Commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) for the debut performance of Massive Attack’s single “United Snakes”, at Becks Fusions 2008, the band liked the project so much it was later released as a video (2009). The video was entirely animated using openFrameworks – see making of below.
The software created was a gesture-based, “keyframeless” animation system, which uses soft-body dynamics to create motion in the same way you would with puppets – by literally grabbing bits of the 3D mesh and pulling it around with the mouse, and recording live. The software was written by Dave Ferner and Tak Fung (SuperMono) for United Visual Artists, concept by Dave Ferner/Matt Clark, directed/animated by Dave Ferner and composited by Dave Ferner/James Medcraft.
United Visual Artists | SuperMono | Massive Attack
For more about UVA, read our special feature: Creating spectacles with d3 / United Visual Artists
The Video
Making of using openFrameworks
