Software Clock Multimedia
Following the rules of aesthetics and dynamic interactions from the cyberpunk aesthetic, my “clock” seeks to help the audience interestingly view the passage of time.
The visual aesthetics it uses are grids to create a glitched look and to move the image on the x, y, and z-axis. The capture uses colour filters that are bright neon's, with a high contrast dark background. The dynamic interaction is layered to create a chaotic mood of pieces that don’t seem to fit in with each other. Sharp angular rectangles with electric glow make up most of the composition.
The clock illustrates movement in the fourth dimension, otherwise known as movement across time, every second, for example, the cells randomly swap positions moving not only on the x and y plane but forward and backwards in the z plane as well. The anticipation build comes with the everchanging capture elements where the objects and never the same as time progresses. To confuse the audience the video itself is shrouded in a purple glow reminiscent of several glowing elements among the cyberpunk aesthetic. There is no predictability to the clock which is reflective of the type of culture cyberpunk encourages.
The point of the clock is to hypnotize the viewer, in a way where it's almost like their eyes are deceiving them. This is achieved by constantly rotating the focal object so that while the video may seem comprehensive in one moment the next it's completely incoherent. This serves as a commentary on how warped cyberpunk culture is, it really is rooted in the darker sides of society where dystopia and mayhem thrive. This is captured abstractly through this video.
The core ideology is to really pull viewers into thinking about the self. What the capture does is create a mirror. However, this mirror doesn't care for showing the user a simple reflection. This mirror wants to tear the object of its reflection into fragmented arrays of three-dimensional boxes. Making the user redefine themselves on a deeper psychological level, because if what they are seeing is a reflection of them then they must be fragmented too. The point is to lose your grip on reality and I find that if done in VR this project can be taken to a whole new level. Perhaps for next year's design week, I'll work on the VR potential. As we move in realms of a deeper understanding of the technology, we should be able to really appreciate the dimension of time.
This project taught me a lot of what's possible with coding from week 1 making ten thousand objects till now working with three-dimensional elements, the potential is limitless. This gives me a lot of hope for future projects where I can explore coding of games or story-driven animations perhaps.
The next few pages will go through the developmental process work it took to get to this point. This project was fun to work on and I’m open to developing it further because it was exciting and fun.
10 Visual Elements
Sharp angles,
Bright Neon Lights,
High levels of contrast,
Purple undertones,
Blue/Pink highlights,
Focal Points in the centre,
Grids,
Blured elements in the background,
Repeated patterns,
Decay.
10 Interaction
Floating elements,
Static background,
Layered movement,
Blurred movement,
One point perspective movement (in a line),
Hyper-Futuristic dynamic movement,
Rectangular,
Sharp movement,
Goth motifs,
Single focus point (movement follows that point).