Untitled Barrier & Within the LIght
These two works were exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Art in Rockland Maine, as well as as part of the Currents New Media art festival in Santa Fe, NM. They are a dreamscape animated in 3D. The text acompanying the work reads as follows “There is a place that has emerged, a window opened that we've stepped through. Within it, consciousness is developing as a form of wildlife, a breeze rippling across the emerging landscape. Welcome to UNTITLED BARRIER”
HYPERPRODUCTS
HYPERPRODUCTS is a body of 3D animated sculptures that imagine a series of unknown objects / products / toys, that have been brought back from parallel reality dimensions on expeditions in the multiverse. The objects are alive with a purpose and usage, that have been lost in translation through the cultural divide between or reality and their origin. They are ready to be freed from their packaging and used, in whatever ways they are meant for… The works were created in the 3D modeling software Blender, with backgrounds, timing, compositing and color correcting in After Effects. The series was sparked by explorations around the magic art of ‘presentation’ that elevates an object into into a new level of meaning and beingness, a la, the ritual of placing things on pedestals, framing them, displaying them on tvs, or packaging them, etc. I became captivating with the simple form of the toy package, and what that form would do for elevating the mysterious purposehood of such sculptures. — They were created as a series of NFTs for sale on Foundation.
Explorations in Generative Artificial Intelligence / 2022 - 2023
I’ve been working in Generative Art since I began with New Media and Digital Art. The emergence of Generative Large Language Neural Networks in the past few years has been a profound revolution to me as an artist and the ability AI has to amplify the imagination. For this body of work I use the Neural Network AI Midjourney. To create images, complex prompts are sent into the AI, these include camera type, time of day, compositional descriptions, color palettes and tone, etc. Then these images are mixed or “bred” with each other by sending them back into the AI in pairs. We continue this process of breading image aesthetics and content with each other until I arrive at an image that works for my needs. This process is both discovery and creative willing into being. Over the past two years I have created an ongoing fictionally narrative on social media that utilzies these images paired with my own written fiction. A sampling of these images can be seen below. A full record can be seen at https://twitter.com/aelijahe
The Deep Novelty Harvest Colony
STEREOSCOPIC PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO, 2D AND STOP MOTION ANIMATION / MULTICHANNEL INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION
The DNHC is the result of a deep dive exploration into the medium of stereoscopic imagery, in which two discrete images are presented to each of the viewer's eyes creating the effect of depth and three dimensional space. The technique was popular throughout the 1800s and early 1900s with many households owning their own stereoscope and card sets.
Through a range of experimental techniques I developed an archive of over a thousand stereoscopic images, animations, and videos which were presented in a ring of four interactive viewing stations through which viewers could navigate the archives of three dimensional spaces via a custom program that would present the work in a semi-random fashion but ensuring that no new videos would arise until the entire archive was viewed, allowing for a unique image pairing and experience each visit.
By accentuating the stereoscopic angles involved in the photography, widening or shortening the natural eye distances when photographed, the spaces take on a hyperreal quality as if carved out of reality itself. These spaces, while at times sitting silently within themselves, begin to exhibit emergent phenomena, bits of stereoscopic animation act as a sort of wildlife, composed of stereo collage, video, hand drawn and stop-motion animation.
The work is an attempt to depict sensations I experienced in direct perception of the present moment and the physical world, a sort of existential fascination with fabric of reality. I wanted to depict a visceral kinesthetic sensation of feeling the space and forms around me as if from the inside of them, feeling the structure of the space as if part of myself, and to see how one composes images with the perception of depth as a primary image component. I strove to depict my fascination with the grit of existence as it is, rather than particularly formulated, crafted, or imagined. The show was exhibited at the Hinterland Art.Space in Denver, Colorado, which at the time was located in the RiNo Arts district.
An interview with my me from then with Westword, can be read here.
The full collection of slides stored in the archive.
Resonance Spectacle
This frame by frame animated video work is a resonance of forms, all oscillating from the single origin prime radiant of the circle. The work is inspired by cymatics, the vibrational phenomenon in which material (sand on a vibrating plate) takes on complex form through coherence with various vibrational frequencies. The manifestation of cymatics is a manifestations of the fundamental vibrational reality of the universe in which resonance and vibration give way to form. In Resonance Spectacle, form oscillate out of nothingness and circular unity into a myriad of forms at play.
Sludge VR - The Andrew Elijah Show
The Andrew Elijah Show, was my Covid Project. Stuck at home, using Greenscreen, 2D and 3D computer animation, and a wide mix of other techniques, I created an exploration of virtual performance through a series of “talk show esque” episodes funded through a Patreon subscription. The work explores a variety of ideas of interest to me, mixed with surrealist dreamscape expeditions and absurdist humor featuring myself interacting with dozens of other selves. This is an ongoing project that led to the creation of my youth education program Imaginarium Creator Camp, which follows a similar formula.
Memories of the Night - Explorations in Neural Networks
This body of work is an exploration into the glitch aesthetics of Neural Network Artificial Intelligence. Trained on all of my facebook photos form 2005 - 2020, this fever dreams of a fabric of a place ripple with mysterious energy, alive with an echo of moments of my life.
REVERBERATIONS OF TOUCH
This work is an exploration into longform abstract claymation using frame by frame stop motion. The work continues a series of pieces titled ‘Feeler,’ that explore the kinesthetic use of my hand feeling it’s way through space tactilely as a means of exploring direct experience of space and presence though video. The work experimented with use of my hands and the camera to collect spaces of tactile dialogue and kinesthetic play between myself and the space of my awareness. The camera becomes the gaze of attention and my hands an extension of my intention, will, and perception. The videos explore ecstatic experiences of existential awe and wonder via a deep fascination with physicality.
SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY - 3 Channel Animated Video Installation - Exhibited at Space Gallery Congress Street Portland ME
Spirit Photography is an animated long form 3 channel video installation that was exhibited at Space Gallery on Congress Street in Portland. “In this work, a miniature chair sits starkly in the exhibition surrounded by an assemblage of vintage hardware whose myriad cameras fix their lenses on the chair. A jungle of cabling runs through a structure of finely tuned devices whose esoteric mesh allow for the viewing of small spirits, animated beings alive in the light of the electric signal. As we watch, spirits enter and exit, coming to sit and express themselves expanding an imaginal layer to reality of a world of beings hovering just outside of the visible. Spirit Photography explores the growing relationship between our evolution of technologies for imaging and seeing the world through the light of the moving image and our connection to imaginal and the dreamscape