Shimmer

Date
2023-05
Among other concepts, Shimmer exercises what FRE collaborator Gregory Ulmer theorizes as "mystory." "Mowing" has been a recurring theme in my work for as long as I can recall. In 2022, I suffered a heart attack while mowing the lawn. I left my gloves and mower exactly where they were following the heart attack. Once I was well enough, I used photogrammetry to grammatize (capture) the site of the event. I used an AI-based visualization technique called Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF), which implements 3D Gaussian Splatting to produce a volumetric and spatial representation of the event. Accessing and implementing publicly accessible code repositories, I reconstructed and "MEmorialized" this "moment" as a conceptually significant event beyond the personal. I integrated "traditional" 3D models and animation into the scene, selecting reflective balloons rising from the ground and dissipating into the air. I chose the title, Shimmer, to suggest the simultaneous "radiance" and transience of life, love, and labor (mowing), referencing the pop song of the same name (Fuel - "all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade, away, again") and tangentially riffing on Marx's "all that is solid melts into air" from the Communist Manifesto.
Details

Medium: 3'-12" looping video, AI using Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF)
Dimensions: UHD resolution
Exhibitions:
 TBD

  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still
  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still
  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still
  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still
  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still
  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still
  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still
  • NeRF Lawnmower, video still