The Syscapes are my personal visual research process, which I started on the MA Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins. I was fascinated with the almost limitless possibilities of telling stories in a virtual space, akin to video games environments, using visual cues to suggest relationships of cause and effect. To do this, I started with creating floating islands which could represent biospheres or cultures, and made them react to each other. The Syscapes project has since attracted the attention of people working in the field of synthetic biology, with screenings at art-science crossover events all around the world.
It is an open-ended work, consisting of modular sequences, permitting compositional rearrangements and conceptual sequencing depending on in-situ conditions. The Syscapes are ‘issue-spaces’ expressively depicting the underlying dynamics of contemporary phenomena, and ranging from geopolitical stances to envorionmental change. Inspired by the theory of systems, the form and content of these sequences occupy a shifting middle ground within the spectrum between infographics on one hand, and symbolic metaphor on the other.
Syscapes # Interlude
Animation Short Film (2008)
A history of the world in 3D, done entirely in Bryce. Final project for MA Communication Design at Central Saint Martins.
Syscapes # Prelude
Animation Short Film (2007)
3D animated short exploring notions of geomorphology, cartography, contemporary urbanism, and the scale of human impact on topography. The project attempts to achieve a contemplative point of view through immersive cinematics. Student project for 1st year MA Communication Design at Central Saint Martins.
Syscapes # ELO, a 22-screen installation at ELO: Inner Exiles, Outer Limits, MUDAM, Luxembourg, 2008
Circuit I (Syscapes), installation for 9 screens at I’ve Dreamt About, MUDAM, Luxembourg, 2011
Water-screen projection at Latitude festival, 2010
Views of Syscape # ELO d’Eric Schockmel, projected at the occasion of the exhibition ELO: Inner Exile – Outer Limits, 11/10/2008 – 02/02/2009 (Mudam Luxembourg) in the device Installation Space/-1 of Konstantin Grcic and Nitzan Cohen designed for the Medialab of the museum.
© Photo: Andrés Lejona.