Massive Attack Promo - Wired: Design Development

'making something into something new, distributing it in a whole new way' 

Using the Forge of Neon app, the design then created DNA videos in varying colours of blue and green, and exporting with different forms of rotation. These were then edited over on another software (Gliche) and overlaid in different ways to achieve differing effects. Essentially the goal was editing until the original source was unrecognisable yet keeping a level of clarity, as it was to be shared on a corporate platform.

The design used LED style dots, then spikes and solid lines, then light dots to imitate sound waves and speakers. In this way, the design development was able, through editing, to take a DNA video and morph it into a visualisation of sound waves. In this way, the design process reflects that of Massive Attack - keeping the same material but repurposing it to make something new. The same way the whole album is made up of code (00, 01, 11, 10) the video was essentially made up of limited material that was disguised with new characteristics. 

The next series of developments focused on:

• Glitching to mirror technology 
• Scanning to mirror repurposing and distorting
• Different layering (e.g. dark light, soft light, dissolve, lighten, divide etc) produced different visual outputs, which allowed the design to acquire a lot of material in a short space of time

• The DNA imagery was edited in various ways to achieve different communication techniques, from more futuristic ideas to more nostalgic projections, i.e. old monitor screens, and blurred/ lower quality renders versus glowing, vortex-like productions.  

Depicting 'synthetic DNA' 're-sampling on a molecular level' 'coding the whole album into strands of DNA'

Finding appropriate Oscilloscope imagery to distort on AfterEffects and use for 'collaborating with AI'

Depicting the brain to communicate 'diagrams of the human brain'

Combining type and imagery:

Once a collection of experimentation was put together, the .mp4 files were put onto AfterEffects and combined to start the first compilation experiments. 

First edits:

Reforming

- Too messy, busy

- Maintain strobe but strip back colour

- Remember audience as well as process

- Overwhelming 

- Too colourful: refine to a simpler colour scheme, green and blue on black work well

Stills from experimentation with various AfterEffects editing techniques:

Insta Story:
The design then took aspects from the Instagram post (60 seconds) to put together a series of five, four second Instagram story posts. This was a great time to use to Oscilloscope sounds, and old military keyboard sounds, found during research. This was to mirror the Artificial Intelligence references throughout the article, 'text-based chatrooms, old ringtones' as well as the ongoing referencing to pushing technology to its limits. 

Imagery experiments

The idea for the story was to combine the main headline of the article, with the distorted imagery of the paintings from the main video - adding a layer of AI visual literacy.