Black Hole Human//

Audio/Visual Collaboration project based on an AI made dystopia

What is ‘Black Hole Human'?

To put it simply, ‘Black Hole Human’ is small looping animated visualiser in collaboration with Jack of Drones & Tones, used as an accompaniment to his PS1 inspired soundscape at a small set in the Shambles Fine Art Gallery.

Influences/

This piece was HEAVILY inspired by Signalis, a PS1 esque cyber-horror game dealing with ideas of humans and ‘replikas’, living in a hi-tech dystopian nightmare. When Jack explained what his set was going to be, I instantly knew that I had to draw on horror, (even if the set was being played at a Christmas event, ho ho ho and all that) since the idea of AI and artist replacement was in the forefront of my mind.

The ‘Black Hole Human’ is the embodiment of vendors and corporations parading their ‘Art’ as human made wares. They are enabling these objects (Not art, it's never art) to wear human skins to draw unassuming consumers into their black hole.

It's exploitative on so many levels, and although more people are opening their eyes to the danger of these practices, so many others see nothing wrong with it at all.

Animation Process/

This visualiser was made from a simple stop motion animation, comprised of 2 layers, the top being cut open to move and reveal the horror inside.

I approached this the same as any other piece, laying watercolour down and overlaying that with coloured pencils:

I then repeated this process for the under layer (forgot to take progress photos, excuse my overwhelming professionalism)

I then mounted both layers on cardboard for rigidity, so that when I'm animating, I don't have to contend with extra movement. After that, I cut the top layer, so that it now split open:

Here came the tedium, creating the actual frames. It was bloody annoying, but worth it! I positioned my bendy ass tripod, and proceeded to move the piece 1cm on each side per new frame, so that the animation FPS was slightly smooth, and slightly janky.

I ended up with 27 frames total, I one by one edited and cropped them to the best of my limited ability, before passing them on to Jack for the editing. It turned out that my cropping wasn't exact, so there was a boiling effect, that he chose to keep in. That's the charm of pieces made by REAL hands, little mistakes that become features!

The Set/

Jack's music was a perfect match for the visualiser, also can we have a round of applause for his editing of the animation itself? That's the beauty of a collaboration, the sharing of skills- I would have never been able to edit like that!

Speaking of Jack, he has started a new endeavour as ‘Drones & Tones’, please give him a follow on Instagram @DroneandToneCollective. You won't regret it!