The Shroud of Morgo. References to the controversial ‘Shroud of Turin’ religious artefact are more than obvious. However, the true meaning behind the CG portrait is not entirely meant to be religious in any way. Instead, the word ‘shroud’ in this case, pertains more to the concept of wrapping/texture mapping in 3D computer animation: ‘shroud’=’wrap’. The techniques involved in the making of this image would require endless hours of explanation (and might bore you to death). Suffice to say that the process goes through a wide range of media manipulation and 3D alchemy, involving photography, 2D manipulation, 3D modeling and texture-mapping, and finally rendering the image based on the surface topology of the 3D model itself (which is not the usual bitmap image one is acustomed to seeing). More importantly though, who is ‘Morgo’? Those who are followers of Philip K. Dick would recognize the alien character Morgo from the novel ‘Our Friends from Frolix 8’. Morgo is an sentient protoplasmic alien being (known as Morgo Rahn Wilc) from Frolix 8, who accompanies the main protagonist Thors Provoni (an exhiled revolutionary) on a return voyage to earth with an almost messianic mission to defeat an elite class of telepathic humans known as the ‘New Men’, whom are the ultimate controllers of a subjugated non-telepathic human population. In recent works, I have been interested in combining and portraying themes and subjects concerned with industrial age mythology, technology, science-fiction and the supernatural.
My intention with CG works such as this study, is to produce large format prints. This work is part of the ‘Anthropo-Technikon’ series.
For more information about the novel, please go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Friends_from_Frolix_8
Pierre Duranleau: The Shroud of Morgo. Digital process