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Nightmarish Neon Humanoids Stretch Like Laffy Taffy

Mike Pelletier's animations started from motion capture sequences, but morphed into something way creepier.
Still from Performance Capture Part 2. Images courtesy the artist

Animations morphing from humanoid to Hellraiser-style cenobites in just a few breaths–that’s what characterizes two new 3D animations by Mike Pelletier, entitled Performance Capture. “The works are centered around a series of open source motion capture sequences,“ the Netherlands-based artist tells The Creators Project. “Errors, glitches and distortions play heavily in both.”

The works appear to build off of Pelletier’s previous works, Parametric Expression, in which humanoid faces contort their faces into terrifying geometric abstractions, Coordinated Movement, where a mass of boneless animated bodies swim through space, and Time of Flight, a completely abstracted work with colorful polygonal shapes that appear to breathe.

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Still from Performance Capture Part 2

Part 1 shows figures, in varying degrees of geometric abstraction, making swimming motions that glitch out of control, mangling and displacing limbs. If the colors and music weren’t so serene, the animations would be nightmare-inducing.

Still from Performance Capture Part 2

While Pelletier captioned Part 1 “Underwater studies without water,” Part 2 is captioned “transmission of information.” In this video, isolated parts of neon-colored bodies shrink and grow, with colored planes extending from arms and faces. The unquestionable highlight of Part 2 is the animation that walks away while its head stays still, its neck stretching like taffy.

Take a look at both these captivating videos below—unless body horror makes you *squeamish*.

Performance Capture: Part 1 from mike pelletier on Vimeo.

Performance Capture: Part 2 from mike pelletier on Vimeo.

See more of Mike Pelletier's work on his website.

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