Adam Hinterlang: Kinetic Iterations and Systems

Kinetic Drawing 02

I use the term Kinetic Drawing as a means of drawing a distinction between what is happening in these works versus work in linear and/or narrative animation. Unlike narrative work, it’s not important to view the works in their entirety or from beginning to end. The intention is to create a moving work that can be viewed in a way that is similar to static work, such as painting, print-making or drawing. One of the ideas that interests me in digital media is it’s ability to occupy multiple spaces at once, which is largely what this series of work explores.

The source imagery comes from drawings from my sketchbooks and from the Méconnaissance series. With this series, I began to see my drawings as source material that could be utilized for animated work as well as being an individual piece. A drawing could now have multiple lives and different iterations.

Kinetic Drawing No. 5

Kinetic Drawing 06

Kinetic Drawing Number 7

Kinetic Drawing Number 7 was made using a process of building a databank of eight short animations that ranged from 5 to 40 frames (1 second of video is roughly 30 frames per second) that were then used to construct the final work. Working in a musical key of F# major, I used an 8 octave scale and generated a triangle wave tuned to the frequency of each note in each octave. The colors I worked with were the primary colors of projected and reflective color: red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black—seven colors representing seven notes in a musical scale. I created a layer of animation for each octave that was comprised of one of the short animations in each color, starting with the lowest notes assigned to the shortest of the animations so that they would produce an underlying “beat” in the piece.

To determine how and when a section would appear or overlap another in the layer, I used a chance operation similar to the one used in Kinetic Drawing Number 6. The first roll determined which section out of seven would be used, the second roll determined the number of dice I would need to decide how many iterations of that section there would be, the third roll was for how many dice I needed to roll to determine the amount of overlap or amount space between each section, and the fourth roll was for the number of times those dice would be rolled. A fifth roll determined whether the next group would overlap the former or vice versa. When each section was completed, I rolled to determine how long the next layer would be. When the final composite was generated, I had eight pieces of animation ranging in length between 2:30 min to 10 min. Over the course of the piece, sections are repeated and placed in a new context relative to the other parts.

Connect to more of Adam Hinterlang's work at the link http://www.adamhinterlang.com/kinetic-drawings/

Kinetic Drawing 07 v1

Kinetic Drawing 07 v2

About the Artist

Adam Hinterlang was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1975 and received his BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute in New Media and Art History and his MFA at NYSCC at Alfred University in Electronic, Integrated Arts. He has screened and exhibited work in the US and abroad, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He currently lives and works in the Boston area.