Truely amazing piece of animation art

[40hz]

Incredible art sometimes shows up in the most unlikely places. But how often would you expect to find it in a hotel? And more to the point, how often would you expect to find it in a hotel elevator?

The latest collaboration between visual artist Marco Brambilla, and a production company that goes by the name of Crush, has produced a work that is impressive from both a technical and an artistic perspective. The title of the piece is Civilization. Civilization is a video mural now on permanent display at the Standard Hotel in New York.

Civilization depicts a journey from hell to heaven interpreted through modern film language using computer-enhanced found footage.

This epic video mural contains over 300 individual channels of looped video blended into a multi-layered seamless tableau of interconnecting images that illustrate a contemporary, satirical take on the concepts of Heaven and Hell.

http://marcobrambilla.com/civilization.html

[attach]

[J-Mac]

Now that is impressive!

Thanks 40hz.

Jim

[Innuendo]

Weird...I saw the pic and at first it looked like a screen cap of Mordor from a Lord Of The Rings movie.

[40hz]

Weird...I saw the pic and at first it looked like a screen cap of Mordor from a Lord Of The Rings movie.

It gets better.  

Be sure to visit the link to see it in motion.

There's all kinds of things going on: Arnie Schwartzenegger flexing, Princess Leia reclining, the Ghostbusters' Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man marching, Hitler dancing in the Broadway musical The Producers, Jessica Alba's dance clip from Sin City...

It's definitely one of the best video montage works I've ever seen. For me, it falls more in the "Wow" rather than the "Gee Whiz!" category because the technology is so well integrated that it doesn't draw attention to itself. It's only later on, when you think about what was involved in producing this piece, that you begin to appreciate the degree of artistry involved.

[Innuendo]

Impressive, to be sure, but I wonder how long it will last before the MPAA shuts it down for copyright infringement.....or did they secure the rights to use every single one of those elements?

[Eóin]

It is good, very good. The name is terribly misleading though, it's has nothing to do with civilization at all really. It is exactly what it describes itself as - "Civilization depicts a journey from hell to heaven interpreted through modern film language using computer-enhanced found footage.".

Just me being picky I suppose but I watched it first have only read the name and thought this makes no sense. Once I read the hell to heaven bit then it all clicked.

Impressive, to be sure, but I wonder how long it will last before the MPAA shuts it down for copyright infringement.....or did they secure the rights to use every single one of those elements?

Fair use?

[40hz]

I wonder how long it will last before the MPAA shuts it down for copyright infringement...

I'd guess right after one of the following conditions gets met :  

• it gets written up in the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal  -or-
• another six weeks goes by

Fair use?

Yeah...it's good to have a dream...  

[tinjaw]

Dancing women seems to have a monopoly. They exist from Hell to Heaven.


That is such a relief. I'm glad to know that no matter where I end up, there will always be dancing women.  :

[f0dder]

Somebody post a direct-download URL for the lazy of us? pretty please?

[Innuendo]

That is such a relief. I'm glad to know that no matter where I end up, there will always be dancing women.  :

Don't be so relieved, tinjaw. Obviously, you missed the fine print. In Heaven, the dancing women will all look like Scarlett Johansson. In That Other Place, they'll all look like Rosie O'Donnell.

So don't give up on your good behavior just yet.

[40hz]

Somebody post a direct-download URL for the lazy of us? pretty please?

There isn't a link specifically set up to do a download.

But here's the direct URL for the video:

http://motionographer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/civilization_final.mov

I used the DownThemAll extension in Firefox to grab it. But in Firefox, you can also go to the Tools menu, open up PageInfo; then look under the Media tab to find civilization_final.mov; and do a SaveAs from there.

(This also works for snarfing copies of all those pictures on Flickr they don't want you snarfing. )

Don't be so relieved, tinjaw. Obviously, you missed the fine print. In Heaven, the dancing women will all look like Scarlett Johansson. In That Other Place, they'll all look like Rosie O'Donnell.

So don't give up on your good behavior just yet.

Wow. Now there's an image for you!

Talk about a big incentive to be good!  

And talk about an even bigger disincentive to be bad!!!

(There are some people* you just don't wanna see dancing!  )

*With all due respect to Ms. O'Donnell, who I'm sure is a very nice person; and who likely also has her admirers. De gustibus not est disputadum, and all that... Now if she could just get off the 'holier than thou' kick she always seems to be on, and lighten up!

[f0dder]

40hz: thanks for the link, and the tips - a bit embarassing that I have DownloadThemAll installed but didn't think of using it

Video looks pretty awesome, would be great having the executable version so you could run it as a screensaver or whatever

[40hz]

would be great having the executable version so you could run it as a screensaver or whatever

Yeah, I though so too. I suppose we could either wait for one, or do our own.

Most apps that will covert a MOV directly into an SCR are on the pricey side. However, there is a fairly decent freebie called Instant Storm that will convert SWFs into screensavers. So all I should need to do is convert the MOV to SWF and then run it though Instant Storm.

(Probably also need to edit to the MOV to make it loop smoothly since it looks like there's some frame overlap at the very end.)

Hmmm...

[f0dder]

I guess converting the .mov with a wrapper program would work, since it does seem to loop - it'd still be cooler to have the "real" program though (higher video quality, also iirc the site mentions that the installation can change pace depending on how the elevator moves?)

[Innuendo]

I used the DownThemAll extension in Firefox to grab it. But in Firefox, you can also go to the Tools menu, open up PageInfo; then look under the Media tab to find civilization_final.mov; and do a SaveAs from there.

And the FlashGot extension allows you to grab it with the download manager of your choice.

[40hz]

I guess converting the .mov with a wrapper program would work, since it does seem to loop - it'd still be cooler to have the "real" program though (higher video quality, also iirc the site mentions that the installation can change pace depending on how the elevator moves?)

The pacing part might be tricky to implement on a screensaver. Tough to test too since we don't have an elevator in our house. Might not be a bad idea to get one however. Otherwise, I imagine I'd get pretty tired walking my machine up and down two flights of stairs until I got that part coded right.