Carousel for Cinema 21:9

David Rudnick, guest lecturer at Strelka, spoke about ultra reality and the future of graphic design, and mentioned Philip's evocative ad 'Carousel', a 2009 short film made to show off their new cinema formatted TV. The makers, Tribal DDB Amsterdam and Stink Digital, also developed an interactive website: www.cinema.philips.com who's loader doubled as a totally localisable, vector-based credit sequence. This means the site visitors can choose what frames to watch and when, and how fast. Some frames contain embedded hotspots, taking the viewer to the same shot but behind the scenes; an ambitious interplay of layers of reality. 

The HD quality, frozen time and interesting new angles feels almost like a VR experience: the camera is no longer a mere observer, but an indestructible, time warping character gaze of the viewer. In Rudnick's lecture, he states that cinema has embraced this ultra reality, whereas graphic design has remained modernist in practise. I think Stink Digital's website can argue against this; using graphics in a less linear way is definitely on the rise, but must accelerate to keep up with other faster industries. 

Singularity - Motion Graphics

Singularity is a VR experience made in 2017 for the Oculus Rift and Gear VR by Madrid-based design studio Relajaelcoco. It explores how a “superhuman intelligence” would see a 360-degree setting with graphic design. The app is the first of its kind to explore VR graphic design. Francesco Furno, co founder of Relajaelcoco, states that current VR apps and games missed the 2D element of traditional graphic design. Exploring this new ultra reality within the traditional modernist graphic style blends two worlds together. Furno says graphic design is “living in a bad moment” with a lack of originality and focus on past ideas or “vintage” styles in recent decades. Granted, this was quoted in 2017, and some would argue the industry has progressed considerably since then (visually and conceptually); but I think what Furno is pointing to is that design's functionality is still quite traditional.

First VR system - Sword of Damocles

The Sword of Damocles is considered to be the first virtual reality head-mounted display system that was connected to a computer not a camera. It was created in 1968 by computer scientist Ivan Sutherland with the help of his student Bob Sproull. 

The device was primitive both in terms of user interface and realism, and the graphic virtual environment were simple wireframe rooms. However, this breakthrough was a huge leap in innovation and technical engineering; a discovery that would change our perception of reality and design forever; inspiring technologies such as the Oculus Rift to come about. I chose this image as part of my research following David Rudnick's mention of ultra reality; something my generation has grown up with but does not necessarily know of the beginnings. The end of the 60s marked an extraordinary leap in technology and perspective in general; space exploration, among other things, triggered an explosion of new ideas and design practises.

Times New Arial

David Liebermann, co-founder of the Hamburg-based design studio Liebermann Kiepe Reddemann says “even though variable fonts have been around for quite some time now, the potential contained within them hasn’t been rudimentarily utilised”. This experimentation with the two famously ubiquitous fonts Times New Roman and Arial pushes the world of variable fonts further. Maximilian states “the possibility to use custom fonts on the World Wide Web has been possible since the introduction of CSS2 in 1998". Up until this point, it was only possible to use fonts on the web that were installed on ones computer; Times and Arial became the stereotype for serif and grotesque fonts. “Hence, nowadays these two fonts embody default and nostalgic web design,” says Jana, the Reddemann of Liebermann Kiepe Reddemann. The image on the left shows the four way system, Times, Arial, and left and right slant; the type's appearance controlled by the percentages of each. I think the attention to detail and passion for enhancing and streamlining type is an area in which graphic design will venture onwards; Andrew Blauvelt's Now in Production speaks about how production is now in the hands of the machines, so conception and consideration of design is paramount in the industry now.

Virtual Vertigo

The magazine NXS features the work of Karolien Buurman and Florian Mecklenburg. This publication addresses the increase of the digital self, as reality become less face to face and more Facetime, how the advance in technology has created a rift, and a doubt in reality. The first issue was founded three years ago with the hopes of a “playful experimental approach” to research and journalism; it then became NXS World – a network of over 200 collaborators. This includes visual artists, researchers, graphic designers, “modern witches”, activists, poets and bloggers. The founders state how they believe NXS was the first of its kind, by dealing with content that relates to our virtual and non-virtual existence. They write about about seemingly small details that actually have a great impact on our society; the FaceTime Attention Correction function that “redirects your eyes’ or convincingly-crafted celebrity simulations, thus undermining our trust with technology and our “senses to access reality”. For their fifth publication they wanted to expand upon this virtual world, and asked artist's to create face filters for Instagram. 

"The whole order of this publication has been turned around; you start from the back, with the latest contribution, and then you go back in time.” - going back to David Rudnick's lecture, he talks about how chronology and old linear 'modernist' structures have been discarded for a circular and freeform system. In addition, they explain how they find it difficult to imagine the design as a fixed grid; dizzying at times, the  they want it to feel as if you’re being pulled into the pages while you’re reading, “a feeling that you’ve been led astray”. 

Fenna Fiction - Modernising Collage

Collage artists Fenna Fiction, Amsterdam based artist ,DJ and graduate in philosophy, explores both the analogue and the digital. Using thrifted old books and photography journals, she prefers to be create intuitive abstract pieces, as opposed to strict deign briefs. "It makes a lot of sense that my work is great in accompanying music, it is both abstract and has the possibility to be otherworldly yet familiar.” The two posters on the left were commissioned for the Dutch music festival Draaimolen: “since most of their events take place outdoors, I try to reference the surroundings, albeit in abstraction, in the posters.”

“I created warped dreamlike landscapes, where the surroundings feel familiar but with a psychedelic uncanny-ness, both thematic and material-wise,” this interplay of colour, texture and form certainly intrigues. My impression is of an underwater, warped language; hard to grasp visual portals.