UK studio Universal Everything motion-captured a dancer to make this animation, which is projected onto the world’s highest-resolution screen (+ movie).
“We choreographed a contemporary dancer in a motion capture studio,” Universal Everything founder Matt Pyke told Dezeen. “We then transformed the motion capture data into a digital sculpture, formed from the trails of human movement.”
The hundreds of white light points that form the dancing figure become strands that glow yellow, then red, before solidifying into blue as the dancer moves across the screen.
Universal Everything produced animations at a highly detailed 16K resolution for the 25-metre-wide by four-metre-high screen in the Hyundai Vision Hall, located at the South Korean motor group’s Seoul campus.
“The film was produced at such a high resolution to achieve a life-sized dancer moving through the space,” said Pyke.
The studio and various collaborators created 18 short films for the hall to turn it into “a space that inspires leaders, engineers, scientists, workers and designers to learn, rethink, and collaborate.”
More digital installations on Dezeen include Arik Levy’s interactive screen that uses visitors’ movements to mutate computer-generated crystals and a wall of digital animals that distract children on their way to surgery.
See all our stories about installations »
Universal Everything sent us the following information:
Hyundai Vision Hall
Euisun Chung, Vice Chairman of the Hyundai Motor Group (HMG), has a vision for the company that he leads. His aim is to align HMG with the best contemporary art, sculpture and digital design in the world. Artistic invention and innovation will be at the heart of both Hyundai and Kia’s future vision.
“The Vision Hall at Hyundai Motor Group’s Mabuk Campus is a symbolic space for presenting employees with Hyundai Motor Group’s values, providing them with a sense of pride, and sharing with them its dreams. The media wall, the central focus of the Hall, screens three video artworks that convey the vision and core values of the group.
An interactive artwork ‘Who Am We’ by world-renowned artist Do-Ho Suh was designed to develop pride and solidarity among the group’s employees and was produced through the participation of employees throughout the world. A metaphorical film series ‘Mobius Loop’ by Universal Everything expresses the group’s vision, management philosophy and core values. The third film, ‘Documentary’ depicts the last 10 years of Hyundai Motor Group’s history.
The Vision Hall – through continuous development of diverse creative content in collaboration with the group’s employees is a digital media archive that conveys and communicates the vision of Hyundai Motor Group” – Euisun Chung
To date HMG have collaborated with leading exponent and practitioner of Korean art Do Ho Suh, architect Elho Suh, and Peter Schreyer – Chief Design Officer for KIA, one of the world’s leading automotive designers (and a fine artist in his own right). The latest talent to be invited on-board are Universal Everything (UE) – an internationally acclaimed, UK based multidisciplinary studio working at the crossover of digital art and design.
The HMG Vision Hall
The Vision Hall is the first physical manifestation of E.S. Chung’s thinking. A contemplative and Zen like space at the entrance to Hyundai’s Mabuk University Campus – Elho Suh’s minimalist masterpiece that sits high in the verdant hills outside Seoul. Measuring around 900sqm the Hall is stripped of superfluous decoration, allowing visitors to appreciate its rich palette of materials and more importantly to concentrate the eye on its focal point and crowning glory – a 25m wide, 4m tall, 44k resolution screen seamlessly constructed from 720 micro tiles.
This is a space that will greet the majority of HMG’s 80,000 worldwide employees over the coming months – a space that will allow leaders, engineers, scientists, workers and designers alike to learn, rethink, collaborate and be inspired.
Universal Everything’s brief
Universal Everything were commissioned to fill the world’s highest resolution screen with content that would simply ‘inspire’. Such creative freedom is indeed rare. Matt Pyke, UE’s founder and Creative Director, was specifically asked not to include any brand related slogans or logos – furthermore he was requested not to feature Hyundai or Kia cars currently in production.
The sole ‘commercial’ request was to nod at the ‘mobius loop’ concept that underpins HMG’s whole ethos and production process. This loop symbolizes the infinite cycle of resource circulation and serves to connect all the innovative, creative activities and events of the Group into an organic whole. As an illustration HMG make steel to make cars, and then the cars are recycled to make more steel.
“The sheer scale of the vision hall, and the freedom that the HMG granted us gave us the power to create powerful, immersive audio-visual experiences which had never been seen or heard before. The commission allowed us to push our ambitions, transforming familiar subjects and materials into hyper real beautiful abstract expressions” – Matt Pyke
The intention is to allow Hyundai and KIA’s staff to digest the work openly and personally – to allow a deeper connection and to arrive at their own interpretations of the artworks – possibly seeing the familiar in the unfamiliar. The shear scale and resolution of the onscreen content combined with an immersive sound system would instill HMG’s staff with a sense of shared pride and solidarity – making them realize that they are indeed an integral part of the ‘bigger picture’.
Why ask UE?
UE were asked on board at the inception of the Vision Hall project as HMG’s ‘digital artists in residence’. The invitation came on the back of artistically pioneering and challenging work created for (amongst others) La Gaite Lyrique – Paris’ brand new Digital Art Museum, Deutsche Bank’s Hong Kong HQ and Coldplay’s sell out world tour of 2012.
UE’s response
The project has been the studio’s most ambitious project to date – requiring the core staff of 4 to swell to over 30 for the duration of the project. Matt Pyke and long term collaborator, director Dylan Griffith’s response to the challenging brief has yielded 18 films in total, ranging in duration from 00’40” to 02’45”. Created exclusively for their architectural context, the films allow the giant screen to become a ‘stage’ – a performance space that is often filled with life size humans and abstracted production processes.
The films mix a myriad of animation styles and live action – building upon UE’s trademark ethos of ‘maximum innovation’. Abstraction is pitted against familiarity to engage all types of viewer – whilst themes such as nature, technology and mans relationship with them feature heavily. All areas of HMG’s activity are explored with hyper real vision and audio – from steel creation to architecture, construction, future technologies, the corporation’s diverse multi-talented workforce to car design and production.
GGI studios in London, sound engineers in Germany and the UK, Korean programmers, an Italian Director of Photography and Film Directors from Amsterdam and Hong Kong were choreographed from UE’s home base of Sheffield, UK.
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by Universal Everything appeared first on Dezeen.
