SubSub blog

This piece of sexiness looks set to be the next big jump in gaming. It looks absolutely lovely, seems to be scarily interactive and reactive, and the game play appears to be thought through and well researched (that final point will need to be proved through, but we’ve got faith!)

Assassin’s Creed has already been feverishly discussed since early demos, particularly at last years E3 event. And more recently have started showing working demos of the game… which as you’ll see are pretty unbelievable.

Now I’ll have to buy a PS3. Anyhow, check out the official site for the flashy trailer, or check out the demo below.

A couple of posts on some good looking digital stuff about recently…

Alexander McQueen - continuing his blurring between technology and fashion - recently used a Musion Eyeliner System to materialise a life sized hologram of Kate Moss in the center of the show.

The system, as used by Gorillaz in their stage ‘appearances’, simulates the 3d by using a projector, a mirror and a form of semi transparent foil that sits at 45% degrees to the viewers. It’s a modern version of an old technique known as “Peppers Ghost” used in stage shows.

The output looks beautiful, particularly when crafted by Alexander (and containing Kate). Have a look for yourself:

Last night I headed over to Bluescreen @ the Cube Cinema, mainly to see the latest piece of work by Chuen Hung Tsang and Chris Hawkes. Chuen’s work so far has been beautiful, so this latest project, a personal project funded and supported by Black Dog Films held a lot of potential.

The work didn’t fail to deliver. Their work does so well because even in such a small team (of 2), they have a plethora of skills, from technical to storytelling. The visual styling is rich, with bleak apocalyptic settings with classic anime’esqe over exposed sky, the edits and cuts were strong and the story held you throughout. Well done boys.

Nothings online yet to view, so you’ll have to bide your time with their last endeavor, a music video for Leave Land For Water.

Also to note from the evening: Some fun and well put together stop frame animation from a recent UWE grad (who’s name I missed, but hopefully will get to add here soon) and the intimate-INTIMATE documentation, a piece commissioned by Black Out Arts for the tollgate house projections by Minton Film

Another long break between posts, sorry. It’s always frustrating, because these long breaks normally mean we’ve been involved in even more stuff to blog about. The vicious circle continues until eventually we’ll be drowned in our own adventures. With that in mind we better get on with it…

Been in London over the last few days at the Free Range graduate shows. We went down to see the Bournemouth New Media course, but also had a good look at the other goings on.

The Bournemouth show (i Heart Play) did live up to it’s title, many of the pieces including gaming to some degree. The pieces ranged from mediocre to damn interesting. They included sonic controlled interfaces, interactive films, alternative reality games, API mash ups, and some good old html and flash interfaces. The show was well coordinated, and felt coherent.

Although no animators/designers stood out, a number of people seemed to know their coding, so I hope to get them working with us at SubSub.

The Brighton Graphics and Illustration courses were also on show. Their work was exceptional in places, with some very powerful graphical pieces. As always it was highly ‘fine art’ influenced, with a conceptual feel throughout, therefore difficult to comprehend employing outside of illustration work.

Epson had a huge show on, with almost 120 students on show, split between new media and graphics. The interactive work was limited, with only a couple of pieces to note, and even these were reasonably unoriginal (although, the guy who had created one of them was particular nice, so good luck to him). There was someone playing with the Wii Remote API, but that wasn’t working when I was about.

The rest of the ‘new media’ course had some great design though, with one guy in particular shining out as skilled with a massive body of work. The rest was mainly motion based, of pretty good quality.

All in all a good show, but I’m disappointed with the lack of digital/interactive courses this year. Perhaps we should move next years exhibition to Free Range and put on the digital stuff?

The guys at Encounters have provided us with some open air entertainment. Personally I think open air cinemas are great (not quite as good as drive-in’s but close).

It’s all free, so go!

I recently noticed the guys from SITA working away beside our office cleaning up the graffiti. Nothing new, we’ve got a lot of graffiti/street art (delete as appropriate) around Stokes Croft… but what was interesting was they were leaving a particular stencil, and just painting over the crappy tags and badly drawn scribbles.

Now I’d never thought of this before, but it makes sense in a city sporting street artists such as Xenz, Sickboy, Ghostboy and of course Banksy. Particularly when their pieces are starting to become hugely valuable items. Would you want to be the one who’s just painted over a piece worth over 100k?

So, we’re left with an art conscious cleaning service. From disposer to curator; a lovely transition I think. Respect to the firm for having the foresight to at least think about it.