Knowmore: House of Commons‘ was on show from the Saturday 21st of February 2009 to Sunday 24 May 2009 at the State Library of Queensland. It received positive feedback from the large amount of traffic that visited it while it was in the Infozone.
Keith Armstrong also drew a good crowd for his artists talk on the development of our work, which was held on Friday 6 March at the State Library. Keith will be talking again at the IDEAS Festival 2009 in the artscience@theinterface 2009 symposium.
Symbol of stillness - Stuart Lawson
The ‘Knowmore: House of Commons‘ interactive installation officially wrapped up production last week 30 January 2009.
I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all involved for a great experience - Keith Armstrong, Chris Barker, Darren Pack and Luke Lickfold. The project was also supported by The Australia
Council, Arts Queensland, QUT Creative Industries and e2evisuals.
The first showing of the installation will be held at the State Library of Queensland from Sat 21 Feb 09 – Sun 24 May 09, on Level 1 in the Infozone. Entry is Free.
If you would like more information about the project and please feel free to contact me.
Symbol of stillness - Stuart Lawson
The image above - Symbol of stillness - is a still from a small concept animation of one of the items a participant might have seen emerging from the depths of the table as they spun its surface and traversed its perimeter. I say ‘might have seen’, because it doesn’t really fit in with the existing imagery in that part of the work. With a bit of tweaking and finessing, this abstract image (along with some other concepts not yet posted), may appear in the final act/section of the work - which is ultimately better suited to host this type of visual treatment.
Where we are so far…
There are 5 areas around the table in which interaction can take place. The floor pads that react to movement and the specially engineered spinning table-top have been up and running for the past few months - which has allowed us to test and experiment with the imagery, sound and interaction progressively as we experience the work in a way that a participant might.
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Cactus Larry - Digital painting. Copyright Stuart Lawson
Introducing Cactus Larry. He’s a character in a short animation I thought up back in 2002. I’ve embarked on bringing that animation to life - starting with this digitally painted character design I did two days ago…
Click here to see Larry.
Click here to see a close-up version.
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Karl Schmidt-Rottluff study
Another natural media exercise. This one involves examining other artists techniques and using them to apply different rendering possibilities that you can apply to your own work. Lessons learnt here, and with any art exercise, crossover into the digital domain; especially the principles of colour, general composition and overall aesthetic appearance. I really recommend giving it a try, especially if you are a designer who has never tried anything other than digital media.
The image above is an acrylic study of expressionist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s painting.
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Studio Shot - 2006 Annual report cover
Back in 2006 I created a small Photoshop image to showcase document designs as if they were taken in a studio. I’m giving the template away for FREE!
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Knowmore - stage 1. Image of table being tested in production meeting
What is Knowmore?
Knowmore is an interactive installation (or immersive kinetic artwork) - it is best described by Keith Armstrong as:
“… a tabletop interactive work where the evolution of the images projected upon its top surface and spatial soundscape depends upon both how participants spin the table and how they move around it. Imagery projected onto a round table, can be interacted with by standing in various areas around the table and spinning its surface at varying speeds or direction.”
The artists involved are:
- Keith Armstrong (Artistic Director)
- Chris Barker (Co-director/3D Designer)
- Darren Pack (3D Engine Programming)
- Stuart Lawson (Visual Design)
The ideas present in Knowmore look at the impact of our actions upon a multitude of ecological systems. The work is a subtle metaphor that can be applied to our individual lives and to humanity as a whole.
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einsurance email campaigns
These two designs were created for two separate email campaigns for eInsurance Group Australia.
The eInsurance Group wanted an e-mailer that would appeal to a broad target audience of internet users who were members of an ‘opt-in’ advertising site. The email creatives above were produced for their campaign.
These one page call-to-action mailers are quite satisfying to design. Why? Because clients love them, and for good reason: they have a fast production turnaround time, are to the point for the readers/audience, and are a cost effective way to reach a desired target market.
Done properly, ‘opt-in’ email advertising produces great results and allows you to:
- Get your message to people who might be interested (so you are not wasting your time or theirs)
- Tailor unique content to specific users
- Track and monitor results.
Compare that to the expensive, tree depleting, untrackable, carbon contributing monster known as Direct mail - The advertising junk mail in your letterbox. ‘Opt-in’ email advertising is a great return on investment. It’s good for your business and even better for the environment.
Memosis - Virtual Reality (VR) installation
‘Memeosis’ was an interactive virtual reality (VR) installation completed in 2003, and was inspired by developments in nanotechnology and the promising future it may hold for medicine. The focus of the work was to inform and entertain and was intended to be a goal based exploratory experience. The participant was offered a represented reality in which they are given the impression that they are able to connect to an online server and assume control of a minute probe that has been inserted into a living host. Intertextual information present in the work was intended to contribute to the heightened sense of immersion - blurring the boundary of reality and fiction.
It was intended to move into a second stage of production where it would have used stereoscopics - which would have offered an extra sense of depth ( literally).
The second stage may still happen in future, depending on funding.
-Stu
Still life study - Stu Lawson 2008
I revisited the still life. Sitting on a PC can dull the skills, So it was time for some hands-on practice with real media again.
This painting was done in about 3 hours over a week. It was a test in completing a still life study within a limited time, whilst using a thinned down painting technique with acrylics.
I wasn’t completely happy with few things, but it turned out better than I expected after not having done a still life for a while.
