Tag: live drawing

Digital VR art: a full 360-degree panorama made in ink and watercolour © Lufo Art, 2017

The creative process behind Elizabete Balčus’ drawing

The creative process for Elizabete Balčus’ drawing started in October 2017, after an invitation by Giovanni Di Rosa (a student in my drawing class at the University of Salerno) to join him for live drawing sessions at the Godot Art Bistrot of Avellino, Italy.  During those days, I attended a total of four concerts and drew while artists like Mary Ocher, Campos Band, Raoul Vignal and Elizabete Balčus performed on stage. Elizabete, a psychedelic sound artist from Latvia, uses fruits and vegetables in her compositions, creating unique, pumping, alive, and extraterrestrial sounds. The creative process behind Elizabete Balčus’ drawing Elizabete Balčus and the creative process Fruits and vegetables, alive Elizabete Balčus is an amazing performer, composer, musician and a psychedelic sound artist who has the particularity of using fruits and vegetables for her compositions.  Elizabete’s uniqueness certainly influenced my creative process: the – fruit / cable / synthesiser / mixer / amplifier / speaker /air / ear / brain – connection that she established during her presentation, gave me the beautiful experience of perceiving the life inside every piece of food. I found this fascinating, as every fruit and vegetable will generate a different sound every time… Plus you will never get the same lemons in Berlin than in Amalfi! I drew during Elizabete’s performance using a 360 drawing structure – in particular, an equirectangular perspective – for then generating a virtual environment out of it. I chose this format motorised by the enthusiasm of discovering 360 drawings, in 2017 I was at the beginning of my research and intuitive explorations about these kind of drawings. In fact, I started my first PhD in immersive drawing only a week after this session (here is my thesis if you want to check it out), and I only wanted to go deeper and deeper on this kind of hybrid – analogical / digital – artwork.   I captured the fruit / Elizabete / music connection playing with plasticity, fluidity, shapes, connecting points, and colours. Within the virtual environment one can follow those links and move along the different elements. This is also a representation of Elizabete’s music, as her compositions have elements and passages joint within different songs, like in a symphony with different acts. Is it Sabina’s bowler hat or…? And then of course there is also the hat. “Is it Sabina’s bowler hat or…?”, I wrote in Spanish. This sentence has different connotations: on the one hand, it refers to the singer Joaquín Sabina, who likes to wear a bowler hat. That night, for some reason, there was a bowler hat in the stage of the Godot Art Bistrot that called my attention. However, this sentence also refers to Sabina (Sabine in English), the character from The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. In Kundera’s book, Sabine receives Thomas dressed with nothing but the bowler hat. Sabine and Thomas convert that unusual object that belonged to Sabina’s grandfather into a nonsense icon of their sexual games of provocation and sensuality. They make love in Sabina’s bed, which is alone “as a stage” in the middle of the room. And there she was, Elizabete with her sensuality and her exotic hat in the stage… Tragame tierra (Swallow me earth) In my drawings, I like to represent not only what I hear, but also what I feel while I’m doing it. In that regard, the ground below Elizabete’s drawing is opening, creating a black hole where I want to fall and hide: I beg the earth to eat me, to make me disappear. With this, I appeal to the “Tragame tierra / La tierra se abre / Bajo mis pies” (Swallow me earth / The earth opens up / Beneath my feet), sung by Gustavo Cerati in Bomba de Tiempo to materialise the sensation when I have to break the limits and speak to someone that I desire. Because yes, that was the sensation that I had that night of October 2017 when I had to gather my courage to speak to a woman that caught my eye… (and no, it didn’t work out). The VR dimension Elizabete’s artwork has a special distortion that allows me to create a 360º virtual environment. Take a look (click and drag to navigate around): If you want to learn more about VR drawings, I recommend you to read this article and check on my academic research, where you will find several state-of-the-art resources for learning about spherical perspectives. Making a 360º video The drawing was also used as the base for a 360º video, shared and available on YouTube. Of course, my inexperience editing videos pops very much out, yet for me was an amazing experience for mixing cubical perspective, equirectangular perspectives, visual effects, and Elizabete’s music.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks7pOHH_65o Although naïve, the video is a nice way for showing another possible application of immersive drawings. Closing The series of drawings made at the Godot Art Bistrot, like Elizabete: Hat, Fruit or Flute, have been used for creating the above-mentioned 360 VR video, but also for the exhibition “I’m Watching You/Me” and within my research in digital media art, showing some of many creative applications that these compositions can have. The creative process behind Elizabete Balčus’ artwork shows how I fluctuated between instant personal impressions, the technical precision necessary for creating equirectangular panoramas, and the mixing of the two components with virtual reality.  For you to understand easily the complexity of the composition, I ask you to pay attention to the flat image of the artwork, then go to the VR view and look carefully at the upper part. Can you see Elizabete’s green eye? Wonderful, now go back to the flat drawing and try to find it… That. That is the key point for understanding an equirectangular panorama. You will never find it unless you change your mind: in the flat drawing the green eye is just a horizontal line…

Image for a digital media art project: drawings result from the live painting session at the Godot Art Bistrot, Avellino, Italy © Lucas Fabian Olivero, 2017

Digital Media Art Project: The Starting Point

This is the first entry aim to document the evolution of my digital media art project. This project is part of the PhD program in Digital Media Art “DMAD” that I’m currently following. Consequently, I will use this digital journal to collect milestones, inspirations, concepts, intentions, advancements, technologies, improvements, etc.  The entries will go forward and back, diving through key concepts. However, they will do it not in a crazy and uncontrolled path, but following the art and communication based research methodology a/r/cography (da Veiga, 2019, p. 335). So, I start explaining the research background and the very first inspiration for the project development. Background My research in the field of Digital Art is very new. However, I have previously researched in the field of drawing, focusing in immersive perspectives with applications in design, architecture and engineering (check here a list with my full research). In fact, between 2017 and 2021 I completed a first research PhD in which I developed techniques for handmade immersive drawings. Such drawings have the particularity that can be converted into VR environments. Important milestones of this research were the first systematic definitions of cubical perspective (Olivero et al., 2019, Araújo et al., 2020). The goal was achieved with the help of my advisors Adriana Rossi and António Bandeira Araújo. Although it keeps going ahead, the investigation settled a transition point almost one year ago with the issuing of “Hybrid Immersive Models from Cubical Perspective Drawings” on March 2021 (Olivero, 2021) (Figure 1). Figure 1: Studies about immersive perspective a) Cubical perspective b) Equirectangular perspective c) Geometrical proportions of the project (c) Immersive navigation (e, f) © Lucas Fabian Olivero On the artistic practice My interest for immersive drawings started during 2017. Back then, I shared classroom giving lessons with Bruno Sucurado in Italy. Meanwhile, Bruno was already practicing these kind of illustrations and introduced me to the equirectangular perspective (Olivero & Sucurado, 2019). So, I got interested in the technique, learned some basic principles, and started to practice it. After that, I was invited to a cycle of live music presentations at the Godot Art Bistrot, Avellino, Italy (Olivero, 2017). As a result, I started to test spherical anamorphosis within live drawing sessions: I attended a total of four events and produced one equirectangular drawing for each of them (Figure 2). https://lufo.art/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/WhatsApp-Video-2017-09-22-at-01.14.31.mp4 Preparing for the drawing session © Lucas Fabian Olivero, 2017 The exhibition of Hybrid Immersive Models Visitors watching the VR results Figure 3: “HIMmaterial: exploring new hybrid media for immersive drawing and collage” at ARTECH 2019, Braga, Portugal, 2019 Closing Currently, the use of spherical anamorphosis within digital art exhibitions requires a big intellectual effort (both from the artist and the visitors), great oral communication skills, and the presence of the artist for a peer-to-peer communication. Consequently, such a setup limits both the artist and the artworks. However, with the current theoretical developments existing for spherical perspectives in the field of drawing it should possible to find a straightforward way for appreciating these exhibitions. In other words, this digital media art project should bring a new way of experimenting spherical anamorphosis that might release the artist and the audience and, therefore, improve the artworks, the exhibition, and the experience of the audience. Bibliography Araújo, A. B., Olivero, L. F., & Antinozzi, S. (2019). HIMmaterial: Exploring new hybrid media for immersive drawing and collage. In P. Arantes, V. J. Sá, P. A. Da Veiga, & F. M. Adérito (Eds.), Proceedings of ACM ARTECH conference (ARTECH2019) (pp. 247–251). ACM Press. https://www.doi.org/10.1145/3359852.3359950   Araújo, A. B., Olivero, L. F., & Rossi, A. (2020). A Descriptive Geometry Construction of VR panoramas in Cubical Spherical Perspective. Diségno, 6, 35–46. https://doi.org/10.26375/disegno.6.2020.06   da Veiga, P. A. (2019). A/r/Cography: Art, Research and Communication. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Digital and Interactive Arts. Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359852.3359859   Olivero, L. F. (2017, October 3). Live art painting sessions [Art Exhibition]. Godot Bistrot, Avellino Italy.   Olivero, L. F. (2018a, January 21). 360 Points of View [Art Exhibition]. Eco Bistrot, Salerno, Italy.   Olivero, L. F. (2018b, October 3). 360 Points of View [Art Exhibition]. Passo Duomo, Salerno, Italy.   Olivero, L. F. (2021). Hybrid Immersive Models from Cubical Perspective Drawings—Modelli Ibridi Immersivi da Disegni in Prospettiva Cubica [PhD Thesis]. University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli.”   Olivero, L. F., Rossi, A., & Barba, S. (2019). A codification of cubical projection for the generation of immersive models. Diségno, 4, 53–63. https://www.doi.org/10.26375/disegno.4.2019.07   Olivero, L. F., & Sucurado, B. (2019). Analogical immersion: Discovering spherical sketches between subjectivity and objectivity. ESTOA. Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca, 8(16), 47–59. https://www.doi.org/10.18537/est.v008.n016.a04

Sketch of Gulbenkian's auditorium. Celebration of Calouste Gulbenkian Day. 19 July 2019. © Lufo Art

Calouste Gulbenkian Day – 150 years of Gulbenkian Foundation

The “Calouste Gulbenkian Day” was celebrated on 19 July 2019, an act framed in the 150 years’ celebrations of the Calouste Foundation. The celebration included a playing by their Orchestra, directed by Nuno Coelho.This “Tal Lucas” was there, drawing, and this is the written report of the experience. Meanwhile, I remember that I discovered the beauty of this place on the 1st of July, 2018. That Sunday, I was celebrating my birthday, just 33 years old! I had landed in Lisbon and took the Linha Vermelha towards the city centre. Hence, I left the tube at São Sebastião and then I saw was the Fundação. I was so glad to be walking through such a beautiful garden…! Since then, I attended many events, always keeping a fresh fascination for the auditorium and their different and varied presentations.   First act, action! Before the orchestra played, there was the ceremony of the Gulbenkian Prizes awards. In particular, one of the distinctions was for Amin Maalouf, enlightening his great carrier and activity. Honestly, the whole thing seemed a bit long for me. Maybe, it’s because I feel some allergy to formality acts. Yet, I must recognise that the mission and vision of the prizes made the prelude worthy. The Portuguese President was there in person to read his speech (does he write it or someone else do it for him?). The first part was in French and the second in Portuguese. He pronounced phrases like “by the force of reason, rather than reason by force”, and pointed out to the Agenda 2030‘s goals. In the meantime, I was drawing and doing one, two… many among infinite lines. Yet, the drawing went longer than the initial speeches, and it was not ended even when the first part of the orchestra finished. Second act After the formalities, they passed to the Orchestra. All of sudden the stage’s curtains were opened, revealing a beautiful view of the garden, as the background of an unusual and natural theatre. Then, clarinet soloist Horácio Ferreira, one of the special guest of the night, was ready to play. At some point, Horácio plus the other two clarinets of the band “escaped” from the stage. They appeared from behind, playing between stands and from different places in the theatre. They played and walked slowly towards the main stage, in a inusual musical dialogue with the orchestra. One of them appeared next to me, so I took the opportunity to “immortalise him” with green color. Why? Well, a bit because his movements were “Martians”, a bit for graphic balance, but mainly because I had no other colours (I must be honest ?). The player’s contrast remind me of the satyr with the flute near Positano that I saw in 2011. One detail: I captured a screen that was near the curtains when I started with the drawing. During the first act, the screen was used to project videos of the projects supported by the Foundation. When the curtain opened and the garden appeared, the screen was gone! So, I had to improvise a hybrid image that kept emphasised with the colours that I had at hand. Pan God (or Satyr, or, Faun). Positano, July 2011. CC Lucas Fabian Olivero Closing Finally, this is the result after  the Calouste Gulbenkian Day. The drawing was made in one of the most cheap A5 blocks, bought in the Danish shop by excellence for those kind of things. Sketch of Gulbenkian’s auditorium. Celebration of Calouste Gulbenkian Day. 19 July 2019. © Lufo Art