Digital Fusion as Art, or How Did They Do That?

For me, "fusion" used to be all about an arc welder, a pile of scrap iron, and a couple of hours of fun. Then the term was expropriated in the jazz world by the likes of the Brecker Brothers (whom I got to hear in person at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London) and in the food world by restaurants like Limon in San Francisco. Now the art world is trying to take ownership of the term.

As it turns out, "Digital Fusion" was the theme of the CGSociety (that's short for "Computer Graphics Society") and NVIDIA's third annual digital art competition. And I have to say, in looking at the entries, the "wow!" factor was working overtime, which was the ideal considering that the competition called for "computer-generated imagery of 'awe-inspiring fusions' of 2D and 3D designs."

The first-place winner of the "Digital Fusion" competition was Fusion by Heiko Klug, second place Cock and the Centipede by Jason Lynch, and third place When Tlalli Calls You by Carlos Ortega Elizalde. Additional images of the winners, along with commentary about the winning entries, is available here.

Judges of the competition included Pascal Blanche, Ubisoft; Lorne Lanning, Oddworld Inhabitants; Stephan Martinere, Midway Games; Steven Stahlberg, Androidblues; Mark Snoswell, CGSociety; and David Wright, NVIDIA. They obviously know more about Digital Fusion than I do (I'm still dealing with the "how did they do that?" factor), but I bet I can out arc weld the bunch of them.

-- Jonathan Erickson
jerickson@ddj.com

Posted by Jon Erickson at 09:37 AM  Permalink