Technology and Art, or specifically, Dance - 2 things that fascinate me.
They don't come together very often, but when they do like for the following video, it's guaranteed to be amazing!
It all started at the Grammy Awards 2016.
When Lady Gaga was performing her David Bowie tribute, a red lightning bold was projected onto her face using a high-speed projection mapping technique.
Behind this technology was the Japanese visual studio WOW.
Their creative director Nobumichi Asai is a media artist known for video projections and face-mapping, and now they have created a new video that shows off the high-speed face-mapping technique.
The video is called INORI, which is the word for "prayer" in Japanese.
It blurs the lines between projection and reality, between technology and art!
Watch the finished video here:
Now you might be thinking this is only a video being projected onto a face, but the technology is actually much more complex.
The dancer's faces are being mapped in real time, which is a very complicated technological procedure since they move so fast. ("Normal" projection mapping already has some trouble keeping up with the most basic movements)
Then, a special high speed projector specifically created by the University of Tokyo is used to project the videos onto the faces.
The projector, which runs at 1000 frames per second, was combined with with 3D face-mapping for better depth measurement and 2D face-tracking with less than ten milliseconds delay to match the movements of the dancers!
Watch the behind the scenes video here:
Studio WOW worked in cooperation with the award-winning production company TOKYO to make this ambitious project happen.
The features dancers are AyaBambi, a Japanese dance duo that already went on tour with Madonna and other stars.
They're dancing to a speciically composed soundtrack, which represents a destructive force - which could only be overcome with PRAYERS.
First, the soundtrack was composed according along the theme "Life". Nobumichi Asai and Shingo Abe was inspired by the music and then made face mapping work. Aya Sato designed choreography. TOKYO completed the project by making the video work. The music brought Asai the image of “the radioactive.” The destructive force of the radioactive could cause “death,” “suffering,” and “sorrow.” And “prayers” could overcome them. These subjects infuse AYABAMBI’s powerful performance. Their performance crushes and conquer black tears, skulls and the Heart Sutra. We built up the concept during the production and Abe designed animation for face mapping.
Images: 1, 2, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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