Oxford Dictionary, definition of Transform:
transform/transˈfɔːm,trɑːnsˈfɔːm,tranzˈfɔːm,trɑːnzˈfɔːm/
verb
- make a marked change in the form, nature, or appearance of.
“lasers have transformed cardiac surgery”
2. MATHEMATICS change (a mathematical entity) by transformation.
noun
MATHEMATICS•LINGUISTICS
ˈtransfɔːm,ˈtrɑːnsfɔːm,ˈtranzfɔːm,ˈtrɑːnzfɔːm/
- the product of a transformation.
Art of the title (2021), Designer Bill Kroyer
Bill Kroyer is an American director of animated and CG commercials, films, and title sequences.
Bill began his animation career in 1975 at a small commercial studio. By 1977, he was an animator working under the Nine Old Men at Disney Studios. There, he met Director Steven Lisberger, who was working on Animalympics and with whom he would collaborate on Tron. Thereafter, Bill decided to pursue computer animation instead of traditional animation while at Robert Abel and Associates and Digital Productions.
Available at: https://www.artofthetitle.com/designer/bill-kroyer/
Bangor University, Eurekalert (2021). Amazon rainforest could be gone within a lifetime.
Some scientists argue that many ecosystems are currently teetering on the edge of this precipice, with the fires and destruction both in the Amazon and in Australia.
“Unfortunately, what our paper reveals is that humanity needs to prepare for changes far sooner than expected,” says joint lead author Dr Simon Willcock of Bangor University’s School of Natural Sciences.
“These rapid changes to the world’s largest and most iconic ecosystems would impact the benefits which they provide us with, including everything from food and materials, to the oxygen and water we need for life.”
What can be done to slow these collapses?
Ecosystems made up of a number of interacting species, rather than those dominated by one single species, may be more stable and take longer to shift to alternative ecosystem states. These provide opportunities to mitigate or manage the worst effects, say the authors. For example, elephants are a termed a ‘key stone’ species as they have a disproportionately large impact on the landscape – pushing over trees, but also dispersing seeds over large distances. The authors state that the loss of key stone species, such as this, would lead to a rapid and dramatic change in the landscape within our lifetime.
Available at: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/bu-arc030920.php
Blue Sky Studios, 20th Century Fox (2021). Our Story.
We did a commercial for Braun. We created a computer-generated razor. There was an award we were up for and we didn’t end up as a finalist. We didn’t understand that, and when we called them up, it turned out they thought we just put some letters in a live-action scene… We explained to them there was no live action in the scene. The razor and everything was computer generated. This was juried by people in computer graphics… They were blown away.
– CARL LUDWIG
Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was an American computer animation film studio based in Greenwich, Connecticut. The studio was founded in 1987 by Chris Wedge, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Eugene Troubetzkoy after their employer, MAGI, one of the visual effects studios behind Tron, shut down. Using its in-house rendering software, the studio had worked on visual effects for commercials and films before completely dedicating itself to animated film production. The studio’s first feature, Ice Age, was released in 2002 by 20th Century Fox. Blue Sky produced 13 feature films, its final film being Spies in Disguise, released December 25, 2019.
Blue Sky Studios was a subsidiary of 20th Century Animation until its acquisition by Disney, as part of their acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets in 2019. In February 2021, Disney announced that Blue Sky would be shut down in April 2021 citing the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its business operations. The studio was shut down on April 7, 2021.
Available at: http://blueskystudios.com/our-story/
That Shelf Staff (2014). Interview: Carlos Saldanha.
Carlos Saldanha is a director and animator at the then Blue Sky Studio of 20th Century Fox. His work of Rio2, demostrated the seriousness of the deforestation problem of the Amazon Rainforest. Many of the ideas I was inspired of doing came from the Rio2 film, and it really gave me a good idea about what I could be doing to sucessfully deliever the messages I wanted to represent for my audiences.
Available at: https://thatshelf.com/interview-carlos-saldanha/
Blue Sky Studios, 20th Century Fox (2021). About Rio.
Ever since he was a little boy, Director Carlos Saldanha dreamed of making a movie about his home country Brazil.
With the release of Rio, that dream became a vibrant, colorful reality. For Blue Sky’s first film set overseas, our office gained worldly inspiration by listening to Brazilian music, learning Portuguese and donning sunglasses in the middle of winter. In the end, Blu’s moves were a lot more impressive than our awkward Samba de Gafieira. But you can’t blame a bunch of nerds for trying.
Blu is a happily domesticated Macaw that can’t fly. His safe world is turned upside down when he and his best friend Linda discover they must travel all the way to Brazil to save his species. But it won’t be so easy when he meets Jewel, a feisty female macaw with a taste for freedom. Carnival creates a spectacular backdrop to this heartwarming story about learning to fly by listening to the rhythm of your heart.
Available at: http://blueskystudios.com/films/rio/#
Butler, R.A. (2020). How can we save rainforest?.
Rainforests are disappearing very quickly. The good news is there are a lot of people who want to save rainforests. The bad news is that saving rainforests is not going to be easy. It will take the efforts of many people working together in order to ensure that rainforests and their wildlife will survive for your children to appreciate, enjoy, and benefit from.
Some steps for saving rainforests and, on a broader scale, ecosystems around the world can be abbreviated as TREES:
- Teach others about the importance of the environment and how they can help save rainforests.
- Restore damaged ecosystems by planting trees on land where forests have been cut down.
- Encourage people to live in a way that doesn’t hurt the environment
- Establish parks to protect rainforests and wildlife
- Support companies that operate in ways that minimize damage to the environment
Available at: https://rainforests.mongabay.com/kids/elementary/601.html#content
CuudlyNest (2020). 7 things you can do to save the rainforests
- Shop Local and Purchase Eco-Friendly Products
- Support Indigenous Communities
- Reduce your Carbon Footprint
- Promote Rainforest Sustainability and Ecotourism
- Educate Your Community
- Avoid Foods That Drive Deforestation
- Learn About The Effects Of Deforestation
Available at: https://www.cuddlynest.com/blog/7-ways-save-world-rainforest-day/
Drake, N. (2014). Parrot Who Was Among Last of Its Kind, Said to Have Inspired ‘Rio,’ Dies.
A rare blue parrot that was among the last wild-born members of its species and was believed to have inspired the movie Rio has died outside São Paulo, Brazil.
The bird was a Spix’s macaw named Presley, and he was around 40 years old when he died Wednesday. He was thought to be the second-to-last of the remaining wild-born parrots.
Presley’s death is a blow to conservation efforts in both a symbolic and literal sense. Critically endangered, these native Brazilian birds (Cyanopsitta spixii) are believed to be extinct in the wild. Decades of deforestation and rampant wildlife trafficking have besieged the medium-size macaws, who also ended up having to compete for nest space with introduced Africanized honeybees.
Now, the fewer than 100 remaining Spix’s macaws are cloistered in captive breeding programs and refuges throughout the world—and the small population is vulnerable to genetic defects caused by inbreeding. Presley offered the opportunity to inject some much-needed genetic diversity into the population.
Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140629-spix-macaw-presley-rio-parrot-brazil-science
Konstantin Dimopoulos (2021). Konstantin Dimopoulos: About the Artist.
Konstantin Dimopoulos is a conceptual and social artist and sculptor whose art practice is grounded in his sociological and humanist philosophies. He investigates globally relevant questions related to ecology and the human condition through his socio-environmental interventions and conceptual proposals, which argue for the potential of art as a means of social engagement and change.
Konstantin Dimopoulos was born in Port Said, Egypt to Greek parents and grew up at the mouth of the Suez Canal until the age of eight, when the family moved to Wellington, New Zealand to escape a political upheaval. With this diverse cultural and political history, the artist has created art interventions on issues including emigration, environmental ecocide, homelessness, and genocide.
The Blue Trees, an ongoing environmental art installation about deforestation where the artist uses a vibrant blue to temporarily transform living trees into a surreal environment. The Purple Rain is a textual and visual response to homelessness; and his light works continue this thematic exploration of social issues using a commercial advertising medium.
Available at: https://kondimopoulos.com/about/
Pip, M. (2014). Using art & social media to raise awareness about deforestation.
It was great news that UNESCO unanimously rejected Australia’s bid to delist a large of area of old growth native forest in Tasmania earlier this week (especially as these areas were only awarded World Heritage status last year).
However, the battle is far from over and precious forests continue to be logged both here and overseas.
I was reminded of this recently via some thought-provoking artworks in a range of media in Canberra.
The first was an installation entitled ‘Unless’ (2013) by Sui Jackson at the Canberra Glassworks – where the artist wanted us to reflect upon how much a tree is worth and how long it takes to clear a hectare of forest.
At the beginning of the exhibition, a large display table was covered with 100 small trees made from either clear float glass or stained glass reclaimed from old church windows in various shades of green and yellow.
Although the artist may have had a slightly different idea, for me the key message was about the destruction of high conservation value forests – where the clear glass represented renewable relatively fast growing managed plantation timber and the coloured glass were old growth forests that would take centuries to replace (if ever).
Visitors were able to buy the trees over the course of the exhibition and take them home. Each time a tree was purchased, it was replaced by a small brown stump.
As you can see in my photo, when I finally saw the installation only a few clear trees remained and the display was littered with stumps.
I was very sad to have missed the more beautiful and varied green trees – but this experience clearly illustrated the fact that forests had been disappearing while I was busy thinking about other things.
The second was a presentation by Australian photographer Steve Parish at a symposium that explored the links between art and science, wildlife conservation, advocacy and education through art.
I was really moved by Steve’s story about a ‘before’ photo of a huge old tree in a poster with the caption ‘By Christmas it will be gone’ and an ‘after’ shot of a similar tree nearby that had been reduced to a stump only a few months later.
Available at: https://sustainabilitysoapbox.com/2014/06/27/using-art-social-media-to-raise-awareness-about-deforestation/
Art Works for Change (2021). Daniel Beltrá.
Daniel Beltrá captures the profound beauty and vulnerability of the natural world in his photographs of natural landscapes and wildlife. Primarily a landscape photographer, Beltrá combines painterly abstraction with the haunting details of an earthly paradise in peril. His sweeping aerial images invite us to soar over majestic fields of ice, water and earth, to experience the natural wonders of our planet, and to bear witness to the scars, and shocking scale, of environmental degradation. In his wildlife images, Beltrá captures the immediacy of trauma caused by oil spills, deforestation, desertification and climate change, and tells the stories of the feral victims of those tragedies. Over the past two decades, Beltrá’s work has taken him to all seven continents, including several expeditions to the Brazilian Amazon, the Arctic, the Southern Oceans and the Patagonian ice fields. The beauty he captures serves as a hopeful reminder of our planet’s greatest treasures, as well as an urgent plea to protect them from further harm.
Available at: https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/daniel-beltra/
Sean Kenny’s (2021). Sean Kenny: About the Artist.
Sean Kenney is a renowned, award-winning artist and “professional kid” who uses LEGO pieces to design and create contemporary sculpture for high-profile clients, major corporations, and venues around the globe for over 15 years.
Sean’s multiple-award-winning traveling exhibitions have been touring North America, Asia, and Europe since 2012, heralded as “an incredible exhibition” by Lonely Planet that Vogue says is “bound to make visitors stare”.
He has authored 9 acclaimed children’s books, guest-judged a reality TV show, and has been featured in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Forbes, PBS Arts, BBC Arts, NHK Japan, and countless more.
Available at: https://seankenney.com/about/