After showing samples of my first batch of digital glitch animations at the Upstream Gallery last fall, I was asked what was next? Since I had just completed jungle animals, nature spirits, and forest guardians (so called 'gods' and 'goddesses') as subject matter, why not try something with Tibetan Buddhist imagery which so much of my art work has been based upon? I thought that made sense, but just couldn't get my head around exactly how to approach this...
It was months into the pandemic playing with various IOS apps before I hit upon with a visual approach of image glitching of the source material that actually excited me. I thought it embodied the sense of energy auras that is illustrated in Tibetan art, esp. protective / wrathful entities.
Playing around further with other apps, I hit upon this preset that provided blue auric flames and variable glitching. This was exactly what I had been looking for! Here are a couple of examples:
Ultimately, this got my creative juices unblocked and I decided to build up a library of glitch-processed 'components' (figures, objects, backgrounds drawn from my previous static Thangka and Mandala work) which could then be composited together in a Photoshop timeline along with audio tracks (chants and other meditative sounds) to form the basis of a new series of short digital animations.
After working on the first 20 or so animation 'haikus,' I decided to name the series "Buddhaverse Variations" as it became apparent that one visual idea was naturally leading to another variant, sort of like a digital sketchbook. Currently I have 125 haikus (short animations) which collectively run to about 49 minutes of program time (including short interstitial titles for each haiku). I plan to exhibit these using a wide-format digital frame (capable of playing 1080p format resolution videos) as I did previously at the Upstream Gallery last year.
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