Lakshmi

by Thomas Laureyssens
http://www.toyfoo.com/lakshmi/

The 'Lakshmi' project is based on a 4000 year old Indo-Aryan tale called "The churning of the Milky Ocean". Originally, this story existed as verses that were transmitted orally. Later it was integrated in Hindu scriptures among which the Mahabharata. In this myth, our ancestors made sense to their observations of the world: natural phenomena were transformed into characters and basic human emotions became stories.

The 2006 version of this story is an experiment on the integration of story, interface and illustration. Navigating the protagonists around in the story-world triggers interfaces that have an abstract narrative signification. Characters are based on Hindu tradition and translated with a twist to a contemporary internet culture. The traditional story is chopped into a a series of visual and narrative puzzels one has to discover.

Bio

Thomas Laureyssens (Belgium, 1976) holds a degree in Graphic Design and New Media from Sint Lukas Brussels, where he researched interactive storytelling. His goal was to merge illustration, story and interface in a consistent whole, a line of work he has continued after his graduation in 2001. He was part of a video-art collective (Visual Kitchen) with whom he explored the narrative possibilities of video in collaborative live performances.

From 2004 onwards he broadened the screen-based work he has done until then. This has resulted in the development of some independent projects, such as the conceptualisation of the dance performance Cycle and the landscape artwork Pedestrian Levitation.net. With the latter he has analyses and visualises both real and virtual movements of pedestrians by applying a mental layer of motion on the surface of existing architecture. Today his works covers the broad field of media - from experimental interface design and video to art installations.