So how did I make the animation above? Some of it was created using adobe photoshop on my mac but I did conceive the idea and make a lot of it with my iphone. The first step: I snapped a quick photo, the one you see directly below. I liked the perspective of the museum (you have been to the Met right?) I saw all of the crisp blue sky as a negative area and usable space for another context. I knew right away that I could later crop that space away and fill it with a motion graphic of some kind. I already had that colorful pixelated GIF you see a little further below on hand. I say “on hand” because Im constantly creating graphic assets, both static and animated. Platforms like newhive, to.be and glitche’ make it so much fun and accessible to apply them.
A simple GIF animation? Indeed. A series of colorful pixels that consists of about 7 individual frames with a 0.05 duration frame rate. Everyone sees something a little different, but I see the image flowing to the left….fast! You can do this with any kind of image really, but how it flows and tricks the eye makes it fluid…kinda…
You don’t need to have an iphone to do any of these exercises, almost all smart phones today have application capabilities to participate, and or offer a similar alternative application. I do love the airdrop feature on iphone. I use it so often, iphone photos to mac and vice versa. Complete wireless transferring of images, videos, documents and more…heck it even works over 3&4G cellular service. (yes you can always email it to yourself too) I airdropped the image of the museum to my laptop, I opened photoshop and used the magic wand tool to highlight and remove the background (the pretty blue sky) I saved it “for the web” as a .jpg and it automatically flattens the image. I then re-airdropped it from my laptop back to my iphone and proceeded to open the Glitche’ app. Oh yes, you must purchase the Glitche’ app, it is well worth the one time small fee, trust me on this! I have made tons of digital art works with this app! I opened the short pixelated video loop you see above. After I made the GIF animation version I rendered the layers into video frames. This option takes place in that tiny little menu on the timeline in photoshop. Can you see it? located in the top right hand corner of the timeline? You may have to do a search for it, and that search will serve you well! Working with software takes practice, its mostly retaining repeated steps, but in that regular usage you will create your own intuitive techniques. The timeline menu options allow you to save an .mp4 or mov file extension directly out of photoshop. Yes, you can then airdrop those files too, (or email them, or icloud, or dropbox, or flashdrive, etc..) however, the larger the file is, and the more frames that you have…you will find slower airdrop rates, as well as potential limitations with non wifi or ethernet internet connections, so keep those files on the smaller side. You only need 3 seconds of video to create a loop using Instagram.
(You know that you are going to post it there!)
Taking things a little further, I used the same technique, but applied the assets (and then some ) into a “field” on my newhive. You do know newhive from the last tutorial right? If not, go now, sign up, create an account and watch their beginners tutorial. You will not be disappointed! You can LAYER gif animations on top of each other, embed videos, text, images, audio, and more, and more..There are tons of options to share the final outcome. I love to embed my newhive works using <iframe> codes. Check out this series here – This makes it easy to add the size editable code to the “text” editor you will see in the top right hand corner next to the word “visual” if you are using wordpress (OK Im writing this tutorial with my CT101 students in mind here but it certainly benefits y’all beyond and then some.) You can learn more about iframes here too.
So, lets get inside the museum! This is one of my favorite Alex Katz paintings in the Met’s permanent collection. I wanted to augment it, so I did! Using the to.be.cam! A great augmented reality app that allows you to alter the foreground or the background of an image that you point your iphone at…. I already had this handy little video file saved on my iphone below. I made the GIF below with a transparent background in photoshop so it would seamlessly “fit” well into things, and also stand on its own if it had to (as you see below, ahem..) I think Alex Katz would really dig this collaboration!
What about Pollock? Jackson Pollock was all about breaking new ground and redefining techniques and perceptions. Im sure he would love the idea of seeing his work appreciated and customized in the digital world. Right? Lets proceed. Below, I painted this quick bubble throwie over the summer during my graffiti class at LIU. It was used as a fast example to show the immedicay of using spray paint as an expressive medium. When I took that same class to visit the museum we certainly had some images on hand to work with. Using the Glitche’ app again I layered the throwie over the Pollock piece we all know so well. I grabbed the screen shot and repeated the process. Seems like there is a lot of creative potential in this way of “participating”….
Yes, it’s time to personalize your experiences every place that you go! How can we not? Its 2016, we have software, we are mobile and creative all the time. Since the dawn of man we have been recording the world, and now we will record and augment it because “default reality” is not enough. It is no longer enough to visit a museum and simply appreciate the “the most important works of art” that are there. We want more, we simply want to participate beyond viewing, our thoughts and dialogs. We must create and participate!
Did you miss the first tutorial in this series? Here is a refresher that will help – http://ct101.us/2016/10/14/a-how-to-net-art-gif-making-tutorial/
short-link to this post – https://ryanseslow.com/f950Z
