Pushing The Limits - Marc Ecko’s “Complex” Magazine

Beyond Human: Kanye West's Complex Cover Pushes Design and CGI Limits

Pushing the boundaries once again, this time Kanye West is inspiring the use of advanced imaging technology on the new cover of Complex Magazine, Marc Ecko's excellent magazine that is truly a guide to "cool" and "trendsetting"

The photograph is the result of a facial scan that gathers data from a camera that rotates around the object. A computer then stitched the images together to create an eerily detailed 2D photograph.

Chris Milk, videographer and photographer behind the project, talks about the futuristic creation of the Complex photo shoot in an video interview with Fast Company.

"I wanted to do a series of photographs that was 100% pure form. When you look at things in the world everything is comprised of form and texture. Form is everything that takes up 3 dimensional spaces and texture is on the surface of it. The photography takes place virtually inside of the computer. You move the camera around in 3D space. Instead of standing there with camera you're doing it all inside of the camera".

"It starts with a facial scan, a super hi-res scan of the face. Then a laser scan of the entire body. It takes a long time to render. It looks like clay because the lighting is super realistic. Some may think it's a statue, but it's a uniformed texture. In any CG model you see this is one of the layers of that model".

Marc Echo has always been interested in using new technology and changing the rules and doing something no one has done before (see Air Force One Tagging)… but it's for the greater good of the concept, not just to show off. Hmmmmm.

Kanye West – The Artist

Kanye West is performance art. He's an idea. A brand. A mission. An inspiring, infuriating, over-the-top and constantly evolving contradiction of values that are articulated sometimes abstractly, and often heavy-handedly, through the man's every expression—be it producing, rapping, singing, designing or, more often than not these days, just living.

Here is the Interview from the April/May issue of Complex.