Category: Imagination

Into Van Gogh

~ mehopper

It’s not unusual for one artist’s work to serve as the grist for another artist’s mill. However, few artists have their works “reimagined” as frequently or as creatively as Vincent van Gogh. Artists all over the world are still very much into making works based upon his iconic paintings.

For example, check out this surreal 360° video of a hot air balloon that’s a faithful 3D reproduction of Van Gogh’s famous Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

DiscGolfVR360 (YouTube Channel)

Here’s the article with more background about the ballon.

Giant Hot Air Balloon with the Face of Vincent van Gogh Sails through the Skies of Melbourne (Adam McCleery, Daily Mail Australia)

There is also an exhibit at the Atelier des Lumières in Paris that invites attendees to walk “into” Van Gogh’s Starry Night and other works. Here’s a one minute promo.

France 24 (YouTube Channel)
France 24 (Official Website)

That clip was a good introduction to the exhibit, but it didn’t convey the atmosphere of the experience as well as this next clip featuring Don McLean’s Vincent.

Ine RP Braat (YouTube Channel)

If you’re sad that you can’t step into that Starry Night exhibit, then let me introduce you to some artists that strive to take you “into” Van Gogh’s Starry Night via YouTube videos.

The first one of these types of videos I ever saw was this one by Robbie Dingo from 2007. He used SecondLife to “build” the painting, and then he filmed it.

Share Festival (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a link to Robbie Dingo’s post about the video.

Watch the World(s) (Robbie Dingo, Digital Double)

I also came across this 360° video with a similar mission in 2016.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Motion Magic (YouTube Channel)

Then I found this awesome 360° video in 2018.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Youtube Trendz (YouTube Channel)

The highlight of that clip was going into Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles, which is one of his works that’s been “reimagined” almost as often as Starry Night.

The Art Institute of Chicago had quite a bit of fun with “recreating” that painting when they were promoting their exhibit Van Gogh Bedrooms. They went so far as to create a replica of Van Gogh’s bedroom and then list it on Airbnb. Here’s a story about how thousands of people got into van Gogh’s bedroom.

Art Institute Re-Creates Van Gogh’s Bedroom to Rent on Airbnb (Corilyn Shropshire, Chicago Tribune)

Alas, that opportunity is no longer available, but you can step into this 360° video now.

Rendr (YouTube Channel)
Rendr (Official Website)

That video is actually a recording of a 3D model that Sokolovsky Ruslan posted on Sketchfab.

His model was also used to create a “virtual door” into Van Gogh’s bedroom with the augmented reality app ARLOOPA. Here’s a short clip of users stepping into the painting.

ARLOOPA (YouTube Channel)
ARLOOPA (Official Website)

Finally, the above examples have gone hand-in-hand with some creative uses of technology, but now here’s a fun low-tech take on Starry Night by YouTube sensation FlippyCat.

FlippyCat (YouTube Channel)
FlippyCat (Facebook Page)

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Leonardo Lately
Magical Paintings
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about visual arts and media …

Furby Hacking

~ mehopper

It’s odd how some toy fads come and go as one hit wonders while others seem to stick around and take on a life of their own. Of course, there’s no question that one of the oddest toys with the longest track record is Hasbro’s Furby.

Whether you’re a Furby lover or hater, you have to admit that they’ve got staying power. Perhaps it’s because they give the illusion that they do have a life of the their own, but personally I believe that it’s because of the wide variety of mischief that they can support.

Treating a Furby as a “starter” pet has a certain amount of charm. That’s probably why there’s a ridiculous number of Furby videos on YouTube that feature things like them talking to Siri and dancing Gangnam Style. It’s right up there with cat and dog videos.

However, if you’ve owned a Furby, then you know that the real fun doesn’t begin until you get two or more of the critters together. Then they really carry on. Here’s a party of 20 of them chattering away to each other.

Jared Bendis (YouTube Channel)
Jared Bendis (Official Website)

That trick will entertain kids for a bit, but it’s certainly not the main source of attraction.

That honor most certainly must go to the “hackability” of its personality. While parents may encourage their children to be responsible and take Care of Furby, their off spring are inevitably going to explore how to Turn Furby Evil.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Furby personalities, here’s a short demonstration of the difference between a good and bad Furby (complete with burps).

besttoysguide (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a commercial that plays on the idea.

FurbyOfficialUK (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a 360° video that shows that when you get a group of evil Furbies together, things can get really scary. It also shows that you can find a 360° video about almost anything as well as that there’s some very odd stuff on YouTube (as if you didn’t know that already).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Max Deacon VR – Hella Rad Toys (YouTube Channel)

That video was actually about a game entitled Tattletail that takes the concept of evil Furbies to a whole ‘nother level.

Furbies Get Their Own Horror Game with Tattletail (David Gelmini, Dread Central)

Now if you think that this post is going to stop at someone hacking together a Furby coven, you’re wrong. There are far more extreme Furby hacks out there.

For example, one father and son duo took the concept quite literally, and this resulting “longish” video is surprisingly gruesome.

What’s Inside? (YouTube Channel)
What’s Inside? (Facebook Page)

Then there’s another guy who decided to transform his Furby into an Amazon Echo that he then dubbed Furlexa. The video of how he did it is shorter than the last one, it squeezes in a ton of Furby history, and it has a lot more details about Furby innards. Oh, and we also get to find out if Furby is flammable.

Howchoo (YouTube Channel)
Howchoo (Official Website)

Furlexa strikes me as sort of creepy in all sorts of ways, but here are instructions on how to make one if you’re into that sort of thing.

I turned a Furby into an Amazon Echo. Introducing: Furlexa

Finally, my award for best Furby hacker goes to an artist named Sam Battle that frames his work under the moniker Look Mum No Computer. He engages in a niche practice known as circuit bending to create things like a Furby Organ.

Here’s a feature video and article about his work by Dani Deahl from The Verge.

The Verge (YouTube Channel)
The Verge (Official Website)

Circuit bending: Hacking a Furby in the name of music (Dani Deahl, The Verge)

If you’re inspired to hack a Furby, or other toys, here are some links to get you started.

6 Amazing Terrifying Toys that have been Circuit Bent (Steve Aoki)
Intro to Circuit Bending (Joseph Thibodeau, Hack a Day)
Circuit Bending For Beginners (David Erik Nelson, Performer Magazine)
Simple Ways to Circuit Bend a Toy (Instructables)
How to Circuit Bend (WikiHow)

If you want to learn all about how Furbies came about and keep on succeeding, check out this neat article.

The History Of Furby, The Electronic Pet That Took The Late ’90s By Storm (Lucia Peters, Bustle)

Happy Furby Hacking!

Find out more about toys and robots…

Magical Paintings

~ mehopper

Two earlier posts on Cosma entitled Walk-in-Art and Art Revisited covered a trend for new immersive 360°/3D/VR technologies to be used to revisit and add new dimensions, literally, to classic art masterpieces. Some examples covered in those posts included three-dimensional reimaginings of van Gogh’s Starry Night, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium explicating Bruegel’s A fall with the Rebel Angels and the Salvador Dalí Museum’s experience entitled Dreams of Dalí: A Virtual Reality Experience that allowed visitors to use a VR headset to step into Dalí’s painting entitled Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus..

Now there’s a new, fantastical twist on reimagining classic paintings on the block.

Remember those nifty magical paintings in Harry Potter where the people in the paintings move around, interact with people in other paintings as well as people in the real world? (Muggles’ Guide to Harry Potter)

Well I’ve just stumbled across a 360° video that takes the concept to a whole nother level. There’s nothing else to say that doesn’t spoil the fun, so just watch and be sure to look around!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

SoKrispyMedia (YouTube Channel)
SoKrispyMedia (Official Website)

That’s just awesome I had to share it!!!

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Leonardo Lately
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art 😉

Find out more about the visual arts …

Exoplanet Junket

~ mehopper

This week NASA released a new project that they’ve dubbed the Exoplanet Travel Bureau.

The core of the project consists of a set of interactive 360° images that show “imagined” surfaces of five exoplanets (TRAPPIST-1e, Kepler-16b, Kepler-186f, PSO J318.5-22 and HD 40307 g). Here are three articles about the experience.

This Brilliant Interactive From NASA Lets You Virtually Explore Planets Far, Far Away (Jacinta Bowler, Science Alert)
Visit Exotic Exoplanets with NASA Visualization Tool (Mike Wall, Space.com)
NASA’s New VR Demo Puts You on Distant Exoplanets (Ryan Whitwam, Extreme Tech)

NASA’s new experience includes a feature that let’s you download snazzy travel posters for each of the planets, and those posters have a backstory of their own. Here’s a Buzz 60 story about three of the posters in the new project.

Buzz60 (YouTube Channel)
Buzz60 (Facebook Page)

Here’s a Slate article with some more background on the Work Projects Administration (WPA) See America poster series that inspired the style of NASA’s travel posters.

See America Through a Nostalgic Lens With These Neo-Vintage Travel Posters (Kristin Hohenadel, Slate)

This isn’t the first time that NASA has dabbled in publishing travel posters. The three exoplanet posters featured in the video are actually a subset of fifteen posters that NASA released in 2016 as a series entitled Visions of the Future.

Here are some links about the posters and where you can still download them for yourself.
Exotic Cosmic Locales Available as Space Tourism Posters (NASA/JPL)
Space Tourism Posters (NASA)
Visions of the Future Posters (NASA/JPL)

NASA also published this special page about the inspiration for the posters.
About Visions of the Future Posters (NASA/JPL)

Of course, the timing of the release of the Exoplanet Travel Bureau is no coincidence — it’s neatly timed to coincide with last month’s launch of NASA’s planet hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Here’s a short one minute explanation from NASA Goddard about what TESS will be doing.

NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
Goddard Space Flight Center (Official Website)

Find out more about planetary systems and planets near and far …

Leonardo Lately

~ mehopper

Leonardo da Vinci sure gets press for a gentleman who hasn’t been around for five centuries! That’s not to say that it’s not well deserved. Here’s a brief video that gives just a glimpse of why he was such an amazing guy.

Past Vault (YouTube Channel)

The Smile

Of course, one perennial reason for Leonardo’s popularity is the never ending fascination with how he achieved Mona Lisa’s smile. This video is about just one study about it.

Newsy Entertainment (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a link to a video that further explains the fantastic techniques that Leonardo used to create the illusions that make the painting so enigmatic.

How Leonardo Da Vinci Augmented Reality More Than 500 Years Ago (The Atlantic)

Unfortunately, it’s hard for an average person to actually experience the effect for themselves. In case you’ve never been to the Louvre and tried to see the original, here’s a 360° Video that will give you a sense of what you will probably encounter (skip to 2 minutes into video).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

360 Vacation VR (YouTube Channel)

The Genius

One of the above videos was made to accompany a story by Walter Isaacson about Leonardo da Vinci in the The Atlantic, and that story is a sample of the book Leonardo da Vinci that Isaacson has just added to his pantheon of biographies about geniuses (Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs).

Here’s an inspiring 2 minute video where Isaacson talks about Leonardo’s creativity.

New Scientist (YouTube Channel)
New Scientist (Official Website)

Here’s a link to another video where Isaacson discusses the book.

Walter Isaacson on Accessible Genius of Leonardo da Vinci (CBS, YouTube)

The Auction

It is probably no coincidence that Isaacson’s book was timed to coincide with the auction of Leonardo’s last painting in private hands — the Salvator Mundi was auctioned at Christie’s.

Associated Press (YouTube Channel)
Associated Press (Official Website)

Here’s a link to a video from Christie’s that explains the importance of the painting.

In truth, though, the authenticity of the painting still remains controversial in some circles.

Mystery over Christ’s orb in $100m Leonardo da Vinci painting (Dalya Alberge, The Guardian)

The painting ended up going to Saudi Arabian Prince Badr bin Abdullah, and the Wikipedia page about it keeps tabs on its whereabouts and exhibition status.

The Movie

Good news — Leonardo as Leonardo may be coming to a screen near you! Leonardo DiCaprio, who is named after da Vinci, is going to be starring in a movie about his namesake, and it will be based upon Isaacson’s book.

Here’s a link to a story about about the project.

The Role Leonardo DiCaprio Was Literally Born to Play (Yohana Desta, Vanity Fair)

Given what Leonardo da Vinci himself documented about his own exotic exploits, well, that should be “interesting” — it would be hard to be boring. Okay, it has the potential to be pretty gruesome, but fascinating nonetheless.

If you want to know about Leonardo da Vinci, but can’t wait for the movie, here’s a link to an older documentary.

Leonardo’s Universe (National Geographic, YouTube)

You can also find out a ton more about Leonardo on The History Channel and Wikipedia.

Find out more about the time I met Walter Isaacson at Harvard…

Finally, here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Magical Paintings
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about the arts and history…

Art Revisited

~ mehopper

Artists have revisited, reinterpreted, and in more recent terminology, “remixed” earlier artist’s work for as long as there has been art. Happily, this trend is alive and well, and new immersive 360°/3D/VR technologies are being used to revisit and add new dimensions, literally, to classic art masterpieces.

Here’s a link to an earlier post where I showed how artists experimented with allowing viewers to experience entering van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Walk-in-Art

The latest example of this type of thing to cross my screen is this YouTube 360° video from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium explicating Bruegel’s A fall with the Rebel Angels.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (YouTube Channel)
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Official Website)

Great stuff, and it is in good company. There is a growing list of examples of famous works being reinterpreted in creative new ways. For example, last year the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (FL) held an exhibit entitled Disney and Dalí: Architects of the Imagination.

That exhibit featured an experience entitled Dreams of Dalí: A Virtual Reality Experience that allowed visitors to use a VR headset to step into Dali’s painting Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s “Angelus.” Here is a video and article about the VR experience.

CNET (YouTube Channel)
CNET (Facebook Page)

Explore a Salvador Dalí Masterpiece in Virtual Reality (Lulu Chang, Digital Trends)

This video is a preview of just the Dreams of Dalí VR experience.

Goodby Silverstein (YouTube Channel)
Goodby Silverstein (Official Website)

Finally, and most importantly, here is the 360° video of Dreams of Dalí.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

The Dalí Museum (YouTube Channel)
The Dalí Museum (Official Website)

While it is probably going too far to say that “remixing art” using various three-dimensional techniques is a “killer app” for new immersive 360°/3D/VR technologies, it is at least an interesting trend to celebrate.

Finally, here’s my own little fun 360° experiment with “walk-in-art” that I made as part of a series of Toy Worlds for Cosma. Click on paintings to walk into them!

You can also explore it on Kuula.

Find out more about the visual arts and media …

Walk-in-Art

~ mehopper

New media artists tend to revisit and reinterpret earlier artist’s work, sometimes intentionally and with attribution, and other times not so much. Either way, it’s interesting to compare (re)implementations. For example, here’s a 360° video I just tripped across that experiments with the idea of allowing the viewer to “walk-in” van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Motion Magic (YouTube Channel)

It is interesting to contrast that video with a relatively well known work made ten years ago by Robbie Dingo. He used SecondLife to “build” the painting, and then he filmed it.

Share Festival (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a post about the artist’s post about the video written back in 2007.

Watch the World(s) (Robbie Dingo, Digital Double)

Both works are engaging, and the fact that the newer artist also chose van Gogh’s Starry Night, with or without awareness of Dingo’s earlier SecondLife work, creates an interesting contrast.

Find out more about the visual arts and media …