Théo Pontoizeau
Prior to his studies at GSA, Théo Pontoizeau completed a technical University degree in Multimedia in Internet in the University of Bordeaux. Here he met fellow graphic designers and developed his understanding of visual design. He started an ongoing collective, Beth Design, with two other students.
During the past three years Théo has developed a multi-disciplinary approach, and attempts to create and incorporate innovative visuals into his practice. He has consistently maintained a broad approach concerning his aesthetics in order to tell stories and create innovative and communicative design systems. Depending on the project, the style of his design varies on a spectrum between controlled chaos or minimalism. Collaboration has always been part of his making process, and this is something he is trying to highlight for its final year.
Last summer, Théo realised the huge number of people who despite having no background in design or art, were interested in creating design visuals. This led him to the idea of creating a tool with which people could play and create various types of visuals. Shaper focuses on generating visuals with a simple interaction. Every time, the user becomes the central part of the piece, making the experience entirely unique to each person who stands before it. The shapes created by his installations are making the user both the subject and the maker of the work.
Contact
Crowd generated visuals
During the summer break, I had to spend time in my hometown, in France. I met with old course colleagues and childhood friends. After discussing with loads of them, the question always came back to what everyone was up to, and I had to show my passion and work (personal, professional, and school work).
Most of the feedback I got is that they would be so keen to create that type of stuff. Most of them are not working in the creative sector, and they would be eager to start creating again.
Creation and expression are a big part of French culture and education, and it never left those people, even if they were accountants, builders, social workers, or non-creative field students. Sharing and accessibility are the two words that came to my mind then, and I remembered that I was already doing this when creating posters with friends and family. I gave them a box to make; I was the technician to realise what they had in mind. Those creations always felt like a visual discussion in a space where I knew the rules and ways.
I started thinking about simple interaction to make people create visuals. And I got interested in how you make people create something without asking them to. An interesting thing you can work with is pictures of crowds. Utilmetaly everyone in a group places themselves in a random and controlled manner.
Using people’s placements, I ended up creating simple visuals: (The photographs used are from ECAL’s Instagram.)
You Only Look Once
YOLO stands for You Only Look Once. It is a detection algorithm working with a database of images representing every kind of thing. It allows us to track specific elements via our camera. Here, my goal is not to follow anything specific. I am tracking anything that could trigger the appearance of this simple circle.
In this video, we can find two iterations:
– One with the background updating all the time,
– One with the background (white) never updating, which leads to this stain growing and staying.
I find it very interesting how striking, simple white and black visuals can interact and create something organic thanks to the simple blurry effect.
This sketch shows how efficiently people and objects can create something without minding it.
Mirrors
Few experiences with camera and Processing.
This process provides a fascinating interaction: As a user, you have specific control over the visuals as it is directly linked to your movements and position, but it is still entirely organic and striking. After testing those for quite a bit: getting lost, dancing, and moving around is really simple.
Again, the main interest is that the interaction is pretty simple. You only have to be there to do something.
The idea of having those black-and-white graphics is about focusing the attention on the live feedback of it. As it is high contrast, the users can quickly detect their participation without giving too many hints.
Shaper
The Shaper is a kinetic sculpture allowing the user to interact with a simple grid in order to create landforms and so shadows. Those shadows are being picked up by a camera connected to a Processing sketch. This whole installation permit the creation of shapes and graphic visuals. The outcome is a human sized poster generator that emulates my practice and process of creation. It results in a data gathering of posters both digital and physical. Its size permit a continued collaboration between the past and future users.
