This week’s MMM pick is a special effects demo reel by a 10 or 11 year old (?) boy named Kevin Lin. It was brought to my attention by the artist Paul Chan, who came across the clip when our team was hunting for web videos to show in the 2009 Migrating Forms Film Festival’s “Tube Time” competition. (Tube Time is a bracket-style tournament in which teams present found Internet videos to an audience whose applause determines the winner of each round.) Miraculously, our team captured the Tube Time championship that year, soundly defeating a the competition favorites—a cocky team headed by writer/curator Ed Halter.

Though this video is now seven years old (created in Adobe CS3!), “Special Effects Collection (Adobe After Effects)” is still exciting to watch in an age in which homemade special effects have become increasingly sophisticated. I think this is because of: 1) its economical editing (no one demonstration lasts more than a few seconds); 2) the dynamic performance of the young actor/editor (check out the intensity with which he snatches up light rays while maintaining a casual, deadpan stare); 3) the idiosyncratic details (Was that a Windows Vista promo?). This is resourceful, savvy, DIY light-and-magic by a young artist with seemingly boundless potential. We will all be lucky to intern for Kevin Lin when he grows up and takes over Hollywood.

Special Effects Collection (Adobe After Effects), By Kevin Lin

This month’s theme is “Self-Taught CG.” Some of the best work on YouTube (and the art world) these days is coming from amateurs who have taught themselves to use (and misuse) the increasingly accessible tools of 3D modeling and animation.

To kick things off, here’s a video by my favorite self-taught 3D animator, the Australian YouTube sensation Wendy Vainity. Wendy uses modified out-of-the-box stock 3D models and a wide variety of consumer-grade software to produce some of the most personal, funny, and emotionally evocative animated videos I’ve ever seen. Though she’s received a fair amount of attention from art blogs such as Salon and Hyperallergic, I don’t think her work has ever been featured on MMM.

This video is about Australia’s independence holiday which, like its American analog, is celebrated at the height of summer. This seemed like an appropriate choice for today, which happens to be Opening Day (the unofficial start of summer for baseball nerds such as myself). It perfectly distills the essence of the dog days ahead of us -— the lethargy and the ecstasy, oppressive freedom of spare time, bare skin, beer, wilted national pride, and yes, barking dogs. I love every every shadow and every awkward gesture. You should all subscribe to Wendy on YouTube if you don’t already.

This is the last post of MYST! Thank you so much for following, I hope you enjoyed the work. If you care to keep in touch, you can find me at andrew.rosinski@gmail.com | http://andrewrosinski.com |
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MYST
Identifying with the 1993 computer adventure game MYST, this program of contemporary moving image-based art mazes through aberrant places and mystifying spaces, highlighted by digital simulacra that employs new technology to render regressive aesthetics inspired by the nascency of the early virtual.

A verdant green virtual golf course is altered into a state of refractive tranquility. (AR)

Theme theme of MYST continues!

MYST
Identifying with the 1993 computer adventure game MYST, this program of contemporary moving image-based art mazes through aberrant places and mystifying spaces, highlighted by digital simulacra that employs new technology to render regressive aesthetics inspired by the nascency of the early virtual.

Headquarters
Nicolas Sassoon & Sara Ludy, 2011, 3 min, video
https://youtu.be/mr4TN4C54Cs

Headquarters, by Nicolas Sassoon and Sara Ludy, is an architectural proposal for the online art collective Computers Club. The animation displays a 3D aerial view and walk-through of a building rendered at a low resolution using a simple color palette. The building displayed in the video is meant to act as a physical meeting point and a center of operations for the members of the collective. Nicolas Sassoon created the design of the building and the animated rendering; Sara Ludy created the soundtrack for the animation. (AR)

Next Monday is the last week of MYST.

MYST
Identifying with the 1993 computer adventure game MYST, this program of contemporary moving image-based art mazes through aberrant places and mystifying spaces, highlighted by digital simulacra that employs new technology to render regressive aesthetics inspired by the nascency of the early virtual.