The use of digital technologies for art has been evolving over the years with artists experimenting with new mediums such as VFX, 3D mapping, CGI, and more. From the visual multimedia innovations of Nam Jun Paik and the flashy computer-generated animations of Lu Yang, digital art has changed the way people can experience the broader scope of the world’s most creative minds. In recent years, emerging technologies and more affordable yet powerful electronic hardware has allowed artists to dive into such mediums. RubenFro is one of those artists capitalizing on this new technology by merging his knowledge of design, interactive art, and technology. Using point data from photography, video, and 3D scans of places, he deconstructs cities into majestic visual journeys full of energy and futuristic flair.
近年来，随着数字艺术家们开始尝试使用 VFX（影视特效）、3D 映射（3D投影）、CGI（合成影像）等新技术，数字艺术一直在发展。从Nam Jun Paik的视觉多媒体创新到陆扬（陸揚）华丽的电脑动画，数字艺术让人们有了更多机会和方式来体验到世界上那些最具创造力的头脑所创造的作品。近年来，新生的技术和价格逐渐亲民的电脑硬件，让更多的艺术家进入这个领域。RubenFro 就是一位通过融合设计、互动艺术和技术方面的知识来利用这项新技术的艺术家。他使用来自摄影、视频和对不同地点的3D扫描数据，将城市解构为一场充满活力和未来主义风格的壮观视觉旅程。
About the artist
关于艺术家
Italian artist, RubenFro (Ruben Frosali) is an artist based in Tokyo since 2006. He is a visual effect artist and director that specializes in volumetric captures, point clouds, and particle-based dynamic environments. RubenFro has strived to create more immersive content and created multiple series of interactive real-time art installations such as Dissolving Realities, Future Cities, and Memories of Tsukiji. He has garnered a significant audience by exhibiting in Japan, China, New Zealand, and more. Besides his artistic endeavors, he has worked on projects for McLaren, ASAP Ferg, Pussy Riot, SNSE, and has also made award-winning visual artworks that have been showcased throughout Europe and Asia.
意大利艺术家鲁本弗罗 (Ruben Frosali) 自 2006 年起在东京工作。他是一位视觉艺术家和导演，擅长于容积捕获（volumetric capture）、点云（point clouds）和基于粒子的动态环境（particle-based dynamic environments）。RubenFro 一直致力于创造更具沉浸感的内容，并创作了多个系列的交互式实时艺术装置，例如 Dissolving Realities（消解的现实）、Future Cities （未来城市）和 Memories of Tsukiji（筑地记忆）。他的作品在日本、中国、新西兰等地展出，吸引了大量观众。除了在艺术上的造诣，他还为 McLaren、ASAP Ferg、Pussy Riot、SNSE 的项目工作，他创造的视觉艺术作品在欧洲和亚洲展出的屡获殊荣。
Fragments of memories
记忆的碎片
Memories make up a large part of our personal identities. It is said that as we go through our childhood, we begin to forget parts of our memory of it at the same time. Moments of the past are lost over time or can become altered leading to a phenomenon such as the Mandela effect in which a large group of people believes in a distorted version of a memory, or event. Likewise, RubenFro’s digital art embodies these elements surrounding memories. The recreated visuals within his works split into blocks of glowing color that rearrange its surrounding environment. Using volumetric capture and the Unity engine, he goes around with 360-degree cameras, drones, and lasers to scan these environments to be explored through virtual reality as well as augmented reality. The visual assets are then distorted through the use of point clouds and photogrammetry to intentionally alter the final product. Images are reversed, rotated, or mirrored, bringing an unsettling sense of familiarity just as our memories recreate themselves within our minds.
记忆构成了我们个人身份的很大一部分。据说，当我们度过童年时，我们同时开始忘记部分记忆。过去的一些时刻会随着时间的流逝而逐渐消失，或者发生改变，从而导致诸如曼德拉效应之类的现象，在这种现象中，一大群人会相信记忆或事件的扭曲版本。同样，RubenFro 的数字艺术体现了这些围绕记忆的元素。在他的作品中，重新创造的视觉效果分裂成发光的颜色块，重新排列周围的环境。通过容积捕获（volumetric capture）和 Unity 引擎，他使用 360 度相机、无人机和激光扫描这些环境，以便通过虚拟现实和增强现实进行探索。视觉图像通过使用点云和摄影测量来刻意改变扭曲。图像被反转、旋转或镜像，带来令人不安的熟悉感，就像我们的记忆在我们的脑海中重现一样。
“We asked ourselves, how can we remember an ever-evolving city? What if we could stop time and wander through a single moment of its past?”
“我们问自己，我们要如何才能记住一个不断发展的城市？如果我们可以让时间停下来，在过去的某一刻徘徊呢？”
– RubenFro
In Future Cities, RubenFro explores the rapidly developing city, Tokyo where old buildings are being demolished and replaced for new infrastructure and buildings. Walking through the city, RubenFro captures a surreal memory of a city, the people, and their daily lives, to preserve and immortalize them through data. Future Cities is a collaborative series of works featuring photographer Cody Ellingham, and sound designer SJF made in 2018.
在作品Future Cities（未来的城市）里，RubenFro 探索了快速发展的城市东京，那里的旧建筑被拆除并更换为新的基础设施和建筑物。走过一座城市，RubenFro 捕捉关于城市、人和他们日常生活的超现实记忆，并通过数据保存和永生。Future Cities（未来城市） 是摄影师 Cody Ellingham 和声音设计师 SJF 于 2018 年合作的系列作品。
Following Future Cities, RubenFro created Memories of Tsujiki which captures the liveliness of Japan’s famous fish market, Tsujiki market which closed down on October 6th, 2018. The market had over 1500 tones of goods sold daily and has a deep sentimental value for the people and history of Tokyo city. The audio-visual experience puts viewers in a real-time experience where they journey through the remnants of the once-bustling monument and the instances of people interacting. Viewers can travel through the digitized form of people and experience the dynamic performance of light, shadow, and sound that put them in an alluring trance.
继Future Cities（未来城市）之后，RubenFro 创作了Memories of Tsujiki （筑地记忆），捕捉了于2018 年10月6日关闭的日本著名筑地市场的热闹场景。这个市场曾每天销售超过 1500 吨商品，对当地的人们和东京的历史来说都有着深刻的记忆。视听体验将观众带入实时体验，他们穿越曾经繁华的遗迹和曾经人们在那里互动的实例。观众可以穿越数字化的人物形象，体验光、影和声音的动态表现，让他们进入迷人的恍惚状态。
Dissolving Realities
消解的现实
Photogrammetry allows artists to extract three-dimensional data from images, overlapping them and building 3D models that improve the science and quality of photography. It is often used by artists to create photo-realistic images, but for RubenFro, his interest in this technology has focused on the visual aesthetic of point data being displacing real-time videos and images. Dissolving Realities further improves on the style that he is chasing throughout his previous works and it shows his mastery in this medium of art. The series of works encompassed by this work uses approximately 50 million point clouds which are passed through a geometry shader to draw new scenes– It is his tool for recreating forgotten memories.
摄影测量（Photogrammetry）让艺术家可以从图像中提取三维数据，将它们重叠并构建 3D 模型，从而提高摄影的科学性和质量。艺术家经常使用它来创建如照片般逼真的图像，但对于 RubenFro，他对这项技术的兴趣主要集中在点数据取代实时视频和图像的视觉美感上。Dissolving Realities （消解的现实）进一步改进了他在以前的作品中所追求的风格，并显示了他对这种艺术媒介的掌握。这一系列作品使用了大约5000万个点云，这些点云通过几何着色器来绘制新的场景——这是他重建那些被遗忘的记忆的工具。
“I see the effect as closely resembling lost memories. Clear images, almost in reach, but suddenly collapsing, dissolving, and fading when you try to get a closer look.”
“我认为这种效果非常类似于丢失的记忆。清晰的图像，几乎触手可及，但当你试图仔细观察时，它突然坍塌、溶解和褪色。
The artist is constantly experimenting with new tools and effects with the intent of exploring the foundations of the reality he exists in– reassembling the original reality after deconstructing them to analyze and understand them on a deeper level. This exploration of fading memories and distorted instances clarifies RubenFro’s intention of revealing the state of how reality is experienced by different people. It is the perceived childhood, the cherished moment of a lifetime, or a passing moment in a small speck of our daily lives. RubenFro is now traveling around Japan and expanding the Dissolving Realities series. At the same time, he has been working on new VFX projects and is experimenting with creating audio-visual NFTs.
艺术家在不断尝试新的工具和效果，想要探索存在的现实的基础是什么——在解构原始现实后重新组装，以便更深层次地分析和理解它们。这种对褪色记忆和扭曲实例的探索阐明了 RubenFro 揭示不同人是如何体验现实状态的意图。它是那些被感知到的童年，是一生中珍贵的时刻，或者是我们日常生活中一小部分的转瞬即逝的时刻。RubenFro 正在日本旅行，扩展 Dissolving Realities （消解的现实）系列。与此同时，他一直致力于新的 VFX 项目，并正在尝试创建视听 NFT。
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Translation 翻译 Rona Xia
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