About the original Dancing Baby NFT
© 1996 Autodesk, Inc. The Dancing Baby is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
Vienna based design agency HFA-Studio teamed up with original creators Michael Girard, Robert Lurye and John Chadwick to release the legendary Dancing Baby Loop as non fungible token via foundation.
Dating back to 1996, the dancing baby is one of the first viral videos in the history of the internet and also widely recognized to be the internet's first meme. Out of nowhere, the Dancing Baby was everywhere. E-mail chains and websites made the Dancing Baby spread like wildfire, but it was its transfer to mainstream media and the broader entertainment industry that turned it into a cultural phenomenon.
More than 25 years after the Dancing Baby first went viral we will release a digitally restored, smooth high definition 1/1 artwork by the Original Creators as NFT, so the Dancing Baby can shake its hips forever.
To set the original creation in perspective we invited contemporary 3D artists and animators of another generation to „remix“ the dancing baby. Artists and creators of the beginning of the web3 re-imagine the loop with their tools, like the original creators did at the beginning of the idea of the web2.
By owning the digitally restored loop by the original creators, you own part of internet history.
GO TO NFT COLLECTION
Click here for Press and Media Kit
Interview Requests via press@dancingbaby.io
About the original Creators
From left to right: Michael Girard, John Chadwick, Camilla Chadwick, Robert Lurye © Michael Girard
Michael Girard is a software architect/artist/indie game developer at Subliminal Fringe. His PhD and publications during his studies at Ohio State University’s Computer Graphics Research Group pioneered the use of robotics algorithms for animating human characters. Girard's early animation works co-created with Susan Amkraut have won awards at international animation festivals, including Ars Electronica, Siggraph, Imagina, and Art Futura.
He co-founded the company Unreal Pictures in 1993 which developed and licensed Character Studio to Autodesk, and then, after selling the company to Autodesk in 2004, Girard worked for Autodesk as a Sr. Software Architect. He became the principal architect of the “Biped” and “Populate” animation systems in Autodesk’s 3dsMax, and has been awarded 13 patents in the domains of data-driven motion control, motion capture and human crowd animation. Girard's first patent on "Step Driven Character Animation" was used to animate the Dancing Baby.
Robert Lurye
Robert Lurye is a visual artist and educator currently living in Los Angeles. His personal works have been exhibited in galleries, museums and film festivals internationally. His personal artistic projects and professional career spans the pioneering era of digital art making including design and production for computer animated visual effects, television commercials, video games, and feature films at Disney, DreamWorks and many other major Hollywood studios. He has taught Art and Computer Graphics at University of Texas Austin, Texas A&M and The Ohio State University. He also teaches Mindfulness Based Intervention programs currently at the University Southern California, various Meditation Centers and Yoga Studios live-in-person and online.
Robert met Michael Girard and John Chadwick in 1985 while they were all fellow graduate students at the Computer Graphics Research Group at the Ohio State University. In 1995, Robert briefly joined Michael and
John (all working remotely from their homes) to co-create animation and character rigging samples for their R&D animation software “Biped” and “Physique”. Their software, animation and rigging samples, officially became Autodesk’s Character Studio which included the Dancing Baby.
John Chadwick
The 1989 Siggraph paper, Layered Construction For Deformable Animated Characters by John E. Chadwick, David R. Haumann, and Richard E. Parent is still widely referenced today and considered by many in the Character Animation Production Industry as the character rigging Bible. John left Ohio State to develop pipeline software for Industrial Light and Magic integrating Softimage animation software (based on his and Michael Girard's research) with Alias Modeling software and Pixar's Renderman software.
John worked for Xaos Inc. developing further innovative pipeline software and both animating and technical directing for several broadcast productions including Dolby Digital, The SYFY channel, Michelin tire baby, and Nickelodeon. John worked with Michael Girard and Susan Amkraut to bring Character Studio, a character animation plug-in for Autodesk 3D Studio Max software at Unreal Pictures Inc. It was here when Michael Girard, Robert Lurye and John created The Dancing Baby as a demo file available with the Character Studio software.
John developed further animation software for cloth simulation plug-ins for 3D Studio Max with Kelsius Ltd. Cambridge, England. John received the Areal (Mexican equivalent to the Oscar) for Visual Effects for the Independent film Vera directed by Francisco Athie. John was Special Effects Supervisor for the Bollywood film Koi Mil Gaya directed by Rakesh Roshan.
About the original Dancing Baby NFT
© 1996 Autodesk, Inc. The Dancing Baby is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
Vienna based design boutique HFA-Studio teamed up with original creators Michael Girard, Robert Lurye and John Chadwick to release the legendary Dancing Baby Loop as non fungible token via foundation.
Dating back to 1996, the dancing baby is one of the first viral videos in the history of the internet and also widely recognized to be the internet's first meme. Out of nowhere, the Dancing Baby was everywhere. E-mail chains and websites made the Dancing Baby spread like wildfire, but it was its transfer to mainstream media and the broader entertainment industry that turned it into a cultural phenomenon.
More than 25 years after the Dancing Baby first went viral we will release a digitally restored, smooth high definition 1/1 artwork by the Original Creators as NFT, so the Dancing Baby can shake its hips forever.
To set the original creation in perspective we invited contemporary 3D artists and animators of another generation to „remix“ the dancing baby. Artists and creators of the beginning of the web3 re-imagine the loop with their tools, like the original creators did at the beginning of the idea of the web2.
By owning the digitally restored loop by the original creators, you own part of internet history.
GO TO COLLECTION
About the original Creators
From left to right: Michael Girard, John Chadwick, Camilla Chadwick, Robert Lurye © Michael Girard
Michael Girard is a software architect/artist/indie game developer at Subliminal Fringe. His PhD and publications during his studies at Ohio State University’s Computer Graphics Research Group pioneered the use of robotics algorithms for animating human characters. Girard's early animation works co-created with Susan Amkraut have won awards at international animation festivals, including Ars Electronica, Siggraph, Imagina, and Art Futura.
He co-founded the company Unreal Pictures in 1993 which developed and licensed Character Studio to Autodesk, and then, after selling the company to Autodesk in 2004, Girard worked for Autodesk as a Sr. Software Architect. He became the principal architect of the “Biped” and “Populate” animation systems in Autodesk’s 3dsMax, and has been awarded 13 patents in the domains of data-driven motion control, motion capture and human crowd animation. Girard's first patent on "Step Driven Character Animation" was used to animate the Dancing Baby.
Robert Lurye
Robert Lurye is a visual artist and educator currently living in Los Angeles. His personal works have been exhibited in galleries, museums and film festivals internationally. His personal artistic projects and professional career spans the pioneering era of digital art making including design and production for computer animated visual effects, television commercials, video games, and feature films at Disney, DreamWorks and many other major Hollywood studios. He has taught Art and Computer Graphics at University of Texas Austin, Texas A&M and The Ohio State University. He also teaches Mindfulness Based Intervention programs currently at the University Southern California, various Meditation Centers and Yoga Studios live-in-person and online.
Robert met Michael Girard and John Chadwick in 1985 while they were all fellow graduate students at the Computer Graphics Research Group at the Ohio State University. In 1995, Robert briefly joined Michael and
John (all working remotely from their homes) to co-create animation and character rigging samples for their R&D animation software “Biped” and “Physique”. Their software, animation and rigging samples, officially became Autodesk’s Character Studio which included the Dancing Baby.
John Chadwick
The 1989 Siggraph paper, Layered Construction For Deformable Animated Characters by John E. Chadwick, David R. Haumann, and Richard E. Parent is still widely referenced today and considered by many in the Character Animation Production Industry as the character rigging Bible. John left Ohio State to develop pipeline software for Industrial Light and Magic integrating Softimage animation software (based on his and Michael Girard's research) with Alias Modeling software and Pixar's Renderman software.
John worked for Xaos Inc. developing further innovative pipeline software and both animating and technical directing for several broadcast productions including Dolby Digital, The SYFY channel, Michelin tire baby, and Nickelodeon. John worked with Michael Girard and Susan Amkraut to bring Character Studio, a character animation plug-in for Autodesk 3D Studio Max software at Unreal Pictures Inc. It was here when Michael Girard, Robert Lurye and John created The Dancing Baby as a demo file available with the Character Studio software.
John developed further animation software for cloth simulation plug-ins for 3D Studio Max with Kelsius Ltd. Cambridge, England. John received the Areal (Mexican equivalent to the Oscar) for Visual Effects for the Independent film Vera directed by Francisco Athie. John was Special Effects Supervisor for the Bollywood film Koi Mil Gaya directed by Rakesh Roshan.
