2003
Samson Revisited
Digital animation
8 min. 30 sec.
Stereo, 44 KHz, 16 bit
NTSC, Region 0, 4:3
2003
Samson Revisited is an animation commissioned by the musician Dinu Ghezzo.
The composition “is an extension of the music written for John Milton’s play Samson Agonistes, as a commission from Nancy Bogen’s theater group. It is written with an eye to the stylistic features of the music of Milton’s time intertwined with today’s electronic arsenal. It represents my vision of a combined world of late renaissance and early baroque music that is projected through the mind and ear of a Twentieth or Twenty-first century composer.”
The method I used to create the animation was that of a visualization of audio events, made with accuracy but at the same time with some degree of freedom.
The synchronicity with the audio events was sometimes exasperated, but sounds were visualized only following personal intuition.
A fundamental feaure was that not all sounds were visualized, and this was to preserve a perceptual balance. In other words, some audio events were ignored, just to not overwhelm the audience with visual events. In that case, the audience would have been captured by the visual elements more than by the music.
This approach also made it easier to create an audiovisual counterpoint. Which could explain why there is some visual silence, occasionaly. Also, in the live performance at Merkin Hall, there were a few live players performing. The visual silence I created was then used to emphasize the live parts.
I made three main kinds of visualizations, corresponding to the different sections of the piece. At the beginning of the piece I used some sinuous shapes, that slowly evolve. The whole feeling was in fact soft.
Some masks, depicting Samson, Dalila, and the choir, were originally given to me by Ghezzo. The masks were then processed in different ways and used in the second section.
In the mid part of the piece there is a lot of noise. I then used different kinds of visual noise to create the feeling the music was giving to me. Underneath there are the masks, but in this case they just give color to the noise. At the end of the fifth minute I broke completely with the music, and the visual part becomes independent.
In the last section, which is similar to the first section, I used the same kind of images used at the beginning, with less movement and with some variations in hue.
Samson Revisited has been shown at Merkin Concert Hall, New York (2003).
motion picture VI
Digital animation
Variable length loop
Silent
Color, 1024 x 576, 1 fps, 24 bit, Photo JPEG compression
2003
This work is a further version of the motion picture project.
motion picture V
Digital animation
Variable length loop
Silent
Color, 1024 x 576, 1 fps, 24 bit, Photo JPEG compression
2003
This animation continues the series begun with motion picture, motion picture II, motion picture III, and motion picture IV. motion picture V is an animation that evolves extremely slowly, imperceptibly, and gives the impression of being without any motion.
HD 720p/60 and HD 1080p/30 versions have been created as well.
motion picture IV
Digital animation
Variable length loop
Silent
Color, 1024 x 576, 1 fps, 24 bit, Photo JPEG compression
2003
motion picture IV is an animation that takes advantage of its low contrast to further improve the perception of slow motion.
motion picture III
Digital animation
Variable length loop
Silent
Color, 1024 x 576, 1 fps, 24 bit, Photo JPEG compression
2003
This animation is a further step in the research begun with motion picture and motion picture II.
oggetti m
Digital print
A3+
2003
This image is a still taken from one of the several animations shown in the interactive work oggetti.
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