Ratmanhad/Environment

Artist Statement

My artwork is an existential exploration of global media culture and showcases how I interact with, mediate, and engage with the world through media technologies and adapt different creative approaches and processes. The projects and artworks I work on contain my own perspective of society and the global impact of different unique and rapidly advancing media technologies. As a young person living in Canada, I work with a variety of mediums like sound design, game design, painting, video-making, photography, and graphic design as a means of creating new worlds and spaces to explore unique and transcendental experiences.

Ratmanhad

My first project is an experimental multi-genre music and sound art album, 20 minutes in total length. The album is inspired by a wide variety of music and sound recording disciplines ranging from Captain Beefheart, Edgard Varèse, Nirvana, Modest Mouse, Mort Garson, and Kendrick Lamar. I collected several music/sound recordings that I made over the past 5 years and molded it into an explosive sonic journey that represents my time, both efforts and struggles with the creation of music and sound art. In addition, the cover art for the album is a painting that I completed a few years ago before my time at Emily Carr. The album, entitled “Ratmanhad” and released under my pseudonym “Ratmanhad” is currently available to listen to for free and for purchase on Bandcamp and Soundcloud, and is also available as a free digital download below in both MP3 and WAV audio formats.

Environment

My second project, completed in the spring semester, is a virtually simulated experience of being in nature through a 3D ambient environment and is downloadable/viewable as an application for Mac. I loosely re-created my own mental image of a specific real natural environment as a 3D environment using the game development program Unity. I used real audio recordings from a natural environment that I recorded myself in conjunction with external texture/model/system-based assets from the Unity asset store to create an immersive audio/visual experience that embodies the experience of being in nature virtually. The passing morning, day, evening, and night-time periods give the virtual environment a lifetime of an accelerated single day within one hour with passing events of fading shadows, changing light, natural ambient sounds, rustling trees/plants/flowers, and wildlife activity.

Instructions for Environment

To properly download and view Environment, you should have at least 1GB of free memory on your Mac computer. There are no minimum system requirements besides using a Mac computer, but the program will run more smoothly on a newer or more powerful Mac computer. Larger screens and headphones/speakers are recommended to fully experience “Environment”. In order to exit out of the program once opened, force quit by holding the command key on your keyboard and press Q. If the application doesn’t open at first because of developer access/permissions, open your system preferences, click security and allow access to the application.