Poetically Based Rendering – Working Process

This is a visual diary charting the field trips, physical and digital processes, research and storytelling undertaken in this collaborative project with artist Nayeli Vega. Poetically Based Rendering explores the histories and futures of four bodies of water – four rivers that are either local to Berlin or that my collaborator Nayeli and I have connection to. We choose to work locally to explore the ecosystems and the experiences of rivers available to us, as urban dwellers, to speak from a place of personal connection. This project ties together real locations, materials and living systems with virtual worlds, PBR textures and speculative tales, interrogating the dualities artificial/natural and fictive/real. Our processes include explorations in digital material creation through the software Materialize, virtual world building in Blender 3D and Unreal engine and speculative storytelling in collaboration with the natural language processing AI GPT-3.

Below you will find documentation of these processes in (semi) chronological order.

Poetically Based Rendering is funded by the Stiftung Kunstfonds NEUSTART KULTUR Stipendium.

Pollution is Colonialism. An incredibly inspiring and thought provoking book. Thank you Max Liboiron

Weaving by Nayeli Vega.
This weaving is caked in the earth gathered from the area around the Baumschulenweg canal. It will be scanned and become a digital material that we can use on forms and landscapes in virtual space.

The first weaving create by Nayeli Vega, made with the catkins from the Populus Tremula tree that we gathered at the Baumschulenweg canal.

This will be the beginning of a series of weavings that will be scanned and become digital textures and forms as we explore ways to bring the spirit of the canal into a virtual space.

Reading Vibrant Matter by Jane Bennett.

The catkins of the Populus tremula tree are soft and furry - they look like very cute fluffy caterpillars. We gathered several of the catkins to make scans and weavings back at the studio.

we were intrigued by these fluffy messengers that were floating past us on the canal. So we hunted until we found the source. It turned out to be the Populus tremula tree and these seedheads are called catkins

Baumschulenweg Canal assemblage with wood and catkins

Baumschulenweg assemblage with catkins

Baumschulenweg canal.
Nayeli Vega and I traveled by bike to this location: 52.460080842966306, 13.487403848238374
07 May 2022, a sunny, warm Saturday.