Elastic Spaces is an original piece Nice Shoes created for the Motion conference. We used the opportunity to investigate algorithmic design based on the phenomenon of the moving image.

We started with two basic rules:
1. static camera = persistence of motion
2. roving camera = persistence of surface

This lead to a number of diagrams involving different ways in which a sequence of images could be organized. By exposing the image sequence as a system of adjacencies, the diagrams themselves took on a spatial component.

The sketch above takes diagram B and organizes the concentric image sequences by color hue. We wrote a Maya script to handle this by analyzing the color values in our texture maps as they were applied.

The design process itself became our guide, taking on an evolutionary life of it’s own. Our final iteration was a physical sculpture of the Maya script, closing out our film in reality. The ephemeral algorithm becomes manifest in the physical. Lofty ideas for sure but a heck of a lot of fun to draw, shoot, render and make.