documentation
Tira is a Singapore-based visual artist –– specializing in visual + visual graphics + illustrations. Tira's artistic revelations are inspired by science, futuristic cyber punk world ,neon colors, space travel, and femininity. Tira is the intersection of science, art, and design. As such, Tira's works are vibrant, nostalgic, and eclectic. Her unique manipulation of colors and imagery makes her works distinct from others. Tira enjoys illustrating important issues in a light and playful approach. Tira's high-sprited works has led her works to be advertise on Expat Living Magazine Singapore. Some of Tira's industrial works include exhibition branding at the Visual Arts Centre Singapore and JMT Consultancy. Tira is originally from Bangkok, Thailand and is a graduate with BFA in Visual Communication with minor in Art History at School of Arts, Design, and Media (ADM) in Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU).
visits Tira’s website for more works www.tiradavana.com
The origin of the universe
Humans only exist on Earth, and this universe for a short time. We know very little of this place, and we are not 100% sure what is happening in the future. I began this project with the first question. “How did the universe begin?” According to Stephen Hawking, there was a big bang, but to many scientists, this big bang theory was an “accident”. But what if it was not an accident? and someone designed it to happen. What cause it to happen? Who? How? These are the questions quantum physics tries to answer. In ancient times, people thought there were higher powers in heaven who create natural disasters, day and night. But people started to understand how the planets move, which leads to more scientific discovery.
In the beginning God created the heavens...And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Genesis, chapter 1
the big bang theory
Some people believe that the universe is created by God, some believe that it is caused by the big bang. Everyone’s universe is different. If we have that much “space” for different universes, how big is the universe? For thousands of years, many scientists, and philosophers have argued the universe is infinite and eternal, and that the very foundation of existence will undergo constant change. For example the Greek “atomists” Democritus, Anaxagoras and Epicurus argued that the universe was infinite; that permanence was an illusion — a manifestation of the act of observing and the limitation of the senses.
atoms & atomists
As their name suggests, the “atomists” based their reasoning on atomic theory which they originated. Specifically, in the fifth century B.C. Democritus and Anaxagoras proposed that all matter is made up of tiny indestructible units, called atoms. According to Democritus, these atoms move about in space and combine in various ways to give shape and form to all macroscopic objects. Anaxagoras argued that the fundamental unit of matter, the atom, could neither be created nor destroyed--perhaps the earliest formulation of the law of conservation of mass. All matter was comprised of smaller elements called “atoms” which have always existed, and which could not be created. Therefore, the essence of existence, including the universe which is made of atoms, has no beginning but has existed for all of time.
conciousness became universe
being & non-being
Being become nonbeing, and nonbeing becoming being, is a major principle of quantum physics. Form and substance are manifestations of dynamic patterns of energy and electromagnetic radiation that have no material reality. Form and substance, that is, the “particles” they are comprised of, exist only as probabilities. Because we are human, we can only sense and detect these form and shapes with our conscious minds at the moment, which results in different realities as the shapes and forms will be formed differently in different human minds. If only we have more senses than our 5, we may see what they truly look like.
the concious universe
Since there are many universes existing at once, and if there is god, meaning that god = universe, and universe = god. Which makes the universe alive and conscious? However, if conscious is energy. This quantum continuum energy has the probability of becoming conscious on its own, and by achieving conscious on its own, this energy can create the universe which then create galaxies, stars, planets, moons, people, animals, plants, and molecules.
the universe truly became concious
the birth & the conscious
Inspired by our lack of senses. We know atoms are circulars and have no materiality. Atoms exist in different universe which are conscious in our minds differently. I would like to play with this idea of the universe being conscious by using irregular circular shapes. Since humans don’t have the extra senses to see or feel, I hope I can reimagine atoms in our universe in an artistic way
moodboard
I positioned these images the way I want to animate my atom particles. I wanted the initial visual to be all black (the nothingness). And suddenly there is something which pops out in the center (the Big Bang). In the beginning, it was a colorful blob, but I adjusted it to be a black blob with gradient graphics surrounding it, inspired by the cover of one of my favorite books by Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions. I tried to recreate it but have to contrast it with the black background instead of the white, which after tasting, turns out to be too bright. Let’s get back to the mood board. After the “birth” we will have many more blogs come out of the original blog which signify the birth of the universe. These atom particles will then gain consciousness and start recreating and moving. Upon completion of the 1st minute, I really want the whole screen to be filled with moving atoms. After that, the blobs will start to merge, get better and go out of the screen. Slowly, they will become lighter and lighter and at the end of this visual, we will have a very faded blurry colouring.
soundtrack efence - cassette
I needed a beautiful background music to go along with this visual piece. The first draft music was just a 15 minutes search online, but this sound is extremely important, so I looked around a lot longer. I came across the PERFECT sound which to me emotes the story and give similar vibe to visuals I will be creating. The sound is Cassette by Efence. I was super stoked to find this sound and thank you to Efence for creating this wonderful sound. So now that I have the perfect sound, to go with my visuals.
aftereffect and my layers
I am creating this visual piece with after effect, I will be able to control the movements of everything easier. I separated my visual piece into different layer to animate: 1. Background Gradient Gradient movements 2. Noise Noise evolutions Noise opacity 3. Atoms Atom movements Atom evolutions Atom gradients Atom gradient movements 4. Extra Glow Even though there are a lot of layers and things for me to be aware of, working one layer at a time is easy. Once that’s done, precomposed them, and my workspace will look a lot cleaner and easier to work.
draft 1 out of 8
In total, I tested on the wall 8 times and all of them ran 1 week each. So, in total, I ran testings for 8 weeks, all documentations are on my OSS, however for this digital documentation, I will only be showing 3 draft tests and the final version. Let’s begin! For this first draft, I just wanted to test the colors. I wanted to see what shade is too bright, and how big my blobs should be. I knew I did not have to animate much.
From this draft, I realized that the objects movements were fine, it wasn’t too fast. However, I noticed that some parts became really dark. Another weird thing I discovered was yellow on my screen = brown on the wall. I had to adjust that for my next test. Apart from that, I wanted the noise to last a little longer than how much is it lasting currently. The blobs movements looked a little uncomfortable to the eyes because of the sudden movement. If you wish to view this draft, please click on the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkNa3Sv3fTg
draft 3 out of 8
From last week’s draft, my goal for week 8 was to have my first minute done, and I did! For the first minute, the whole wall is supposed to be filled with all the moving and colorful atoms. The few things that I fixed for this draft: Colors The colors were very dull in throughout the wall. It looked alright on screen but on the wall, it was very dark, so I had to adjust it. I also changed the bit of the screen from 8 to 32, this allows the screen to have brighter and more vibrant colors. Movements Some movements were too static, and they will move in sudden movements. I have to standardize everyone’s movement to the same velocity and speed. This results in a very clean and smooth movements. Atoms Evolutions A lot of them were moving around either too much or too little or too sudden. However, I can use the same evolution settings for all 87 atoms, I had to see their size, the bigger in size, the higher they can go, the smaller, the lesser. Noise Even though it looked fine, but it was not showing enough. I had to increase the opacity and the amount of the noise and its evolutions.
If you wish to view this draft, please click on the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBJh5HlxQwk
draft 6 out of 8
With this draft, first half of the visual piece is completed, so I wanted to finish 80% of the visual and I managed to do it. For the second half of the visual, the atoms finally gained consciousness and they are expanding! This is super fun to watch! I am super excited now; the atoms are looking so yummy and the color scheme is so colorful! In the beginning I was a little worried because of how the atoms looked, the background was too distracting. So instead of ending the whole piece with grey (as planned during mood board period), I will be ending my piece black, plus when I thought about it, ending it white will be too glaring for the people walking by anyways. Now, even though it looks good, but after I render out the whole thing, I spotted some mistakes, some atoms moved a little too quickly, some popped out of nowhere and some color transitions were not as smooth as it should be. So, this will be what I will be working on from now on (plus figuring out how to render smaller). Then, I will start combining all the atoms into even bigger and more movements and more textures. Here is the link to this week’s progress!
If you wish to view this draft, please click on the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTIpr1APaRw
Final Render we are born
For this final render, I adjusted the mistakes from past versions: some atoms came out of nowhere and some just disappear out of sudden. I fixed almost all of them but there are still some left, so that will be one of the things I will work on this week. I have over 80 atoms, so it is a little hard to manage all of them. Moving on, I also worked on the rest of my visuals, the atoms finally gain their ultimate conscience, and are now ready to rest after working so hard for the universe. They are going back to their original state of birth, it is a cycle. I really enjoy how everything ties back to the beginning which reflects my concept. For the past drafts, I worked on touching up everything. I worked on the atom movements, their glow, and the background. I think it’s great that I had a few weeks to touch up the visuals, so everything turns out perfect. I also worked on the ending a lot more, I wanted to make sure that the ending is not just the atom fading away, I wanted her to have similar qualities to her appearance in the beginning! The final render and its test on the wall are exactly what I wanted to create (though there were some changes along the way). I told an important story in a visually appealing and fun way and I am so happy with the final result.
If you wish to view this final version, please click on the link below: https://youtu.be/pPUoMnuhIAY
the birth & the conscious
Quantum physics may be hard to understand, atoms may be hard to see, we may not be able to comprehend it fully, but I hope, this visual piece will get the audience curious, and want to find out more about this, and most importantly, get excited looking at this beautiful, delicious visual.
www.tiradavana.com