Mass for the Endangered (2020)

CREDO

"'Credo' is a totemic creed to flora and fauna writ in stars and stone—a temple dedicated to the threatened and endangered. Seven sacred creatures evolve in form and complexity, alluding to humanity's primordial relationship with nature, by turns violent and worshipful."

The assets for the video are created in Cinema4D by visual artist Deborah Johnson, then brought into Unity for further processing by Louise Lessél, including coloring and custom shader effects for the totems and totem animals, as well as programming of butterfly flocking system with customizable waypoints and landing points, and camera capture system. 

TouchDesigner is used for the moving constellations of animals, made with mesh deform manipulations and custom particle system. Final composite is done in AfterEffects by Deborah Johnson.

CREDITS

Credo is the fourth release from CandyStations aka Deborah Johnson, for composer Sarah Kirkland Snider's album, Mass for the Endangered, released to critical acclaim on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records in September 2020.

TouchDesigner, Unity 

Press
Nonesuch Records Link

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GLORIA (INTERACTIVE)

This interactive desktop piece was created as a sister to the official video for Gloria by CandyStations. Sacred, ancient creatures emerge and erode through a mouse and audio-responsive mosaic that evokes Byzantine patterns, stained glass motifs, and ancient rock formations. Click and drag to alter the rocky facets, simultaneously revealing and eroding the underlying animal forms. As the music fades, a final, ghostly image exposes all the marks made.

Save + share your creations to social media using the hashtag #sksgloria, or email them to me (you can save images at any point using the 'Save' button). All drawings will display in a gallery on Sarah's website.

CREDITS

Gloria is the fifth release from CandyStations aka Deborah Johnson, for composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s album, Mass for the Endangered, released to critical acclaim on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records in September 2020.

TouchDesigner, GLSL, Three.js

Press
Nonesuch Records Link 

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EYE OF MNEMOSYNE

EYE OF MNEMOSYNE is a 23', seven-movement multimedia orchestral work commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra for its centennial season. The piece presents memory embodied as a deity while illuminating the influence of George Eastman's Kodak through a lens of nostalgia. 

Johnson and Snider reimagine George Eastman as a vessel of the Greek Goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne, and focus on the essential role that women -- the Kodak Girls -- played in Kodak's success in advertising and film processing. Here the Kodak Girls are presented as descendants of Mnemosyne, muses who influenced and inspired how Americans began to arrange, capture, and experience their lives’ recollections using the instrument of the camera and the power of the snapshot. The Kodak Girls -- the independent, stylish, and sophisticated women conceived to evolve with and proliferate Eastman's cameras -- are presented as descendants of Mnemosyne, muses who influenced and inspired how Americans began to arrange, capture, and experience moments of their lives using the instrument of the camera and the power of the snapshot. The projections were mapped to the architecture of the Eastman Theatre — paying further homage to its founder and legacy. 

The piece features several passages with custom effects made by a tool created in Touchdesigner for this performance. The tool extracts image composition and color, and generates particle effects. Examples include the images of men going off to war, enabling them to evaporate into bomb-like particles, and the Kodak Girls being dissolved and put together from starry images. The particles are shaped like the silver halide crystals used in photography.

CREDITS

EYE OF MNEMOSYNE is created by CandyStations aka Deborah Johnson, for composer Sarah Kirkland Snider.

Working with Deborah Johnson, I developed a custom tool for particle effects, enabling layering of particles for smoke and bomb effects, and starry images.

Touchdesigner

Press
Nonesuch Records Link 

Using Format