MS2

Soleil: So, do you want to give a formal sort of a description of your work and talk about what it's about?

Mathias: Sure. My piece is an animation, I guess. I'm using an artificially generated animating technique where this program I have kind of, like, understands what's going on in a video tape. I extract the frames from the video and I edit like one of them, and then I plug it. I plugged that one frame in, I tell it which frame it is, and then it applies it to the entire video. And it's kind of… So the whole video that was originally just like a guy in a green screen or something is now like animated and kind of odd, but the program is super flawed. It's not very good. It's kind of in its infant stages, but that's this whole, the, the whole project was kind of just an exercise in using that program and like me learning how to use it.

But at the same time, it's also just kind of, I don't know, not like an explanation or anything, just kind of a portrayal of like depersonalization and kind of detaching from your body a little bit while doing mundane tasks. Like, the whole thing is about a guy just waiting for a bus, but then all this shit happens to them. And it's... I don't know. It's all really in his head, but. Yeah. That's the whole thing, I don't know. Is that... Is that satisfactory? I don't really know.

Soleil: That's really cool. Okay, for curiosity's sake, what is the program you're using?

Mathias: Yeah, it's called Eby synth. It's in beta. It's just kind of this random… like, it's not like a professional program or anything. It's just something somebody coded. I think they're working on a real one, but it's just like, it's a very crappy program, but it's funny.

Soleil: That's really cool. Yeah. I noticed a lot of the visuals were animated with almost an attractive brokenness about them, because it seemed like it'd be some sort of… I don’t know. It reminded me of a lot of really old CGI, but taken into a really sort of psychedelic, other worldly kind of format. I don't know. There was something just very appealing about it though.

Mathias: I liked the artifacting too. I like how in theory it can be like perfect and can perfectly transfer the style from the picture to the video, but it's... it's so flawed that it always leaves these weird artifacts and things end up changing. Like, it's not good. If it's got a face and then it turns and it comes back, the face won't be the same because the program's kind of stupid. They can't tell, because things like the face just went away forever and then it comes back and it tries to make sense of it, but it can't. This whole thing was made with just royalty free green screen videos I found on YouTube, and some of them I tried without a green screen and they look kind of crazy.

Mathias: They get all swooshy and everything sweeps away and like, I don't know, it gets all confusing... But I also like to look at those.

Soleil: Awesome. What inspired you to make this project?

Mathias: Pretty much just the program, I guess. It's I kind of, I don't know the way, the way I can be most motivated is just when I find something very interesting, like this program. Or like, I dunno other things in the past, other types of new media or old media, like different types of media creation. And then when I find one of those, I just get really obsessed with them and I have to make something with them. And so I always just tailor it towards whatever class I'm in. That's, that's kind of the reason I made this, essentially.

Soleil: That's really cool. You talked about the guy who's waiting for the bus and then like a bunch of stuff happens to him. So, do you want to talk a little bit more about that and like the connection to sort of the concept of waiting or like how you came across that, I guess?

Mathias: Yeah. It's just, I don't know if this happens to everybody, but I find whenever I'm kind of in a transitionary... I don't know if that's the right, you know, if that's a word. Transitional, maybe, like a transitional state. Like, if I’m in a bid or waiting for the bus, or... I don't know like, oh, there's a word for this… And I can't recall it right now, but it's kind of when you're in transition, I always find that my mind wanders very quickly and I immediately kind of just get lost. Sometimes I miss my bus cause I'm just kind of really wrapped up in my head and things like that. And it's not like all those things are happening in my head, but it's kind of like that... Like scenarios are playing out and they're exacerbating. They're kind of weird, because your brain does that. And I kind of want it to betray it a little bit. And so it's, I dunno. Yeah. I guess that's the concept you could say. That was kind of the secondary intention when I made it behind, like just the practicality of it.

Soleil: Right. So it's almost kind of like a daydream I suppose. That's really cool. Is this the sort of thing that you usually do in your projects or practice? You said you like exploring new media and stuff. Does this feel like something else that you sort of create, or does it feel like it's something different for you, approaching it like this?

Mathias: Totally different. I've never done animation or anything like this before. I've done, like, I don't know... I did like one film class and I did a couple of videos, so I can edit, but I've never done anything like this before now. I'd like to though. I've realized I'm very interested in it because of this.

Soleil: Yeah. I think like NSCAD has an animation major or minor that you can go in through, right?

Mathias: Yeah. I don't know if that's... I can't draw though. That's kind of a large issue. I just cannot draw, period. I don't know, but if I can make this work then whatever. I plan to... I really want to set up a green screen in my room. Hopefully I can, and then I can just get my own footage.

Soleil: Do you want to do that with the same program?

Matthias: Yeah, probably. Hopefully they make it better. I don't know, it seems like it's free right now. Like, I can't complain. It's going to be expensive when it actually comes out. But yeah, I don't know.
It's mainly just, all the files to make that video in the end ended up being around like 45 gigabytes, which is way too much like, and it takes like two hours to render like a ten second clip. Like it's really ridiculous. It's very not practical. That's the issue.

Soleil: When you imagine people seeing like the piece, what do you hope that they take away from it, I guess, or do you have a vision in mind?

Mathias: Honestly, I just, I hope they find it cool. I don't know. Maybe they'll relate to what that guy's going through, but I hope they just enjoy the visuals, because I don't think it's anything. No one's seen this before, but I think it's a new type of animation and we're going to see it a lot more. This is. Like our artificial animation is going to become like artificially generated animation is just going to replace most, not most forms of media, but like most forms of kind of like, or a lot of forms.

Of course, humans are never going to fully be replaced, but the technology is getting better at an increasing stage. And I think it's, I don't know. Maybe I hope people can be eased into the idea of robots creating art for us, which I don't know. I love that idea. Some people might find it kind of... It's such a personal subject.

I find AI in art… Yeah. I don't know. I like it. I think it's cool. There's definitely some really interesting random things coming out from even using a program that just makes it so cool. Yeah. Well, that's the thing too. You just come across all these happy little mistakes and then because of that, you can just like create a whole new thing. That's what I love about this kind of stuff.

Soleil: Yeah. Yeah. I can really see that in your work. Like there's yeah. There's such a good, almost like, like a, like an attractive, flawed way sort of about the animation style.

Mathias: I think it makes it really cool and really that's what drives me to do it.

Soleil: Awesome. Is there anything else you'd like me to add in the written part about your piece or not really?

Mathias: No, no. I have a very hard time speaking about art in general. I don't really know that my, like my brain gets scrambled and I'm like, Oh shit.