Intel Remastered: The Great Western Singularity

Brief
After successfully working with Jotta on the Latitude water projections in the summer, they approached us again in autumn 2010 and asked us to participate in REMASTERED, a project sponsored by processor giant Intel. The idea was for contemporary artists to revisit classic works from art history with the help of new technologies:

“Intel are interested in exploring how digital technology is shaping both the method of
production and output of an artist’s practice. The artist is someone who uses, is
inspired by and comments on digital technology and its place within the creative
process.”

Eric chose “Rain, Steam and Speed: The Great Western Railway” (1844) by JMW Turner.

Idea and Process
This is how he explains his research and method:

The first step was to analyse the features in this particular painting, as well as in Turners work in general and apply them to my own creative practice. I have isolated some general features that are present in most of Turner’s work:

- Inspiration from the forces of nature: sunlight, storm, rain, fog, power of the sea,…
- The ensuing effects on human endeavour: shipwrecks, fire, catastrophe,…
- Recurring genres of his era: marine, mountainous, pastoral, historical, architectural,…
- The transformation of the environment through industrialisation.
- Mythological subjects, fictional settings of epic proportions.

Previous works by JMW Turner:

Left: “The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken” (1839)
Right: “Dido Building Carthage” (1815)

Stating my own personal assumptions about digital technology in my personal practice:

- The digital workflow allows for infinite remixing and mash-up potential of cultural content.
- Animation can contain visual and aesthetic hybrids drawn from these influences.
- Videogame design incorporates rules and “laws of nature” governing virtual spaces.
- All of the above elements can influence and be revealed through an underlying narrative.

Early environment designs:

Notes on the narrative:
Examining Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway immediately reveals the prominence of the train in the painting. It is a symbol for the rapid industrialisation and technological progress of the era, advancing relentlessly towards the spectator. The shape and colour make it stand out against the blurry, impressionist backdrop of the surroundings, creating visual tension.

For the narrative of the animation, I am appropriating this symbol as a detailed object, against a more minimalist background. The train is a metaphor for a transformational process that the surrounding world is submitted to.

The train (technology) starts to generate instances of itself, creating the conditions of its own growth. Considering the context of Intel’s involvement in the project, we can link this to Moore’s Law of exponential increase in processing power over time, and the relative fall in costs of production to arrive at a critical discourse about the consequences of such a steep rate of progress.

From Wikipedia:
“Moore’s law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware. The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years. The trend has continued for more than half a century and is not expected to stop until 2015 or later. The capabilities of many digital electronic devices are strongly linked to Moore’s law: processing speed, memory capacity, [...] All of these are improving at (roughly) exponential rates as well. This has dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy. Moore’s law precisely describes a driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.”

Physical resources for progress are finite, however. This begs the question of how and when the machine stops. Will the increasing pace of innovation head towards the abyss, or stop through it’s own logic?

Notes on Lighting and Shadows:
As the landscape should have a fairly minimal style, with details only visible on 3D elements that are essential to the narrative, I’ve explored different combinations of lighting before settling on the last one (4):

1) Default Editing Light (No manually placed lights in scene)
2) Omni Light with Soft Shadows
3) Omni Light with Hard Shadows
4) Omni Light with Hard Shadows and Ambient Occlusion (AO)

References for modelling:

(Top: “Back to the Future III”, Bottom: “Grand Junction Canal at Southall Mill” (1810), by JMW Turner)

Finalizing the visual style of the environment, drawing extensively on simplified shapes, low-polygon 3D modeling and a limited colour palette. External source of free 3D models for remixing: Archive3D

Notes on Concept and Title:
The previous thoughts on technological progress and Moore’s Law lead to a related concept, that of the Technological Singularity.

Definition from Wikipedia:
“A technological singularity is a hypothetical event occurring when technological progress becomes so rapid that it makes the future after the singularity qualitatively different and harder to predict. [...]”

This unpredictability, growing into a “force of nature” (with global impact), echoes Turner’s epic depictions of natural phenomena and their effect on human endeavour. The subtitle of the painting, The Great Western Railway, provides the template for the animation’s title, hence The Great Western Singularity.

It also alludes to the “western” nature of progress, Europe being the birthplace of industrialisation and the starting point for a technological drive that now spans all continents.

Modelling and animation of the Abyss scene:

Graphic “interface” elements highlighting actions on-screen:

Addition of ground displacement effect to stress the impact and transformational character of
the train on the environment:

Additional visual references throughout the design process:

- Illustrations by Dan McPharlin

- Pivot, 2009 short animation produced by il Luster Productions

- Opening Credits of Enter The Void by Gaspar Noe

- Graphics by M.I.A. (Boyz)

Beyond the video
INTEL REMASTERED was exhibited in 2011 at London’s One Marylebone, Manchester’s The Cube Gallery and TENT London as part of the London Design Festival. It received the Digital Impact Award in ‘Best Use of Digital, Media telecommunications and technology’ and the WPP Award as the ‘Best Consumer Marketing Campaign’. It is also shortlisted for ‘Best use Technology Campaign’ at the PR Week Awards 2011.

This is the showreel of the whole exhibition:

The Great Western Singularity is part of the onedotzero_adventures in motion 2011’s onscreen program at BFI Southbank, November 23 – 27 2011.

Featured on

Team
Directed and animated by Eric Schockmel