top of page
Morphogenesis (digital+lasercut+VR, etc.)
Morphogenesis, etc.

Morphogenesis (from the Greek morphê ‘’shape'' and genesis “creation” literally, "beginning of the shape") is the biological process that causes an organism to develop its shape. As a fulldome and virtual reality piece, which is inspired by the phenomenon of emergence in self-organized systems, Morphogenesis consists of the continuous transformation of fundamental geometrical patterns and uses them as the building blocks of an immersive space and a visual notation for the sound, during an audiovisual journey through different aspects of the physical and biological universe. As the common characteristics of emergence that can perceived universally, the audiovisual experience intends to emphasize the systemic interconnectedness over space and time of all natural dynamics and how these dynamics result to create novelty.

Morphogenesis | Trailer

 

Audiovisual Piece for Fulldome and Virtual Reality

 

The night of June 3rd (cover photo / left, by SebastienRoy.ca), Immersion Experience Symposium 2016, Montreal, Canada. Premiere of "Morphogenesis" at SAT's dome "Satosphere", the very first immersive modular theatre, dedicated to artistic creation. Following the premiere, the fulldome piece was exhibited in MIRA Festival Berlin, Currents New Media Festival Santa Fe, SFAI San Francisco, VRLA Los Angeles (cover photo / right by VRLA), Signal Light Festival Prague and MIRA Festival Barcelona, etc. More dates to come from all around the world

Unfold 01

 

Projection on Digital Print
47”x47” + 3 Minutes Audiovisual Loop

Digital sculpture studies
 

Unfold Series is an ongoing form experiment inspired by the phenomenon of morphogenesis. My aim with this study is to create large scale audio/visual installations as a type of kinetic sculpture using light and sound. I created this particular version for Prizma Group Show 02 and experimented with light on the flat surface of printed canvas as step one, before moving to work on physical application of the form.

Also included in this video demo:

Unifield
Projection on Lasercut Sculpture
20”x20” + 4 Minutes Audiovisual Loop

 

Unifield is a form experiment which attempts to explore H.S.M. Coxeter's higher dimensional geometry studies and unified field theory. It intends to trigger a timeless perception by merging both archaic and futuristic components. The experiment aims to continue the progress with physical implementations and animated artworks.

I=PAT
Audiovisual Installation
40”x40”x20” + 6 Minutes Audiovisual Loop

 

I=PAT is the lettering of a formula which describes the impact of human activity on the environment (Human Impact on the environment equals the product of Population, Affluence, and Technology). Inspired by this formula, the work describes the ‘man era’ condition of the Earth with using this specific timeframe's common characteristics: image as cognition. Made up of these particles of time, it consists of visuals representing Anthropocene, which deals with cognition, not intuition.

Morphogenesis [extended] | Trailer

 

Audiovisual Piece for Fulldome and Virtual Reality

 

180° teaser from a whole new part of Morphogenesis.

Leafcutter Ants
Leafcutter ants

“The Leafcutters” series is a project that includes video, photography, drawing and sculpture.  It brings nature back into our cultural experience, in an unusual way, different from photographs of natural phenomena or the plethora of stunning nature shows we all have access to these days. This series on leafcutter ants, for example, offers a wholly surprising look at these creatures of the forest—and at ourselves - revealing the way they mirror human society.  When the artist looks at leafcutter ants, she sees Facebook, because social networking, in certain ways, mimics the way ants communicate and organize themselves. 

Filmed in Panama and Osa Peninsular, Costa Rica, the series was funded in part through a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is expected to be submitted to Sundance Festival. It will be exhibited at Today Museum in Beijing this summer.

We Rule

 

Filmed at Liquid Jungle Lab, a biological research station on Isla Canales de Tierra off the Pacific coast of Panama.

 

The soundtrack was created from wildlife recorded on location: howler monkeys, parrots, toucans, insects and an agouti. We also recorded the sound of ants cutting leaves and communicating with each other.

The Chosen

 

Filmed on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica over two years with two different ant colonies. The first one was killed off by its larger neighbor. The war was brutal.

 

The video follows a colorful parade of ants as they traverse the forest and enter their underground colony. They descend through a labyrinth of tunnels to the heart of the colony and lay their offerings at the feet of their idol – a golden ant. Through the ceremony they bury the idol. The parade resembles a ritualistic procession, similar to a Mayan festival where special offerings are brought to honor a god. 

The soundtrack includes four species of monkeys, dozens of birds and insects, as well as the subtle sounds of the ants walking, talking and eating. Inside the temple was created from processed sounds of ants, capuchins, antique Himalayan singing bowls, drums and foot steps in an Italian cathedral.

War

 

"For the past four years I have returned to the same location on the Osa Peninsula and have kept detailed notes on the behavior and fates of ten local leafcutter ant colonies. Even though the ants are the same species, the colonies behave surprisingly different from one another. One colony is consistently aggressive. It has waged war with all of its neighbors and has succeeded in dislodging or killing three of them. Two years ago I photographed them as they attacked the colony I used to film 'The Chosen'. Last year the stars of that video were gone. This year I filmed the bellicose colony at night as it attacked a new neighbor, a colony which during the day I used to film the 'Antworks' video. It’s hard not to take sides. When I left the war had no winner."

Antworks

 

"Usually leafcutter ants cut green leaves high up in the forest canopy. In order to film this video, the heart of which is a stop-motion sequence of the colony completely denuding a tree, I need to find a plant the ants were willing to take that was also on my scale. I offered them more than a dozen plants they are known to like and they refused them all, except this one. The aesthetics of the video were framed by their choice of this plant whose leaves looked liked abstract expressionist paintings".


Filmed on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica.

Accompanying photographs

 

10" x 15" each, printed and matted in the U.S.. Can be framed in China.

interactive science & art concept visualization

NAAG
NAAG

The 1960s program Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was a turning point in art’s relationship with science as artists and scientists worked together on new, creative projects. In 2016 the Contemporary Jewish Museum organized "NEAT: New Experiments in Art and Technology", acknowledging that seminal event and celebrating the Bay Area’s leading role in bringing digital innovation into the fine arts. 

 

Gabriel Dunne was one of the nine Bay Area artists NEAT featured, who represented three generations of practitioners demonstrating how digital programming is a central, yet just the latest, tool for artist creativity.  NAAG was commissioned for the exhibition and created in collaboration with Vishal K Dar.

Three options for exhibiting at Mayland:

  1. Ship the foam sculpture to Guangzhou, and recreate the exhibit there.

  2. Fabricate the sculpture locally in Guangzhou

  3. Redesign a sculpture and mapping / projection, customized for the space, fabricating locally

This exhibit requires a dark space for projection to show effectively.

NAAG XY

 

EPS foam, plaster of paris, custom software, multiple projectors, computer, 

 

14' x 8' x 4'

NAAG Z


Plaster of Paris, Styrofoam, Steel, Custom Software, GLSL, Computer, Multiple Projectors

 

Sculpture, 4ch Projection

 

4' x 4' x 14'

 

Mumbai, 2015

NAAG XY
studio time-lapse

 

The making of NAAG XY, 2015

It is as if mysterious forces have spontaneously combusted and ignited to produce a marvelous emanation of the cosmic in our midst. Who knows what corners of the universe inform this luminous entity, what hidden histories of the people are recounted in its mysterious ebbs and flows? Light makes the remembered disappear and in its glow we glimpse perhaps the finest movements of our desires hidden deep within ourselves, the sticky flows of habitual but subtle lust by which we attach ourselves to reality in order to feel organically alive.

When Vishal K Dar and Gabriel Dunne first presented NAAG in a small space in Mehrauli, India, on the fringe of the community’s development, the children of this neighborhood had immediately made up their minds about the creature's true nature and the reasons for its appearance. To them it was a wish fulfilling sea-serpent, silent and evocative, which had found abode in this unused space to hibernate during the cold winter months of Delhi.

 

Vishal K Dar and Gabriel Dunne challenge the notion of sculpture as a static object. The organic sculptural form has its roots in CG and CAD software and is further skinned with generative algorithm. Various parts of the sculpture move differently, as if a form had coiled onto itself. The viewer is liberated since the sculpture does not rely on prescribed grammar and the experience helps resolve a paradigm shift in our viewing registers.

Mandala

The Mandala works are 2D representation of wave interference patterns, radially propagating from a single center point. As wave forms superimpose themselves, patterns emerge from their addition or cancellations. The center point of the Mandala represents a microcosmic view of the physical and non physical Universe, radially propagating from a central point of consciousness (the viewer). These Mandalas represent my relationship with digital tools and process as a ritual of manifesting ephemeral digital patterns and algorithms as physical entities. 
 

The Mandala series are generated digitally as GLSL fragment shader code, and then translated into CNC G-Code or raster images that enables them to be fabricated in various ways in a multitude of mediums, ranging from wood, paper, fabric, lace, stone, metals, plastic, velum, glass, and more. Output techniques include CNC mills, laser cutters, routers, printers, plotters, and projections. Scale and medium is variable.
 

Recently I have been exploring laser etching the Mandala's into mediums and metals that are commonly used in consumer technology products such as copper, gold, aluminum, plastic, and glass.

Mandala projection

 

This video depicts a projection augmentation of a mandala piece installed in someone's private collection.

(password: mandala)

data
Data visualization or physicalization, topic TBD

This would be an interactive data visualization or physicalization exhibit customized to a social or business theme relevant to the local market.

Below are examples of past works, just as samples to demonstrate potential outputs and types of data, and inspire ideas.  

3D Workplace Collaboration Graph

 

A series of interactive visualizations of file-sharing on Box’s platform, created for the Boxworks 2014 conference.

 

Each visualization revealed how collaboration patterns change over time at various companies. A Kinect-powered gestural interface enabled users to explore the data simply with their hands.

 

We also created virtual reality version utilizing the Oculus Rift VR headset.5

Realtime Indoor Location Mapper

 

A real-time map of attendee movement created for BoxDev 2015.

 

Using location data from Bluetooth beacons, the visualization highlighted areas of high and low foot traffic throughout the day.

 

Similar solutions have been implemented for tech companies and universities.

11%, data and sculpture

 

A data-based sculpture mapping how more than 1,700 Salesforce customers use Salesforce. The art piece was inspired by the report’s three key trends revealed in the fifth annual The State of Salesforce Report, bringing the report’s 110,000+ data points to life.

The goal of the installation is engage the public in conversation. Thus, its physical configuration is designed to

scale and adapt to given physical spaces. For example, it could hang form ceiling or walls, sit and spread from the floor, tables or structures. As a reference, the installation as shown in the attached photo documentation is roughly 15’x15’x15’.

 

The installation is on a five-minute loop, and can be turned on/off with a single power button.

Presently Untitled

 

Data Mapping of 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Twitter Activity Phase III

This project, with its multiple phases, transforms the 2016 United States Presidential Election Twitter data into a large-scale installation to probe the question of how social media assumes form and dominates the shaping of the future of a nation. The installation recounts Twitter activities of tweets, retweets, and replies using hashtags in support of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy from February 2016 through the election date of November 8, 2016.

 

By articulating major Twitter influencers in this period, uncovering propagation patterns in the data, and differentiating human tweets from AI tweets, the installation exposes the inner mechanisms of a world where true human tweets and tweets generated by Twitter Bots mutually influence each other and propagate inseparably as a combined voice. The installation allows the examination of the machine world infiltration that shifted the generative entropic propagation of social media influence on this U.S. election, and provides a physical space for contemplating the significant challenges social media post in our understanding of the social fabric and the radical transformation of the ways in which we now relate to each other.

List of propogating hashtags:

#trump2016

#trump

#tcot

#trumptrain

#makeamericagreatagain

 

Recounts twitter election activity:

Feb 8 - Nov 8, 2016

6.5 million users

620,000 tweets

 

This project is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and research grants from the University of California, Davis.

bottom of page