment on Earth.
On August 5th, 2004 at 12:00 noon GMT, and again exactly 12 hours later, 60 Filmmakers around the world set out to capture a single Moment on Earth. With participants in over 40 countries and on all 7 continents, the events and Heroes that they captured span a spectrum of emotions and speak to what it is to be human and alive on Earth today... The larger picture it creates shows images from the first moments in Iraq and the Pacific Ocean. You can 'fly' your mouse over the moment and click to see larger images, read about the individual moments and, in time, leave comments on what you see.
HBO Voyeur (Archived website) [Big Spaceship]
HBO Voyeur (Excerpt) (QuickTime) [TRUST]
HBO Voyeur (Excerpt) (YouTube)
HBO Voyeur (Trailer) (YouTube)
Update 9.5.2008: There exists an archived version of the HBO Voyeur website that you can try out.
HBO Voyeur was a web/cable production that featured multiple spaces and storylines. The plot was presented in several rooms, and web viewers could navigate to the different locations and pick up the narrative threads.
From a ReadWriteWeb post on HBO Voyeur:
The premise was simple: Using a single, stationary camera angle and no dialogue, viewers would be invited to literally peer into the apartments of the show's characters. Stories would unfold strictly through action, often times in multiple rooms at once (and often times multiple story lines at once)... From the HBO Voyeur web site, viewers can look in on stories unfolding in 5 different locations, including one entire apartment building. The view is a cross section looking through the walls of the apartment (or in one case, a funeral parlor) at the people inside.
I'm way late to the party here; the project is from 2007 and the official site at hbovoyeur.com has long been shut down. It sounds like an intriguing attempt and interactive visual narration.
Thanks to Lee Rothenflue.
MFO - Aviorama (QuickTime, 58MB) [MFO]
MFO - Aviorama (YouTube)
You might have noticed the presence of a Live Visual category for Split Screen, but I've done precious little with it. As a start towards fixing that, here's a long-overdue example of a split-screen work from the world of VJing. It comes from MFO, a Leipzig-based video artist.
MFO describes Aviorama:
“Aviorama” is a video performance featuring exclusive material filmed at the airport Leipzig-Halle (thanks to the airport carrier) and at the control tower (thanks to Deutsche Flugsicherung). Also featuring video footage by enthusiasts worldwide (thanks to the Internet).The material is being reworked to an immersive and dense impression, being woven to visual poetry, to visual music. “Aviorama” comes as a panorama - it is made for three adjoined screens!
You can see more of MFO's work at the official site or the YouTube page.
Via Accent Feed which looks like a fantastic resource for samples of VJ-related visuals.
Taken (YouTube)
Taken is a media installation from 2002 by David Rokeby. It is currently on view at the Whitney in New York as part of a show called Profiling which ends on September 9. (Scroll down Whitney's current exhibits page for some details on Profiling.)
From Julie Talen who saw the exhibit:
[I]t's an intriguing example of what I call 'seeing people twice' - that unique ability of divided screens to show the same image in two entirely different ways simultaneously. Theoretically, it's all about the dangers of surveillance, which are, of course, quite maddeningly omnipresent, but are also, ironically, often quite beautiful, as they are here -- and I'm not happy with the Whitney's equating the very real issue of racial profiling with the art experience of seeing the random museum-goer on the big screen in multiples, but nonetheless, it's irresistible, a brilliant use of superimposition and the exploding of 'real-time' in video. And it's only up for another week, so I hope people get a chance to experience it.
If you are in NYC this week, this sounds like a great piece to see. Also, check out Rokeby's YouTube page for more goodness.
Thanks to Julie Talen.
Slinky (QuickTime, 640x480, 45MB)
Slinky (YouTube)
Stretchy (QuickTime, 640x480, 45MB)
Stretchy (YouTube)
Shapely (QuickTime, 640x480, 33MB)
Shapely (YouTube)
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (Live 1983 Motown 25) (YouTube)
One of the things I did during a two-week summer break in DC was to make three video sketches grouped under White Glove Tracking visualization. These videos are based on data from White Glove Tracking, an open source project initiated by Evan Roth and Ben Engebreth. The data contains the approximate location and size of Michael Jackson's trademark white glove in all 10060 frames of his landmark Motown 25 performance of Billie Jean on March 25, 1983.
Before watching my videos, you might first watch the video of the original performance (YouTube) which is part of the downloadable dataset.
My three videos represent the combination of the original performance footage and the data on the white glove. Slinky highlights the fluidity of Jackson's movements; Stretchy brings to animated life the variety of glove sizes, positions, and contours; and Shapely illustrates the prominence of another type of white glove in Jackson's life - the surgical glove. I recommend watching the QuickTime versions which are bigger and have better quality.
The Processing source code for these three videos are available on my WGT visualization project page, if you want to play with it.
