First, they were leaping seconds, now they’re smearing time.

“The first airship was constructed for his own use”

“Humanity’s robot orbiting Saturn has recorded yet another amazing view” (my emphasis).

“…two tons of my bubbles are floating about the world…”
— Charles V. Boys, in the preface to Soap-Bubbles, Their Colours and the Forces Which Mould Them

The photographic works of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison.

This is kinda lovely. Those location- and orientation-aware camera phones are living up to their promise.

Ferrofluids and pigments. And a video (bottom of page). The fact that this is happening at a macroscopic level just makes it all the more yummy.

How far to the next star?

On the 30th, don’t forget to enjoy your extra second. (Background information, how to catch one for yourself and formally.) I didn’t know there were authorities responsible for the distribution of time.

It has been a while, huh?

Lots of changes for me. Wrapped up four-and-one-half years of teaching in the Visual Effects department at Savannah College of Art and Design last May and then packed my bags for Singapore, where I am working as an in-house technical trainer for Lucasfilm. I am planning to be here for at least another year…

On the artwork front, momentum has built up on a very long-term project, Strange Attractions. Things are progressing nicely, but more on that soon…

Kenneth A. Huff; Strange Attractions series; 2012; final medium to be determined.

I have been doing some traveling…

Hong Kong…

India…

Thailand…

So far…

Ellipsis-ly yours…

…Ken

P.S. I snuck in some posts, earlier in the month (before the online version of this blog actually was functional and visible), regarding brain kibble and the use of quotations in this here blog, here. Sneaky, huh?

Many of the quotations are related to creativity (any creative process). These often resonate deeply with me in my personal creative practice. Others are related to my/our place in this big, complicated world/universe.

If the words strike a chord in your noggin, I suggest that you do what I do — write them down somewhere, then and there. The same quotation won’t be in the same place for long…

You have been warned…

[Insert slightly-maniacal laughter here — along the lines of “Wah-ha-HA!”]

To left of the quotations, you will find wee little thumbnails of photographs, currently from my 2006 Fallen forms, found series. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version. Like the quotations, these images will move around…

Kenneth A. Huff;Fallen forms, found series; 2006; photography.

2010.1 from Kenneth A. Huff on Vimeo. If you can, watch it full-screen, HD on and Scaling off.

The piece is a single-channel, 1920x1080, 24 fps, 25 minutes. Shown above is a 2-minute excerpt.

Here are some stills from the piece. Click on each for a full image.

Update: On the technical side, I used Side Effects Software’s Houdini and Adobe After Effects to create the piece. For the main surface, I used the Houdini Ocean Toolkit by Drew Whitehouse, based on the algorithms of Jerry Tessendorf. A custom shader was applied to the surface and an initial base rendering was created using Houdini’s hardware rendering. The base frames were rendered at 1.5 times final size (2880x1620). Those frames then were finished in After Effects. Total render time for 36,000 frames was approximately 250 hours.

The first, based on 2009.2, was installed in four windows of the offices of the Arts and Humanities Commission, on the second floor, east side of the Smoky Hill Museum, 211 West Iron Avenue.

The four synchronized, proportionally-spaced panels were extracted from a larger image, especially for the site.

The second piece, based on 2007.5, was installed at 107-1/2 Santa Fe Avenue.

In the wee hours of the morning, on my last day there, I temporarily installed a test of a new work that I started developing while in Salina.

My thanks go out to the staff of the Arts and Humanities Commission for their kind helpfulness and hospitality. Special thanks to Karla Prickett and Josh Morris. Funding for “Street Sites” was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The projections will continue to be shown for the next few weeks, starting at around 8 p.m.

A wonderful way to end my spring break…a Sunday afternoon performance of a movement from Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25.

Held in the Palm Beach home of one of my collectors (that is 2007.3 showing behind the musicians), the concert was hosted and accompanied by Christopher O’Riley, of public broadcasting’s From the Top. The young musician are Alexandra Switala (violin), John-Henry Crawford (cello) and Robert Switala (viola).

So, I have decided that 2007.3 goes very well with strings…

(That’s Mr. Sean watching from the front row.)

A time-based work, 2007.3, shown during the Ars Electronica 2009. The performance-specific, time-based, projection work was created by Kenneth A. Huff at the invitation of the curatorial panel of the festival’s Vom Streben nach ungehörter Musik Große Konzertnacht (Pursuit of the Unheard, The Big Concert Evening). Dennis Russell Davies conducted the Bruckner Orchester Linz in a performance of Alan Havhaness’ Lousadzak (Coming of Light) for piano and strings, Op. 48. Maki Namekawa was the piano soloist. The evening performance took place in the Brucknerhaus, along the Daube River in Linz, Austria on 6 September 2009.

More information on Ken’s participation in the festival can be found in a previous post.

Symphony performance

For this year’s festival, I was invited to create time-based work to accompany a symphonic performance of the piano concerto, Lousadzak (Coming of Light), op. 48 by Alan Hovhaness. Dennis Russell Davis will be conducting the Bruckner Orchester Linz with Maki Namekawa on piano. The performance will take place at the Brucknerhaus on Sunday, 6 September.

Exhibition

2000.16b at Ars Electronica Center. Originally uploaded to flickr by magrolino.

Since 2 January 2009, twenty of my still images and two site-specific, time-based works are being shown in the new Ars Electronica Center Deep Space projection gallery. The showing is currently slated to last at least through 2009. The two time-based works were recreated to take full advantage of the 4K cinematic projectors of Deep Space. My work is one of the inaugural artist installations in the space.

This showing of the still images is the first time, outside of my studio, that people are able to interactively explore the full detail of these works, all of which are digital renderings, up to 20,000 by 12,000 pixels. The works are projected to wrap around a 16 by 9 meter wall and similarly-sized area of the floor. Viewers are able to zoom into the full detail of the pieces. The works range from 1999 to 2007 and are a broad overview of many of the themes I explore, from mathematical knots to Truchet tilings to the concentric line patterns of fingerprints.

Symposium presentation

In connection with the Deep Space exhibition and as part of the festival’s Pixelspaces symposium, I will be giving a presentation about my work on 4 September. I will be talking about the inspiration and ideas behind the pieces, with particular emphasis on scale and detail.

The Ars Electronica Festival runs 3 through 8 September at the Ars Electronica Center and throughout Linz, Austria.

The Deep Space exhibition will run at least through the end of 2009.

Links

Ars Electronica Center

Ars Electronica Festival

Symphony performance

Deep Space exhibition

Pixelspaces symposium presentation

There are some additional photographs of the exhibition in this earlier blog post. I hope to have some photographs and images upon my return from the festival in early September.

I am off to New Orleans for SIGGRAPH 2009. I will be presenting my Encoding with prime factors series during a panel discussion, The State of Aesthetic Computing or Info-Aesthetics, on Monday, 3 August at 3:45 p.m.

This will be my twelfth year contributing to the conference.

I especially am looking forward to the Computer Animation Festival’s Stereoscopic program and, before the conference starts, the 7th International Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering.