“The idea of navigable space is at the very origins of the computer era.” (Manovich, 2001)
Three-dimensional digital renderings are composed of immaterial substances, presented through multiple interfaces (computer screen, projection, TV screen) that we process through light: the ultimate immaterial material. There is a journey that all immaterial digital substances undertake, from creation to presentation, they are computed, rendered, exported, projected. The work I create makes the audience aware of this journey through short films. I work within a digital studio, producing three-dimensional galleries that house obscure objects. The environments are sparse and comprised of glossy, unnaturally textured structures that reflect and surround the digital sculptures. The objects themselves are made very intuitively and are often crafted from a basic cube or sphere. But creating the objects and their world is only the first step of the process, they need to be ‘filmed’ and rendered, and then edited like regular video footage. Once edited and overlaid with audio the video must still make the voyage to a projector or screen to be exhibited.
Three-dimensional digital renderings are composed of immaterial substances, presented through multiple interfaces (computer screen, projection, TV screen) that we process through light: the ultimate immaterial material. There is a journey that all immaterial digital substances undertake, from creation to presentation, they are computed, rendered, exported, projected. The work I create makes the audience aware of this journey through short films. I work within a digital studio, producing three-dimensional galleries that house obscure objects. The environments are sparse and comprised of glossy, unnaturally textured structures that reflect and surround the digital sculptures. The objects themselves are made very intuitively and are often crafted from a basic cube or sphere. But creating the objects and their world is only the first step of the process, they need to be ‘filmed’ and rendered, and then edited like regular video footage. Once edited and overlaid with audio the video must still make the voyage to a projector or screen to be exhibited.
The idea of a digital journey is not isolated to just the literal expedition that the digital file completes during creation, it is also reflected in all digital interactions. The navigation of the digital is essential to using any computer interface. Files are explored, set in locations, sometimes even retrieved through shortcuts. The Netscape can be Navigated, the Internet Explored, or (if on a Mac) a Safari trip through the internet can be had. The very tool of navigation, the mouse cursor, is an arrow or pointing hand, a symbol of movement directed from one place to another.
In my short film Midday Wednesday (2018) I document this phenomenon of travelling digital information through video footage, screen recordings and 3D digital renderings. The work investigates the relationship between what is created in the digital studio and the process of making within a digital space, revealing the journey it has taken. The editing and use of ‘real’ audio through-out highlights the intersection of the physical environment and the digital environment that I work within. Uncovering an entwining of interfaces that occur when making an immaterial space containing computer generated objects, while also occupying a real physical space. Titled Midday Wednesday , to bear the everydayness of slipping between navigating real space and digital space, but also the everyday things that influence me when making the work. The bedroom I work within has reinstated itself within the piece through video footage and audio recordings, the simple fan noise that is usually present in the bedroom has become the backing hum for my digital spaces. Audio recordings of my studio space at UCA have also made their way into the immaterial space, creating a loop of information from one space to another that is being fed back over different mediums, navigating its way from real space to digital space.
Bringing the physical workspace into the piece has opened a path-way from the real into the digital, however, this has only been one-way so far. I am yet to explore what can be created when the computer-generated space establishes itself in the physical realm, this is what I plan to focus future work on.
