Paloceae Lupantozoa
The second artwork in this series, inspired by 19th Century artist, Martin Johnson Heade’s (1819 – 1904) series of works, “Orchids and Hummingbirds”. The final video artwork (below) consists of a combination of a traditional oil painting and an A.I. generated animated sequence – creating a link between past and contemporary representations of nature.
"Supernature" as a body of work is an exploration our complex relationship with nature in an augmented age.
Andrea du Plessis, “Paloceae Lupantozoa”, (2020). Digital video.
Andrea du Plessis, Animation of A.I. generated images, (2020).
Andrea du Plessis, “Paloceae Lupantozoa”, (2020). Oil on canvas. 53cm x 63cm (framed size).
“Paloceae Lupantozoa” as an Augmented Reality experience
The process
* After selecting a few 18th Century paintings to work with I combined these into a digital collage, creating a new composition, which was used as reference for my painting.
* Next I created the oil painting, using traditional painting techniques such as glazing. Because I planned to use the 3D camera for animation, I had to complete the painting in layers, starting with the background, working my way towards the foreground. Each layer was painted and photographed separately.
* The photographed layers were then combined into one scene in Photoshop. Elements that were meant to animated were cut out digitally.
* I used an open-source A.I. platform, called Artbreeder to generate images and downloaded individual frames needed for frame by frame animation. I then sequenced these frames into a continuously looping animation of hybrid forms morphing into one another.
* The layered painting and A.I. sequence were then taken into After Effects for animation.
