spills

I’ve left this blog alone while I finish my studies, letting the 3d viz work hibernate for a while. This is not to say that I haven’t been busy. Completely the opposite! There is a fair amount of new viz work that I haven’t posted, mostly due to NDAs and a general wish to tweak things a bit more, as is always the case with commercial work that’s based on hard deadlines. I also would like to focus on posting mostly personal work, as that would be the truest expression of what I seek and how I work, not to mention an excuse to delve more heavily into all the stranger and darker ideas that sometimes make an appearance in my work.

More broadly, however, and looking more seriously at the future, my work in commercial 3d visualization is winding down. What started off as a side-project and a love of creating images evolved into something surprising and enjoyable, and I have had many amazing clients and friends to thank for that. Their trust and faith in my work has been instrumental in its development. However, the main thrust of my work and interests has been concurrently plowing forward and the time is coming very soon that all other side-projects will have to fade away or else be somehow re-appropriated into the main body of my work.

This does not mean that I will not be making images or constructing digital environments. On the contrary, I will be doing more so than ever, except their focus will veer away from the commercial visualization market and target more speculative and design-orientated aims. Commercial 3d visualization is just one tiny subset of a much larger conversation about technology, representation, the (constructed) environment, and how we as social actors are involved in the dialogue with the world and with the objects we make. There is much to be done. Architecture exists far beyond the images that congest contemporary media, despite many built examples that may suggest otherwise. It must be reconsidered beyond the image-on-the-screen, further to the image-in-space, to a broader consideration of the suffusion of technology in contemporary spatial experience.  Digital modeling and simulation venture beyond the display, further to the worlds of sensing, documenting / observing, fabricating and interacting, and it is in this arena that I hope to place my work.

If this is enigmatic, it is not on purpose. There will be more to come as it develops.

Small update of various things that have been occupying me for the last few months. Hopefully loads more to come, eventually…

I’ve very recently made a big jump across the big blue pond for an indefinite amount of time. I’m finally going forward with the next stage of things, something I’ve been working towards for the past 2 years, and it’s extremely exciting and promising. There are a whole lot of big unknowns and what-ifs, which is what makes it so damn fun, because that also means that there is a world of possibilities waiting to be explored. I’m a student again and now I get to play and do my OWN work for a change, which is probably what I look forward to the most.

As such, in a way this signifies the end of my work to date. I’m not sure if I will be continuing in the stream of arch. viz or, if I do, if it will be anything similar to what I’ve been doing for the past few years. I’ve learned tons, but it’s high time I went on to something that is more in line with what I eventually would like to do, which is a lot more than just making pretty pictures, though it doesn’t necessarily exclude that either.

For all the nice comments and shout-outs, a heartfelt thanks, it makes it a lot easier to keep slaving away. I hope I have at least inspired someone to go do something cool, or something like that.

Eventually I’ll have new work to show and I have no idea what it will look like. Until then, take it easy!

Another competition project for DIALOG. A bit more time than the previous one and putting into use a lot of what I learned the hard way earlier. Went quite a bit smoother as I had a more optimized workflow by the end, just in terms of organizing the scene and staying flexible and open to design changes right up to the deadline.

Possibly the biggest (in terms of scale) project I’ve accomplished to date…

A competition project for DIALOG that was done on a very tight deadline of a few days. A huge experiment in over-painting and post-processing which, I think, turned out quite well. The focus was on the general impact rather than the details, which is the most important aspect in a competition project anyhow.

Extreme deadline + large printing size + large urban context + complex programme = very little sleep + elevated heart rate.