Manuel Knapp

The third part of a series of computer animations. The series "MOMENTUM ~" deals on the one hand with spaces refracted by textures and on the other with a projection of them, their temporality and afterimages which can be seen within a frame of 30fps by switching between two states of spatial folding.

From 2019, Makino and Knapp have launched a new project "Axis of Aion". It uses two video projectors, each projecting live video and fusing them on a single screen. In addition, they perform live music. Since everything is done in live, there are no restrictions on length of the video. Makino's unique organic depth produced by layering materials such as water and landscapes, and Knapp's imaginative monochrome line movement creates a new vision that beyond the imaginations of the viewers.

The first part in a new series of computer animations by Manuel Knapp, Momentum 142310 deals on the one hand with spaces refracted by textures and on the other with a projection of them. Their temporality and after-images can be seen within a framework of 30fps by switching between two states of spatial folding. The camera has the task of following these events and is hovering through the architecture in an interplay with the randomly moving light source.

An audiovisual snow storm in front of a black ground, a white horizontal line that divides the image, grid planes, unfolding and folding dimensions. Set to atonal, techno, and orchestral sounds; an abstract (non-)world beyond comprehension, a visual experience that one must intuitively sense. Lost in space and time – the big bang of consciousness

An audiovisual snow storm in front of a black ground, a white horizontal line that divides the image, grid planes, unfolding and folding dimensions. Set to atonal, techno, and orchestral sounds; an abstract (non-)world beyond comprehension, a visual experience that one must intuitively sense. Lost in space and time – the big bang of consciousness

Controlled by the "laws of reflection", this space reveals itself in all its features and movements in correlation to the software. I asked seven composers to write a composition for a specific animation. My interest was their different accesses and methods. Every composer could act freely.

With the light-dark contrasts and light courses, Manuel Knapp brings, in addition, cinematic elements into the game: for example, the complex visual development is disturbed, in part, by diffuse shadows, transparencies, and also reflections, which fracture the potential precision of the linear, computer-generated structures. By taking away viewers´ spatial orientation, Knapp also achieves a decentralization of the gaze, which can never grasp the image space as a whole: the processes of seeing are thereby questioned in a very appealing, but also drastic way. In the end, the audiovisual work strains the senses and leaves them behind, positively vexed. (Christa Benzer)

Feature length computeranimation by Manuel Knapp, sound by Tim Blechmann.

The kinetic graphisms of Manuel Knapp's V~ open a portal into the process of creation from forces of numerical matter.

A three-dimensional sequence is generated from raw data. The rendered sequence is projected onto the original scene in the program, rendered again, and projected once again as a shadow map. In this final step, the rendered image is also applied as a texture on the objects in the scene. This repetition produces superimpositions of light, shadow, structure, and perspective, which leads to doubling, deviations, errors, and erasures at various levels, which in turn, feed into the process as aesthetic information. The result is a clouding of the three-dimensionality, an imaginary, unstable, fleeting space, which through continual change steadily constructs, and simultaneously deconstructs new definitions of its components.

A visual and acoustic examination of the aesthetic potentialities of interim noise within deconstructed and distorted interiors. Noise serves at the same time as a medium for transporting information and communication between the visual and acoustic levels. Its modulations have been randomized, resulting in various kinds of extreme disturbance and interference. The audio synthesis is based on non-linear systems of mathematical equations, and the acoustic signals are structured by means of generative algorithms that change constantly throughout the animation. Thus, while the acoustic level is generative, the visual level is designed to be non-generative. Despite the signal´s intentional autonomy, information of decay~ directs the viewer´s attention at the creation of the contingent aesthetic couplings and interference that are, ultimately, impossible to plan or program.

In stroboscopic noise~ two lines oscillate at different frequencies and at varying distances from each other in the picture field. As the speed increases the viewer´s eye is no longer able to perceive the movement, and afterimage effects begin to cover the individual images. This overstimulation of the eyes creates three-dimensional spaces and planes. Knapp´s aesthetics define a border of sight which replies to the logic of digital apparatuses with knowledge of the psychology of perception that developed in an analog visual world. (Reinhard Braun)

The video image of distorted areas~ proceeds from an aesthetic which runs counter to the logic of having a specific purpose, disturbing it at the most. In other words, this logic involves the usefulness of information-technology tools, in this case a software module used for implementing certain rendering effects in 3D computer graphics. It is intentionally used in a way opposite its intended function, putting the "meaningful" graphic 3D image into a completely irregular, dislocated black or white plane with "meaninglessly" oscillating lines and patterns. The sound is similar: Noises produced by feedback and an effector are interwoven with the image formations in a disordered and asignificant manner. The video is the product of perverted circumstances of representation, but what we see and hear, what "are" sound and picture, is distortion as such. This could also be regarded as beauty produced by decay. (Marc Ries)

As a dark architectural fantasy which turns spaces into buttresses, visibility of interim~ can be seen in the same category as Piranesi´s prison paintings, and also the oblique light and shade of German Expressionism. Whether copperplate engraving, film or digital animation: All forms give priority to becoming over being. (Maya McKechneay)

"An aesthetics of complexity: a "dynamic system", which no longer follows the idea of order and simplicity, arises in a zone of permanent transition, within the steady slipping off and passing away of the graphic formations" (David Komary).

computeranimation 4:3 b/w stereo SD 10 min.