Golden Square Animates to the Beat for AV Pioneers, The Sancho Plan
Golden Square has just completed its collaboration with audio-visual performance-art pioneers, The Sancho Plan creating stunningly rendered 3D animation that synchs with the band’s live drum performance.
Golden Square’s animation sequence will be used as the backdrop to TSP’s ‘The Black Page’ tour which kicks off in Newcastle on 24th September 2009. The animation takes the form of a short film in which the central character – a futuristic being called Taiko is unceremoniously plunged into a surreal desert world where he encounters The Jailer, a daunting drum playing creature who is flanked by two Victorian cabinets which are in fact speakers. Taiko presents a magical sheet of music and a diamond, causing The Jailer to come to life. The Jailer sucks up the diamond as drums rise from the ground, and the 3D animation synchs with The Sancho Plan’s live drum performance.
In order to achieve this live-synching, Golden Square created a set of animation loops to cover as many different drum hit combinations as possible. Its interactive nature meant the animation loops had to be cut very quickly, with enough loops to create a smooth, glitch free animation flow for the live performance. The on stage drums ‘talk’ to the animation loops via MIDI through Flash which triggers each loop according to the type of drum hit. In addition to The Jailer mimicking the live drumming, each hit triggers psychedelic visuals within the animation like polygraphs and lighting.
The project is further complicated by the fact that the interactive segment had to be seen from five different camera angles which required a huge amount of rendering, to achieve a 3D feel. Game engine software may have been the most efficient way of producing the interactive animation but it would not have been able to create the visual sophistication required for such an artistic project. So Maya was instead used to generate a beautifully rendered look.
‘The Black Page’ itself first debuted as a prototype at the ARS Electronica Festival in 2007 since which it has been developed and refined to a more streamlined level of interactivity and elegance.
The live synch will be demoed at Golden Square’s annual art competition, Square Art, on 26th November 2009. In the mean time please enjoy this teaser movie.
To see more work created by The Sancho Plan please click HERE