Pedestrian is a public projection ( viewed like a sculpture) that portrays people and groups in everyday activities and various movements. The image is projected onto the same surface as we walk on, the ground.
The figures move about so realistically due to the technology of motion capture. Motion capture uses the real life movement of people and translates it into digital form. The people on the projection stand, sit, walk, run, lie down, start and stop, dance, etc.
In the commentary of the art piece, George Fifield mentions how the movements throughout the piece can be compared to the way ants move and congregate. The "swarming behavior" of insects is comparable to the movement of humans. How people behave in a crowd comes into question.
This piece took me a while to figure out the generative topic. I feel there could be a few options. The one that I settled on is group identity.
How a group moves and works together determines a lot about it. Earlier I talked about the swarming of insects, that is characteristic behavior that they have. Humans have our own body language, our own group behavior. It is very animalistic because we ARE ANIMALS. Sometimes I think we forget that.
I think the idea of group behavior is becoming more current to our society. It is debatable whether this is a good or bad thing, but I feel that people are being less individualized, and more generalized. Through the internet, through "groups" "friend lists" "Personality profiles". Ever notice that everyones "personality profile" HAS to be formatted the same way, just the information is different? That already puts you in a group...
Basically our society moves and works as a collective. This piece forces us to watch ourselves in a fashion that is typical of ants, or other small creatures that we ma look down upon. It addresses the fact that our group has a place, has an identity within the grand scheme of nature.
this video was great! group behavior is definitely a huge topic to discuss. we obviously know that humans form their own groups whether it be by sex, race, religious background, interests, or location, but the interaction between each is curious. with the video, we were never sure what "label" the person had, so we never got a sense of why they were acting they way they did or who they were interacting with ....it might have been interesting if we did know.
ReplyDeleteI loved how realistic, yet seemingly otherworldly, the CGI graphics in the video were. It definitely ties in amazingly well with your mid-semester project. It says a lot that another artist would use a similar topic to yours in their work; you're onto something here.
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