Hasta La Ideas

A new app, created by London studio FIELD, offers infinite storytelling possibilities and beautiful visuals that play on the exchange of organic and digital energy.

Energy Flow – Coming Soon from FIELD on Vimeo.

London studio FIELD have worked with The Creators Project to produce Energy Flow, an app created as an infinite storytelling experience. The app carries the tag line ‘Ten stories, a thousand perspectives’, and relies on custom-built software – The Infinite Film Composer – to generate a new experience each time it’s used.

It can be downloaded for the iPad, iPhone and iPod for free here. You can also download the app for Android devices here.

The initial stage of the app requires the user throw a spinning top to determine a random number, which will then drive the following film sequence.

The app takes individual clips from ten different films or narratives, which are then remixed into a unique sequence each time the app is used. Soundscapes for the app rely on a similar process, with the sound design created by David Kamp.

The films range from visualisations of organic landscapes, riot scenes, imploding data centres, tumbling dice, and a stand-off between a leopard and an impala, making for some potentially unusual combinations of film clips.

The studio found inspiration for the ten different films in a variety of recent events, including the Occupy Movement, the riots in London, and the Eurozone protests. Studio founder Vera-Maria Glahn explains, “It’s all about transformations of energy, so every story takes a look at a different place in the world, a different event or process, and looks at a transformation of energy on a biological, physical, social or spiritual level. Sometimes it’s a burst of energy or an explosion, like in the riots, and sometimes it’s more the underlying processes.”

The underlying creation of the films is hugely complex, and draws on FIELD’s previous experience working in generative design. One of the films features a leopard and an impala, and is driven by the natural movements of the creatures themselves, with the more active parts of the animal’s body driving the pulse of colour on the surface. The riot film uses a similar method, with the waves of impact represented in the colours and distortion of the crowds. Glahn explains, “Using the inner mechanics of the motion and the stories, we’re trying to turn them into paintings, rather than just an animation.”

To create the ten films, FIELD collaborated with over thirty people from around the word, including a specialist in animal animation to create the leopard and impala sequence.

The studio see the Energy Flow app as the initial stage of the project, and as Glahn explains, “We really planned this whole project as something that lives across different media, and that it’s more a body of work and a universe that people can get drawn into, and that’s a starting point for conversation.” Next year will see the concept developed into a video installation with an interactive element, and something that can be experienced in a group of people.

The app can be downloaded here, and is available for free for the iPad, iPod and iPhone. You can also download the app for Android devices here.

There seems to be more of a movement towards using iPads and other tablets as platforms to showcase artwork and beautiful imagery – we recently wrote about the Moving Six app, created by Meri Media as a way of showcasing selected imagery from Comme des Garçons’ short-lived print magazine, Six.

CR In print

In our December issue we look at why carpets are the latest medium of choice for designers and illustrators. Plus, Does it matter if design projects are presented using fake images created using LiveSurface and the like? Mark Sinclair looks in to the issue of mocking-up. We have an extract from Craig Ward’s upcoming book Popular Lies About Graphic Design and ask why advertising has been so poor at preserving its past. Illustrators’ agents share their tips for getting seen and we interview maverick director Tony Kaye by means of his unique way with email. In Crit, Guardian economics leader writer Aditya Chakrabortty review’s Kalle Lasn’s Meme Wars and Gordon Comstock pities brands’ long-suffering social media managers. In a new column on art direction, Paul Belford deconstructs a Levi’s ad that was so wrong it was very right, plus, in his brand identity column, Michael Evamy looks at the work of Barcelona-based Mario Eskenazi. And Daniel Benneworth-Gray tackles every freelancer’s dilemma – getting work.

Our Monograph this month, for subscribers only, features the EnsaïmadART project in which Astrid Stavro and Pablo Martin invited designers from around the world to create stickers to go on the packaging of special edition packaging for Majorca’s distinctive pastry, the ensaïmada, with all profits going to a charity on the island (full story here)

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