Pressure Project 1- The Aura of Circles

For this pressure project we were assigned to devise something that can hold your attention for as long as possible. For the first two hours of working on this project I was simply clicking through all of the options of what Isadora offered. I wanted to start simple and play with circles. As I continued to discover more things in Isadora I had an idea to create multiple circles with a trailing color of that shape as they move.

I was inspired by auras and the idea behind someone or something holding a distinctive atmosphere or quality. I grappled with what all can Isadora do and specifically how do I create a colorful trail. Thankfully I found motion blur and that’s what ignited my idea. I started to click through shapes and motion blur (specifically messing with color) and somehow created a colorful trail. Unfortunately I have no idea how I did that. I created 6 scenes and in each scene I used a “User Actor(s)” except for the last scene. I also had a 7 second transition between each scene.

SCENE 1 (4 user actors, different colors moving is a diagonal)

SCENE 2 & 3 (2 user actors, different colors and scale moving diagonally on the screen)

SCENE 4 I wanted the circles to start moving all over the screen and I discovered Mouse Watcher! Mouse Watcher allowed me to move the designated circles around wherever i dragged my mouse on the screen. I’m now curious about how I can get each circle to move in its own pattern without me dragging my mouse.

SCENE 5 I became intrigued about what happens when al of the color circles come together. What would it look like? What color trail would it leave?

SCENE 6

By the 5 hour mark this is what I settled on. I wasn’t able to incorporate a “trigger” or “jump++” actors, however I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish. I’m interested in how the circles or pathways of circles could be affected by audio or some kind of sound. I also see this idea going beyond shapes and possibly looking at body movement and having the aura of that body trail/ track the movements/ dancing.

Class Feedback:

My project reminded my classmates of:

  • a lens flare
  • movie intro logo
  • rainy car crash scene in a movie
  • someone shining a light in your face as you’re waking up
  • moving particles
  • the trail of the color gives the black background texture


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