Author: Max Levine

I finally got all the parts for the el wire so I started to wrap them around the skeleton. The wire was harder to work with than I thought . When daisy-chaining different colors the tiny corona wires often broke which was frustrating. The heat shrink tubing worked really well at blocking out the wire and cleaning up my splicing. I used hot glue to affix the wire and although it was mess it worked well will getting tight curves. The sound reactive box work well with songs with strong beats.

I now have the wire skeleton of T-rex built. I first increased the size of my sketch and started to make the silhouette by taping the wire down every few inches. Then I worked on 2D versions of the arms and legs. I started to build one half the dino on top of the paper and attached an arm and a leg. I then removed it from the paper and worked on the other side. I added supports to the arms and legs to give more shape and support. I finished it up by  adding features to the head like the eyes and teeth. I ordered the el wire, sound reactive inverter, and heat shrink tubing which I need to wait on to progress from here.

 

For my project I would like to make a three dimensional EL wire sculpture of a dinosaur. I will achieve the volumetric shape by using rings of light. I want combine different colors of El wire to give detail to the dino. The structure would be make out of steel wire which means that the piece should be poseable and I may be able to put a motor in the head so that it can move. The sculpture will be hooked up to a sound based inverter so that the brightness will vary with music and noise. I can also do a bunch of different variations such as using a sequencer to cycle through different parts. Alternatively I could use two different sound inverters with different thresholds so that different parts react differently. I know I want to do the sculpture but I’m still not sure about what effects I want to go for and what size it should be.

Urbanscreen is a diverse team of media artists, musicians, architects, and technical specialists based in Germany. Urbanscreen develops mainly projection based installations. They are known for projecting visuals, accompanied by music, on buildings and sculptures. They aspire to blur the line between reality and the virtual world to provide immersive and captivating experiences. Below are a few of their works.

On of the works they are recognizable for is their projection show on the Sydney Opera House. They first had to generate a 3D model of the building so that the their projections aligned with the shape of the architecture. They then developed music and visuals, including green screen work, to put on a show on the building.

The another piece they did was commissioned by a hotel and is displayed in the lobby. The Solanum is a three dimensional sculpture that consists of circles that are different sizes and at different levels. They then project onto the sculpture to create stunning visuals such as making the circles look like 3D spheres.

A interesting research project that they worked on was called the Searchlight. For this project they 3D scanned an entire room so that they had a virtual version of it. In the room they had a project that could move and project on any surface of the room. They were then able to project objects and textures like balls bouncing around the room. They planned to apply this technology to museums as a guide that would lead patrons around and give them more information of certain pieces of artwork.

My name is Max Levine. I am a 3^rd year student working on my BS/MS in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB). My major is very interdisciplinary so I work on many different types of projects from biology to math to computer science.

I haven’t worked on much art making out of art classes because I’m not a very good at drawing and have trouble finding time to work with more elaborate media. However, I really enjoy more digital forms of art and find working on computer modeling relaxing. I have worked with many different modeling/animations software including Cinema4D, Maya, 3dsMax, and Zbrush. Below is a model of my hand that I made.

I have worked with many programming languages for my major such as Java, Python, Matlab, and R. However I have not worked with programming electronics, although I would like to.  My experience with electronics is small, I have only done soldering of simple circuits and putting light strips in my room.

The types of art that I enjoy most are fun and visually stimulating. Light art falls right into this category. I am also a big fan of interactive/changing art which tempts you stay and enjoy for a little bit of time. I find most of this art on the internet which is also where I draw much of my inspiration.

A recent project that I am proud of is the 3D modeling project that I worked on for an art class last year. I made a buff humanoid chameleon. It was a lot of fun to make the model, texture it, paint it, add clothing, and finally pose it.

In this class I would like to make something that is whimsical and fun. I hope I can add element of interactivity so that it isn’t just a static piece.