The Movements of a Symphony Conductor Get Artistically Visualized in an Avant-Garde Motion Capture Animation

Some clas­si­cal music enthu­si­asts are purists with regard to visu­al effects, lis­ten­ing with eyes firm­ly fixed on lin­er notes or the ceil­ings of grand con­cert halls.

Those open to a more avant-garde ocu­lar expe­ri­ence may enjoy the short motion cap­ture ani­ma­tion above.

Moti­vat­ed by the Lon­don Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra’s desire for a hip­per iden­ti­ty, the project hinged on recent­ly appoint­ed Musi­cal Direc­tor Sir Simon Rat­tle’s will­ing­ness to con­duct Edward Elgar’s Enig­ma Vari­a­tions with a spe­cial­ly mod­i­fied baton, while 12 top-of-the-range Vicon Van­tage cam­eras not­ed his every move at 120 frames per sec­ond.

Dig­i­tal design­er Tobias Gremm­ler, who’s pre­vi­ous­ly used motion-cap­ture ani­ma­tion as a lens through which to con­sid­er kung fu and Chi­nese Opera, stuck with musi­cal metaphors in ani­mat­ing Sir Simon’s data with Cin­e­ma 4D soft­ware. The move­ments of con­duc­tor and baton morph into a “vor­tex of wood, brass, smoke and strings” and “wires rem­i­nis­cent of the strings of the instru­ments them­selves.” Else­where, he draws on the atmos­phere and archi­tec­ture of clas­sic con­cert halls.

(The unini­ti­at­ed may find them­selves flash­ing on less rar­i­fied sources of inspi­ra­tion, from lava lamps and fire danc­ing to the 80’s‑era dig­i­tal uni­verse of Tron.)

via Atlas Obscu­ra

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Grace­ful Move­ments of Kung Fu & Mod­ern Dance Revealed in Stun­ning Motion Visu­al­iza­tions

Visu­al­iz­ing WiFi Sig­nals with Light

The Entire Dis­ci­pline of Phi­los­o­phy Visu­al­ized with Map­ping Soft­ware: See All of the Com­plex Net­works

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.