#VRArtLive Gallery December 2021
Title: Evanescent Hummingbird
Artist: spectralmana
VR App/s: Tiltbrush
Music: Shannon Gunn
Curator: wildc4rd
Editor: grrlrighter
Evanescent Hummingbird
Commentary by spectralmana
This piece is titled “Evanescent Hummingbird”.
Having recently completed a move across the United States, there was one recurring figure providing me with constant inspiration in my daily life, which was the hummingbird. I felt so lucky to have them back at my home in Virginia, they seemed like these rare fairy-like iridescent creatures that brought magic to our wooded backyard, and when I moved to San Diego, I now find them literally everywhere and in different colors and sizes.
These birds also make these incredible sounds as they buzz by, which is why I felt this piece would be perfect for an audio-visual collaboration. Together I worked with jazz musician Shannon Gunn to create the finished piece which she provided the music for. Since we were in different states and she did not have a headset of her own, I created a library of the audio reactive brushes in Tiltbrush and recorded a video with one of her existing songs so that she could see how the brushes might react before she created the music. This was also for me to learn how they work myself, and to see which brushes were available, as this was the first time I worked with audio reactive brushes.
The collaboration took place over the course of a week. After sending Shannon the video she started working on the music while I worked on the hummingbird itself, and before the whole piece was finished I recorded another video with her song and we made some tweaks to the music to see how it affected the audio reactivity. Originally I had planned to create the hummingbird itself with regular brushes, then add in some flourishes using audio reactive brushes inspired by the music that Shannon sent me. However there was one brush that I totally missed when I created the library, but which I actually started drawing the hummingbird in, so it really started out as an accident to make the hummingbird audio reactive, but once I saw my mistake, I found that the music made it look like the hummingbird was chirping. I decided to embrace it and made nearly the whole piece audio reactive.
It was really a revelation to me once I started working with the audio reactive brushes, as if there was a whole new dimension to the art that had opened up in front of me. Not to mention it also makes doing the actual art more enjoyable when the piece rocks to the beat of the music while you paint! It was also really gratifying to work together with another artist who was just as excited as I was to see how the music affected the visuals.
See more by spectralmana:
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