Over the time spent in this course (ISTA 301: Computing and the Arts), I have had a wonderful time looking at the newer, technological side of art that I was formerly not as familiar with (I had traditional art history buffs in the family, thus I only knew up to Dadaism before the class began). Now when I consider what "Art" is, I feel like I have a better way to defend newer media and the digital art styles I find so fascinating, because thanks to this course, we have looked at some of the arguements surrounding new media art, and have been able to create our own projects to create our own new media art.
Thus, where art to me before was really only the traditional (I was also a bit of a studio artist dealing mostly in intaglio printing and other printmaking forms), I can also include the digital, and redefine art (my personal definition), as a sensory experience that invokes some form of reaction from the viewer. In other words, thanks to this class, my definition for art has become less specific, and practically could encompass any number of things that may or may not be art, because art already has a pretty flimsy definition to begin with.
As for my knowledge of creative practices and computational thinking, as I took this class due to my interest in computer sciences and the possibilities found within technology, I feel that this course has helped broaden my horizons and introduced me to many different and interesting concepts, such as programming art using Processing, or Algorithmic art. I truly enjoyed the entire course and I am happy that I took it. Thank you Professor Thomas for a fun semester!!
~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Blog #10: Joker's Wild!
For this "anything goes" blog assignment, I wanted to take a look again at works found on the Creators Project website and take a look at one that I find interesting. Specifically, I am going to look at installation pieces by Japanese artist Mariko Mori, found on the Creators Project, which deal with the concept of infinity, as well as invisible energies.
Mariko Mori is an artist who has been working on projects with photography and installations, combining fantasy and technology since the mid 90s. With this, she has focused more and more on the influences of technology, and in many of her works, has collaborated with engineers and artists to create permanent installations across the world to express her ideas on human connectivity and communication.
Made of fiberglass and utilizing a system of sensors to detect the energy of people around it, this installation, titled "Infinite Energy I, II, III" made this year (2013), premeired in Tokyo, take a great deal of inspiration from the construction of a mobius strip to create an infinite shape.
Mori's main concept behind this work though, is that the universe is made up of 96% invisible energy, thus, with the help of engineers and programmers, made the pieces capable of recording the energy of visitors by tracking the movement in the room, and uses this information to alter the colors of the sculptures through LEDs within them, creating a visual experience which is drawn from the energy of those observing the art, and creating a visualization for the invisible energy that our universe is made up of.
In more philosophical levels, the piece along with her otherworks (not listed), Mori hopes, will help lead to the realization that we as humans are part of nature, and that this energy which we cannot see can be used to connect us all together in a similar fashion as to how computers and technology can be connected through the employement of the internet. By seeing light which is derived from the actions of the viewers, viewers may be able to make the connection that their actions hold consequence; that they influence that which is around them, even in invisible ways through simply moving around a room and expressing energy through that.
Personally, I find the seemingly simple yet elegant design of "Infinite Energy I, II, III" to add to the meaning intended for it, as the sheer simplicity of it allows people to truly focus on the important portions of the work, the infinite design and the lights that are made to interact with those around it with the so-called "invisible energy". The general concept as well, is intriguing as throughout the course (ISTA 301), we have looked at the different manners in which interactivity enhances or can enhance the value or meaning of art by having aspects rely on the viewers of the work; the people who would call it art. With this interactivity, the message is far more clear than possible to communicate by a static installation, because it embodies that which it is meant to represent, the infinite energy that connects us (as Mori would like us to see).
For more information on the piece, see the link below.
~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~~
Sources:
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/show/mariko-mori-uses-sculpture-to-explore-infinity-video
Mariko Mori is an artist who has been working on projects with photography and installations, combining fantasy and technology since the mid 90s. With this, she has focused more and more on the influences of technology, and in many of her works, has collaborated with engineers and artists to create permanent installations across the world to express her ideas on human connectivity and communication.
Mori's main concept behind this work though, is that the universe is made up of 96% invisible energy, thus, with the help of engineers and programmers, made the pieces capable of recording the energy of visitors by tracking the movement in the room, and uses this information to alter the colors of the sculptures through LEDs within them, creating a visual experience which is drawn from the energy of those observing the art, and creating a visualization for the invisible energy that our universe is made up of.
In more philosophical levels, the piece along with her otherworks (not listed), Mori hopes, will help lead to the realization that we as humans are part of nature, and that this energy which we cannot see can be used to connect us all together in a similar fashion as to how computers and technology can be connected through the employement of the internet. By seeing light which is derived from the actions of the viewers, viewers may be able to make the connection that their actions hold consequence; that they influence that which is around them, even in invisible ways through simply moving around a room and expressing energy through that.
Personally, I find the seemingly simple yet elegant design of "Infinite Energy I, II, III" to add to the meaning intended for it, as the sheer simplicity of it allows people to truly focus on the important portions of the work, the infinite design and the lights that are made to interact with those around it with the so-called "invisible energy". The general concept as well, is intriguing as throughout the course (ISTA 301), we have looked at the different manners in which interactivity enhances or can enhance the value or meaning of art by having aspects rely on the viewers of the work; the people who would call it art. With this interactivity, the message is far more clear than possible to communicate by a static installation, because it embodies that which it is meant to represent, the infinite energy that connects us (as Mori would like us to see).
For more information on the piece, see the link below.
~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~~
Sources:
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/show/mariko-mori-uses-sculpture-to-explore-infinity-video
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Blog #9: More Installation Art!
This week, I am taking a look at a couple more examples of installation art and other multimedia artworks, all of which are not "Screen" (the piece I talked about last blog).
First, we have "Shadow Fugue", an installation piece from the VIDA: Art and Artificial Life International Awards, produced by Sion Jeong. The piece is a series of plexi-glass rods attached by wire to small motors on the wall of the exhibit. With these motors, once a person softly touches the system, the surface begins a "breathing movement", producing along with its movement an elegant light and sound accompanyment. With its quasi-breathing movement, the rods create shadows on themselves, that appear and recede, furthering the illusion of a wall breathing in front of you, making subtle tinklng sounds and chanting voices through the motors on the wall. As for a purpose, Sion Jeong saw this simple mechanism as one started by interaction, but then becoming an autonomous sculpture that self-regulates its movement beyond the initial touch, reaching multiple senses of the audience to intrigue them.
Next we have an installation piece that utilizes Twitter feeds to produce vibrant LED displays, "Datagrove". The piece uses luminescent "responsive" fibers, text-to-speech modules to read out Twitter posts, and sensors for detecting human presence, producing a soft undulating sound to react, as well as systems to collect the Twitter data being used. The "social media whispering wall" was conceived by Future Cities Lab in San Francisco, as an installation to integrate social interaction and sensing human presence in the structure. It's purpose is to stimulate public discourse, by providing trending Twitter feeds and displaying and reading them out for those around to hear, while also reacting to the breeze through the responsive fibers, giving it the illusion of being an intelligent organism.
The last piece I will look at is also from the VIDA Awards, named "Hylozoic Soil", by Philip Beesley, an experimental architect. This installation, using the philosophic doctrine called Hylozoism (idea that matter is inseperable from life as a property of matter), uses a lattice of transparent acrylic tiles, and a sensor network to control the lattice to react to nearby movement and move towards the audience members who venture into the piece. The entire system thus emulates a similar behavior as seen in coral reefs, with opening clamping, and an organic sense about its activity in response to its surroundings, making it not only an interesting installation work, but an example of artificial life, being an inorganic structure giving the illusion of true natural behavior, as intended by the artist.
All together, these pieces are 3 examples of the vast varieties of installation artworks present today as the medium continues to take in other mediums and grow in popularity in exhibits and as temporary or permanent structures wherever they are commissioned. Thanks for Reading!
~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~
First, we have "Shadow Fugue", an installation piece from the VIDA: Art and Artificial Life International Awards, produced by Sion Jeong. The piece is a series of plexi-glass rods attached by wire to small motors on the wall of the exhibit. With these motors, once a person softly touches the system, the surface begins a "breathing movement", producing along with its movement an elegant light and sound accompanyment. With its quasi-breathing movement, the rods create shadows on themselves, that appear and recede, furthering the illusion of a wall breathing in front of you, making subtle tinklng sounds and chanting voices through the motors on the wall. As for a purpose, Sion Jeong saw this simple mechanism as one started by interaction, but then becoming an autonomous sculpture that self-regulates its movement beyond the initial touch, reaching multiple senses of the audience to intrigue them.
Next we have an installation piece that utilizes Twitter feeds to produce vibrant LED displays, "Datagrove". The piece uses luminescent "responsive" fibers, text-to-speech modules to read out Twitter posts, and sensors for detecting human presence, producing a soft undulating sound to react, as well as systems to collect the Twitter data being used. The "social media whispering wall" was conceived by Future Cities Lab in San Francisco, as an installation to integrate social interaction and sensing human presence in the structure. It's purpose is to stimulate public discourse, by providing trending Twitter feeds and displaying and reading them out for those around to hear, while also reacting to the breeze through the responsive fibers, giving it the illusion of being an intelligent organism.
The last piece I will look at is also from the VIDA Awards, named "Hylozoic Soil", by Philip Beesley, an experimental architect. This installation, using the philosophic doctrine called Hylozoism (idea that matter is inseperable from life as a property of matter), uses a lattice of transparent acrylic tiles, and a sensor network to control the lattice to react to nearby movement and move towards the audience members who venture into the piece. The entire system thus emulates a similar behavior as seen in coral reefs, with opening clamping, and an organic sense about its activity in response to its surroundings, making it not only an interesting installation work, but an example of artificial life, being an inorganic structure giving the illusion of true natural behavior, as intended by the artist.
All together, these pieces are 3 examples of the vast varieties of installation artworks present today as the medium continues to take in other mediums and grow in popularity in exhibits and as temporary or permanent structures wherever they are commissioned. Thanks for Reading!
~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Blog #8: Installation Art
For this weeks blog, I am going to take a look at Installation Art, which grew in popularity during the late 50s and early 60s. Installation art is a style of three dimensional work that is generally site specific, as the sculpture or other objects are installed in a specific location and cannot be moved generally.
From the era in which this genre of art first started, one example of early installation art was Allan Kaprow's Words.
Allan Kaprow was one of the most influential artists involved in both Happenings and installations, and in this installation in New York, 1962 at the Smolin Gallery, Kaprow combined a vast amount of paper with random arrangements of words backed by music played by multiple record-players, creating a massive chaotic mess of surroundings for people to walk into and experience.
With this style, the purpose is to take the experience that spectators can have with art in its traditional mediums such as on a canvas, and then expand it to becoming complete environments or structures to envelope people, or at minimum allow people to walk in and have the art around them rather than simply hung on the wall. Kaprow subscribed to this line of thought whole-heartedly, moving art away from canvases and wall hangings, to expanding what mediums could be used to create art, removing it from a traditional pedestal.
The main limitation, or possibly even a strength, is that once planted down and installed, it shall never be imagined in the same manner again, creating many temporary works and structures that only exist in one place, and cannot move from that point. Nevertheless, the medium that is made of many possible mediums is growing stronger due to the new fronts provided by technology and virtual reality in installations. With these newer technologies, pieces can be moved more easily and replicate similar experiences, or even adapt to fit a different audience using dynamic visuals or interactivity with an audience, making the art more conceptual, with the final piece being less important when compared to the theory or idea behind the piece.
In more modern interpretations of installation art, digital media and technologies have been used to produce similar effects, but with the interactivity and dynamic reactions made possible through the technology. One example that holds a similar goal to Kaprow's early installation is Screen by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, a professor at the Universtiy of California Santa Cruz, who conducts research into storytelling through games. In Screen (2003), people walk into a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, a massive room of virtual reality displays. They begin the experience by reading and listening to the "Memory texts", random storylines, then the words become loose, and the observer finds they can interact and push these wods floating about then and across the walls. This interaction with the words distorts their meaning and order, and can end with either the words being misplaced or simply collapsing to the floor if too many are removed at once. Holding relevance to Wardrip-Fruin's interests, the whole experiences purpose was to introduce storytelling in a game-like fashion, and look at the reading, listening, and manipulation of the surrounding text to become a story that utilized multiple senses.
Overall, the genre that is installation art is an extraordinary one, capable of many new things since its conception in the 1950s and 60s, with new mediums finding a way to progress the possibilities of this style of art.
~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~~~
From the era in which this genre of art first started, one example of early installation art was Allan Kaprow's Words.
With this style, the purpose is to take the experience that spectators can have with art in its traditional mediums such as on a canvas, and then expand it to becoming complete environments or structures to envelope people, or at minimum allow people to walk in and have the art around them rather than simply hung on the wall. Kaprow subscribed to this line of thought whole-heartedly, moving art away from canvases and wall hangings, to expanding what mediums could be used to create art, removing it from a traditional pedestal.
The main limitation, or possibly even a strength, is that once planted down and installed, it shall never be imagined in the same manner again, creating many temporary works and structures that only exist in one place, and cannot move from that point. Nevertheless, the medium that is made of many possible mediums is growing stronger due to the new fronts provided by technology and virtual reality in installations. With these newer technologies, pieces can be moved more easily and replicate similar experiences, or even adapt to fit a different audience using dynamic visuals or interactivity with an audience, making the art more conceptual, with the final piece being less important when compared to the theory or idea behind the piece.
In more modern interpretations of installation art, digital media and technologies have been used to produce similar effects, but with the interactivity and dynamic reactions made possible through the technology. One example that holds a similar goal to Kaprow's early installation is Screen by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, a professor at the Universtiy of California Santa Cruz, who conducts research into storytelling through games. In Screen (2003), people walk into a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, a massive room of virtual reality displays. They begin the experience by reading and listening to the "Memory texts", random storylines, then the words become loose, and the observer finds they can interact and push these wods floating about then and across the walls. This interaction with the words distorts their meaning and order, and can end with either the words being misplaced or simply collapsing to the floor if too many are removed at once. Holding relevance to Wardrip-Fruin's interests, the whole experiences purpose was to introduce storytelling in a game-like fashion, and look at the reading, listening, and manipulation of the surrounding text to become a story that utilized multiple senses. Overall, the genre that is installation art is an extraordinary one, capable of many new things since its conception in the 1950s and 60s, with new mediums finding a way to progress the possibilities of this style of art.
~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~~~
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
ISTA 301 Blog #7: Videogames as Art?
For this blog, I am going to be answering the questions provided relating to videogames as "Art", and discuss a bit of the viewpoints involved.
1) This portion deals with the article found here(http://northcountrynotes.org/jason-rohrer/arthouseGames/seedBlogs.php?action=display_post&post_id=jcr13_1185605234_0&show_author=1&show_date=1)
This article is a discussion between Roger Ebert, Clive Barker and Jason Rohrer on videogames and "Art".
The notion tossed about the most in the article is the distinction of the various forms of art possibly considerable as "art", whether the experience is a guided journey or has facets of interpretation available, and what these mechanisms do to the works classification as a work of art or simply an experience with no value beyond entertainment. Personally, I agree that an initial flag that must be triggered for something to be art is that it must carry some form effect upon its audience, and must do something for them (very vague on purpose), whether that be emotional, superficial, intellectual it does not matter, as long as the effect is profound. Then, the work must prove some sense of value to the person as a valuable experience created by someone else.
I refrain from using any specific criteria due to the massive possibilities to list what makes art, but it is essentially arbitrary, it is in the eye of the beholder what art is considered, since as Ebert speaks of artistic intent and feels that art's message must be incapable of being influenced by any other than the artist, there are art movements accepted as high art such as Dadaism which put the value of art into the interpreters and the different interpretations possible. There would be no study of English and literature if everything was only viewable as the writer intended and nothing more, there would be less depth to everything unless the writer could manufacture every complex connection or tie explicitly in the text. Thus, to say something is "high" or "low" art as Ebert and Rohrer do is arbitrary, as is asking if it is art, because that could change from generation to generation, from person to person based on the type of experience they have with the works, as well as personal opinion.
2) Works of "art" that have been significant to me in a capacity similar to that discussed by Rohrer and Ebert include: the book "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Crowded House's song "Four Seasons in One Day".
The first was a book that I read first when I was in middle school as a side read, I simply read it because there was a copy present in my house that I could read, so I did so. The entire time I read it, I understood a great deal of the contextual issues at hand, with the focus being on Siberian work camps holding those who had broken the Russian laws. Covering a single day as the title suggests, I found this book to truly move me (naturally I read it later on as well when I could actually comprehend every facet of the story and actually interpret some of the latent content present). I have been so interested in the emotions expressed by the main character, relating to loneliness, the loss of hope, the wearing down of everything that makes you human through a punishing environment, and yet the subsequent rescuing of all that he was slowly losing within himself through seemingly light turns of luck, enough to save his mind from collapse. Even more, the experience led to my interest in the history surrounding the time period (Cold War/Post-War), and still holds a place on my bookshelf with few other books on it (I don't generally read that often).
The second personal example I have is that of music, Crowded House's "Four Seasons in One Day", a song which contests to be my favorite, introduced to me early in my life by my parents, and still has an effect on me today when I hear it. It relaxes me, I sing along and I ponder the melancholy lyrics, though I am incapable of explaining exactly why this song is so important to me, other than in value tied to my childhood and the presence it has had in my life as a favorite of mine. However, I find it moving, and it is an aesthetic experience of art in musical form. Perhaps it is the philosophical or fantastical imagery created in the lyrics, or an interest in the bleak over that which is forced positive, but I love it, and I think it is Art.
The aesthetic experience is simply that which governs some sort of emotion or reaction out of you, positive or negative. From there, interpretations are made further to assign value or artistic value to the work or thing, which would create "art", though "art" can be so broad as to avoid the possibility of a standard answer.
3) After having played Jason Rohrer's game "Passage" (http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/) for the first time without having anything to prime me for the experience, I have to say I was slightly intrigued by the overall mood of the game, the music was melancholy and 8 bit, meaning it was very simple and nothing extremely elaborate to create a mood. The game itself is very simple as well, as a character you move, probably run into the female counterpart character, and from there continue to move forward with extreme tunnel vision to the right as a number in the upper right goes up (by 1 when you move forward alone, and by 2 when with female counterpart and moving forward).
With this, I feel that the point of the experience is tied to the progression of the game and how the game reaches an ending. As you move forward in the game, time passes, and the sprites of the characters you control warp and age in a natural manner, from adulthood to death it seems, with the female character dying first and the male character slowing once the female character dies (becomes a tombstone). With a title like "Passage", the game seems to be a representation of the path of life, with some movements and paths blocked due to the unity of the characters making your size greater and less able to move through the lower parts of the world. Boxes also exist which increase the points you have, as well as age, possibly symbolizing life events or rewarding the venturing from the straight shot forward provided by the path at the top in which you start.
Aesthetically, I enjoyed the game, the feel was cluncky and old do to the style, but it was interesting, and left me thinking a little bit about what the hell I had just played and why I played it a second time right after the first playthrough.
~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~~~
1) This portion deals with the article found here(http://northcountrynotes.org/jason-rohrer/arthouseGames/seedBlogs.php?action=display_post&post_id=jcr13_1185605234_0&show_author=1&show_date=1)
This article is a discussion between Roger Ebert, Clive Barker and Jason Rohrer on videogames and "Art".
The notion tossed about the most in the article is the distinction of the various forms of art possibly considerable as "art", whether the experience is a guided journey or has facets of interpretation available, and what these mechanisms do to the works classification as a work of art or simply an experience with no value beyond entertainment. Personally, I agree that an initial flag that must be triggered for something to be art is that it must carry some form effect upon its audience, and must do something for them (very vague on purpose), whether that be emotional, superficial, intellectual it does not matter, as long as the effect is profound. Then, the work must prove some sense of value to the person as a valuable experience created by someone else.
I refrain from using any specific criteria due to the massive possibilities to list what makes art, but it is essentially arbitrary, it is in the eye of the beholder what art is considered, since as Ebert speaks of artistic intent and feels that art's message must be incapable of being influenced by any other than the artist, there are art movements accepted as high art such as Dadaism which put the value of art into the interpreters and the different interpretations possible. There would be no study of English and literature if everything was only viewable as the writer intended and nothing more, there would be less depth to everything unless the writer could manufacture every complex connection or tie explicitly in the text. Thus, to say something is "high" or "low" art as Ebert and Rohrer do is arbitrary, as is asking if it is art, because that could change from generation to generation, from person to person based on the type of experience they have with the works, as well as personal opinion.
2) Works of "art" that have been significant to me in a capacity similar to that discussed by Rohrer and Ebert include: the book "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Crowded House's song "Four Seasons in One Day".
The first was a book that I read first when I was in middle school as a side read, I simply read it because there was a copy present in my house that I could read, so I did so. The entire time I read it, I understood a great deal of the contextual issues at hand, with the focus being on Siberian work camps holding those who had broken the Russian laws. Covering a single day as the title suggests, I found this book to truly move me (naturally I read it later on as well when I could actually comprehend every facet of the story and actually interpret some of the latent content present). I have been so interested in the emotions expressed by the main character, relating to loneliness, the loss of hope, the wearing down of everything that makes you human through a punishing environment, and yet the subsequent rescuing of all that he was slowly losing within himself through seemingly light turns of luck, enough to save his mind from collapse. Even more, the experience led to my interest in the history surrounding the time period (Cold War/Post-War), and still holds a place on my bookshelf with few other books on it (I don't generally read that often).
The second personal example I have is that of music, Crowded House's "Four Seasons in One Day", a song which contests to be my favorite, introduced to me early in my life by my parents, and still has an effect on me today when I hear it. It relaxes me, I sing along and I ponder the melancholy lyrics, though I am incapable of explaining exactly why this song is so important to me, other than in value tied to my childhood and the presence it has had in my life as a favorite of mine. However, I find it moving, and it is an aesthetic experience of art in musical form. Perhaps it is the philosophical or fantastical imagery created in the lyrics, or an interest in the bleak over that which is forced positive, but I love it, and I think it is Art.
The aesthetic experience is simply that which governs some sort of emotion or reaction out of you, positive or negative. From there, interpretations are made further to assign value or artistic value to the work or thing, which would create "art", though "art" can be so broad as to avoid the possibility of a standard answer.
3) After having played Jason Rohrer's game "Passage" (http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/) for the first time without having anything to prime me for the experience, I have to say I was slightly intrigued by the overall mood of the game, the music was melancholy and 8 bit, meaning it was very simple and nothing extremely elaborate to create a mood. The game itself is very simple as well, as a character you move, probably run into the female counterpart character, and from there continue to move forward with extreme tunnel vision to the right as a number in the upper right goes up (by 1 when you move forward alone, and by 2 when with female counterpart and moving forward).
With this, I feel that the point of the experience is tied to the progression of the game and how the game reaches an ending. As you move forward in the game, time passes, and the sprites of the characters you control warp and age in a natural manner, from adulthood to death it seems, with the female character dying first and the male character slowing once the female character dies (becomes a tombstone). With a title like "Passage", the game seems to be a representation of the path of life, with some movements and paths blocked due to the unity of the characters making your size greater and less able to move through the lower parts of the world. Boxes also exist which increase the points you have, as well as age, possibly symbolizing life events or rewarding the venturing from the straight shot forward provided by the path at the top in which you start.
Aesthetically, I enjoyed the game, the feel was cluncky and old do to the style, but it was interesting, and left me thinking a little bit about what the hell I had just played and why I played it a second time right after the first playthrough.
~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~~~~
Thursday, October 31, 2013
ISTA 301 Blog #6: Nosaj Thing: "Eclipse/Blue", by Daito Manabe
For this blog, I am taking a look at a project from "The Creators Project" website (http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com), titled: Nosaj Thing: "Eclipse/Blue" by Daito Manabe. This piece, by Japanese technology artist Manabe (2012), utilizes music by California based musical artist Nosaj Thing, with the minimalist electronica track "Eclipse/Blue" with vocals by Kazu Makino, playing over projection mapped, reactive graphics designed by artist Takcom and coreographer MIKIKO. The project was premiered on November 27th 2012 on The Creator's Project website and on YouTube, with collaboration and support from the Creator's Project.
The main focus of the technology used in the graphics is reactivity to the live performance given by the two dancers present. The idea was to create a dynamic performance, with multiple dimensions which according to Manabe, that would be able to offer larger and more emotive emphasis upon the movements of the dancers. Utilizing Point Grey cameras, effectively higher quality and faster Kinect like systems, the motions of each dancer could be recorded by the system, and graphics could be made in real time to accompany the choreography.
The entire organization of the performance piece comes with purpose and symbolism as well. The main focus of the piece is centered around the idea of a solar eclipse, represented through the placement of one dancer (the sun) in front of the screen which displays the reactive graphics, and the other behind the screen as the moon. Thus, the moon dancer appears as a shadow through the screen, whereas the sun dancer is lit up through the use of projection mapping, set to match the music as well as follow the dancer around the stage in real time.
The project itself was not simple to organize either, with a team of about 20 people and other groups collaborating under Manabe as Creative Director to prepare the technological and artistic aspects of "Eclipse/Blue", requiring a great deal of camera work, graphical work, and programming to capture the movement and translate it into visuals relative to the theme.
The style of the graphics accompanying the music and choreography, is primarily a geometric style, using a great deal of black and white contrast, while incorporating instances of vibrant color in portions of the song. In terms that we have discussed in this class (ISTA 301: Computing and the Arts), the piece feels similar to the Cybernetic movement, relying on technology and interactivity to produce new medium art and performance art, with slight generativity in it due to parts of the graphical display relying on the movements that the dancers make, and capable of changing with different possible motions or small variances. No two realizations of this piece could be exactly the same, since the big factor in what graphics are displayed is what the dancers do.
The piece once again is Nosaj Thing: "Eclipse/Blue" by Daito Manabe, a beautiful performance art of dance, reactive graphics and projection mapping, summing up into a remarkable visual experience and technological feat all in one.
~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~
Links: (video below, both on the creator's project website and on YouTube)
Japanese artist and producer Daito Manabe teamed up with California-based m
The main focus of the technology used in the graphics is reactivity to the live performance given by the two dancers present. The idea was to create a dynamic performance, with multiple dimensions which according to Manabe, that would be able to offer larger and more emotive emphasis upon the movements of the dancers. Utilizing Point Grey cameras, effectively higher quality and faster Kinect like systems, the motions of each dancer could be recorded by the system, and graphics could be made in real time to accompany the choreography.
The entire organization of the performance piece comes with purpose and symbolism as well. The main focus of the piece is centered around the idea of a solar eclipse, represented through the placement of one dancer (the sun) in front of the screen which displays the reactive graphics, and the other behind the screen as the moon. Thus, the moon dancer appears as a shadow through the screen, whereas the sun dancer is lit up through the use of projection mapping, set to match the music as well as follow the dancer around the stage in real time.
The project itself was not simple to organize either, with a team of about 20 people and other groups collaborating under Manabe as Creative Director to prepare the technological and artistic aspects of "Eclipse/Blue", requiring a great deal of camera work, graphical work, and programming to capture the movement and translate it into visuals relative to the theme.
The piece once again is Nosaj Thing: "Eclipse/Blue" by Daito Manabe, a beautiful performance art of dance, reactive graphics and projection mapping, summing up into a remarkable visual experience and technological feat all in one.
~~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~~
Links: (video below, both on the creator's project website and on YouTube)
Japanese artist and producer Daito Manabe teamed up with California-based m
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
ISTA 301 Blog #5: "3 Dreams of Black" by the Google Creative Lab (Aaron Koblin) and Chris Milk
For this week's blog, I am going to take a look at new-media artist Aaron Koblin's collaboration piece with Google Creative Lab and Chris Milk, "3 Dreams of Black". Using WebGL in HTML 5 to create a combination of 2D animation and 3D "dreams", this web browser based work is an interactive film with the viewers capable of influencing the experience based on their mouse movement. They can use the mouse to travel in the direction they choose to explore the 3 different 3D worlds and 2D animation scenes, and generate tesselated designs and further "dreams" in the form of morphing 3D models of animals or through tesselating parts of the image. These visuals are accompanied by another collaboration: music by Danger Mouse, Danielle Luppi, and Norah Jones.
It follows 3 "dreams" as the title suggests, using film, animation and graphics rendered in real-time to offer intriguing worlds and showing off what can be done with modern web browsers. The general feeling of the piece seems to be the escape into other worlds, beginning with film from the first person perspective of a homeless man, then falling asleep and opening your eyes to an animated world, then further into a world being generated before you, with where you look spawning color into the world, and you are free to explore it.
According to the artists, this piece was designed to explore the heightened graphical possibilities in coding with HTML 5 and WebGL, which allow web browsers to produce visually spectacular displays utilizing the computers graphical processors without requiring additional software and plugins. The goal also is to be able to explore the dreams of others, utilizing an editor available "to add to the dream" (quote from main website of the piece").
This piece finds itself similar to the style of Generative/Algorithmic art (generative in the most basic sense) we did in class for our first Homework Project, as the main focus is that with a set of rules and possibilities in the code of the project, interaction with the piece gives it different itterations and realizations, almost impossible to exactly replicate. It is Digital Art though, paralled to the functions of a videogame, being a dynamic, interactive graphical experience, with the twist that it comes with a graphical editor to make landscapes for the project as well which you can share with others to experience in a similar manner.
As a piece of "art", I believe that the combination of a world which can generate and change depending on how you progress through, tied to light story elements and the idea of dreams, all linked by the music, is a very successful work. It truly is awe-inspiring visually, and conceptually, showing what can be possible in the future by making web browsers turn a computer into a practically open source videogame console or graphical rendering platform, as envisioned by the artists found in Google Creative Labs with Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk.
The piece can be found here: http://www.ro.me/
as well as on Aaron Koblin's website: http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work.html
~~~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix
It follows 3 "dreams" as the title suggests, using film, animation and graphics rendered in real-time to offer intriguing worlds and showing off what can be done with modern web browsers. The general feeling of the piece seems to be the escape into other worlds, beginning with film from the first person perspective of a homeless man, then falling asleep and opening your eyes to an animated world, then further into a world being generated before you, with where you look spawning color into the world, and you are free to explore it.
According to the artists, this piece was designed to explore the heightened graphical possibilities in coding with HTML 5 and WebGL, which allow web browsers to produce visually spectacular displays utilizing the computers graphical processors without requiring additional software and plugins. The goal also is to be able to explore the dreams of others, utilizing an editor available "to add to the dream" (quote from main website of the piece").
This piece finds itself similar to the style of Generative/Algorithmic art (generative in the most basic sense) we did in class for our first Homework Project, as the main focus is that with a set of rules and possibilities in the code of the project, interaction with the piece gives it different itterations and realizations, almost impossible to exactly replicate. It is Digital Art though, paralled to the functions of a videogame, being a dynamic, interactive graphical experience, with the twist that it comes with a graphical editor to make landscapes for the project as well which you can share with others to experience in a similar manner.
As a piece of "art", I believe that the combination of a world which can generate and change depending on how you progress through, tied to light story elements and the idea of dreams, all linked by the music, is a very successful work. It truly is awe-inspiring visually, and conceptually, showing what can be possible in the future by making web browsers turn a computer into a practically open source videogame console or graphical rendering platform, as envisioned by the artists found in Google Creative Labs with Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk.
The piece can be found here: http://www.ro.me/
as well as on Aaron Koblin's website: http://www.aaronkoblin.com/work.html
~~~~~~~Nathaniel Hendrix
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Blog #4: Rudy Rucker's book- "The Lifebox, The Seashell, and the Soul"
This weeks blog is based on the book in the title: "The Lifebox, The Seashell, and the Soul" by Rudy Rucker.
1) In the book, Rucker talks about Wolfram's Four classes of computation:
Simple Computations - Class 1: Uniform and consistent
Class 2: Periodic, alternating patterns, repetitive
Complex Computations - Class 3: Chaotic, seemingly random, messy
Class 4: "purposeful" seeming, complex with
unpredictable patterns
Examples of Class 1 and 2 computations in the real world include things such as the pattern in which bricks are laid to form a wall, a simple Class 2 computation, in which the pattern continuously repeats, and if carried on forever, would not change.
For class 3 and 4 computations, we can look to the veins of a single leaf, where there is no symmetrical pattern, yet observation shows that there is a semblance of a pattern in the way that the veins branch out to make a system within the leaf, making it a complex Class 4 computation.
2) As I am in a Statistics class this semester (ISTA 116), a simple computation that we can do using a statistics program such as RStudio (programming in the "R" language), is random number sampling in data sets. Taking milliseconds to compute by the computer and program, the process is feasible, and it is also unpredictable, as for example, in a data set with 10 points in it, each point may have a 10% chance of being displayed if sampling the data set for 1 data point out of the 10 present, though there is no way to guarentee or accurately determine which data point would be selected. This can also be as simple as a coin flip, where there are 2 possible outcomes, the flip itself takes little time, and the outcome is a supposed 50-50 chance between head or tails.
3) Based on the excerpt from Rucker, the difference between class 3 and 4 computations seems to be that where class 3 computations are characterized by complete randomness and utter lack of pattern in the results of the computation, class 4 computations are more closely related to class 2 relations, in that they produce patterns, though limited before changing over to a different pattern, and patterns in this sense are still relatively unpredictable unlike in class 2 computations. Also, class 4 computations give a sense of purpose, as if patterns were meant to be made as in class 2 computations, but run the computation further and it will stop the pattern. This makes class 4 computations far more intriguing than the jumbled mess that is seen as class 3 computations. Still, it can be difficult to tell between the two, as the difference is based on opinion of whether or not someone sees a partial pattern in what a mess computation, so there is difficulty in distinguishing the two with the fairly vague definitions they hold.
4) Continuous-valued Cellular Automata are computations in which cells like those used in other cellular automata are not limited to simple interger values such as 0 and 1, but can hold any number of values of real numbers, increasing the complexity tremendously. Where the Game of Life CA allowed for a simple CA with only 2 possible states for each cell, according to Rucker (direct quote), "a continuous-valued CA might have four billion possible states per cell", based on the idea that computer programs commonly allow for that many values in a real number.
Compared to Elementary cellular automata as well, continuous-valued CAs can be far more complex, where ECAs are the simplest forms of cellular automata, cvCAs can be seen as systems which may be more related to real life than the 256 different versions of ECAs studied by Stephen Wolfram. Rucker sees ECAs as to simple to model real life, where the shear number of possiblities in continuous value CAs is more valuable for real life application or study of the complex world we live in.
----Nathaniel Hendrix
1) In the book, Rucker talks about Wolfram's Four classes of computation:
Simple Computations - Class 1: Uniform and consistent
Class 2: Periodic, alternating patterns, repetitive
Complex Computations - Class 3: Chaotic, seemingly random, messy
Class 4: "purposeful" seeming, complex with
unpredictable patterns
Examples of Class 1 and 2 computations in the real world include things such as the pattern in which bricks are laid to form a wall, a simple Class 2 computation, in which the pattern continuously repeats, and if carried on forever, would not change.
For class 3 and 4 computations, we can look to the veins of a single leaf, where there is no symmetrical pattern, yet observation shows that there is a semblance of a pattern in the way that the veins branch out to make a system within the leaf, making it a complex Class 4 computation.
2) As I am in a Statistics class this semester (ISTA 116), a simple computation that we can do using a statistics program such as RStudio (programming in the "R" language), is random number sampling in data sets. Taking milliseconds to compute by the computer and program, the process is feasible, and it is also unpredictable, as for example, in a data set with 10 points in it, each point may have a 10% chance of being displayed if sampling the data set for 1 data point out of the 10 present, though there is no way to guarentee or accurately determine which data point would be selected. This can also be as simple as a coin flip, where there are 2 possible outcomes, the flip itself takes little time, and the outcome is a supposed 50-50 chance between head or tails.
3) Based on the excerpt from Rucker, the difference between class 3 and 4 computations seems to be that where class 3 computations are characterized by complete randomness and utter lack of pattern in the results of the computation, class 4 computations are more closely related to class 2 relations, in that they produce patterns, though limited before changing over to a different pattern, and patterns in this sense are still relatively unpredictable unlike in class 2 computations. Also, class 4 computations give a sense of purpose, as if patterns were meant to be made as in class 2 computations, but run the computation further and it will stop the pattern. This makes class 4 computations far more intriguing than the jumbled mess that is seen as class 3 computations. Still, it can be difficult to tell between the two, as the difference is based on opinion of whether or not someone sees a partial pattern in what a mess computation, so there is difficulty in distinguishing the two with the fairly vague definitions they hold.
4) Continuous-valued Cellular Automata are computations in which cells like those used in other cellular automata are not limited to simple interger values such as 0 and 1, but can hold any number of values of real numbers, increasing the complexity tremendously. Where the Game of Life CA allowed for a simple CA with only 2 possible states for each cell, according to Rucker (direct quote), "a continuous-valued CA might have four billion possible states per cell", based on the idea that computer programs commonly allow for that many values in a real number.
Compared to Elementary cellular automata as well, continuous-valued CAs can be far more complex, where ECAs are the simplest forms of cellular automata, cvCAs can be seen as systems which may be more related to real life than the 256 different versions of ECAs studied by Stephen Wolfram. Rucker sees ECAs as to simple to model real life, where the shear number of possiblities in continuous value CAs is more valuable for real life application or study of the complex world we live in.
----Nathaniel Hendrix
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Using Processing: ISTA 301 Blog #3
In accordance with the assignment, I have gathered together the products of my work with the Processing language as described by the D2L post :
1)
1)
size(800,600);
background(0,26,130);
{noStroke();
fill(250,100,100);
quad(0,600,0,500,800,500,800,600);}
fill(255,255,255);
stroke(2);
ellipse(400, 300, 600, 600);
line(400,60,400,500);
fill(125,125,0);
noStroke();{
ellipse(300,50,150,50);
ellipse(500,50,150,50);
fill(120,0,125);
triangle(400,60,150,250,650,250);
fill(0,125,150);
quad(0,120,188,0,89,600,400,466);
quad(800,120,622,0,711,600,400,466);
}
fill(0,0,0);
ellipse(400,500,50,50);
This is a static image using multiple shapes (3 quadrilaterals, 3 ellipses, 1 traingle, and a line, with a random color assortment).
2) In order to make this static image active, and have it refresh at 60fps, you take any background and size functions, and put them in the void setup() function using {}, then you put all shapes and put them into the void draw() function using {}. This forces the image to refresh rather than just be drawn, though it makes the exact same image in this case.
void setup(){
size(800,600);
background(0,26,130);
}
void draw() {
{noStroke();
fill(250,100,100);
quad(0,600,0,500,800,500,800,600);}
fill(255,255,255);
stroke(2);
ellipse(400, 300, 600, 600);
line(400,60,400,500);
fill(125,125,0);
noStroke();{
ellipse(300,50,150,50);
ellipse(500,50,150,50);
fill(120,0,125);
triangle(400,60,150,250,650,250);
fill(0,125,150);
quad(0,120,188,0,89,600,400,466);
quad(800,120,622,0,711,600,400,466);
}
fill(0,0,0);
ellipse(400,500,50,50);
}
3) As an example of the beginShape() and endShape() functions, I made this and gave it a red background:
It uses 22 vertexes, and began by plotting out the right side, then looping back to draw a mirror image on the left side. The red is extra.
size(1000,1000);
background(255,0,0);
beginShape();
vertex(500,100);
vertex(505,250);
vertex(575,300);
vertex(550,325);
vertex(555,350);
vertex(560,375);
vertex(620,400);
vertex(570,410);
vertex(550,420);
vertex(550,475);
vertex(560,500);
vertex(500,550);
vertex(440,500);
vertex(450,475);
vertex(450,420);
vertex(430,410);
vertex(380,400);
vertex(440,375);
vertex(445,350);
vertex(450,325);
vertex(425,300);
vertex(495,250);
endShape(CLOSE);
4) Using a "for loop" to draw 15 rectangles:
I chose to do the placement using variables, though in an increasing manner, and used random color assignment (between cyan and lime green), using a random interger.
size(1000,1000);
background(255,255,255);
smooth();
for (int i = 50; i < 750; i += 50) {
float y = random(39);
if(y < 20){
fill(0,255,255);
}else{
fill(51,255,51);
}
quad(i, 40, i + 50, 40, i+50,i+90, i, i+90);
}
This concludes the playing around with Processing Blog.
~~Nathaniel Hendrix
Monday, September 16, 2013
ISTA 301 Blog #2: Conceptual Art: "THE IRON CURTAIN"
On the topic of Conceptual Art, defined by Sol Lewitt as occuring when "the idea becomes a machine that makes the art", I found a piece by Jeanne-Claude and Christo, French artists of the 1960s on, who devised many ideas together with this principle in mind. One such idea ended in what became "The Iron Curtain".
Up for 8 hours on June 27th, 1962, the "curtain" was a pile of horizontally placed oil barrels set to block a small side street in Paris, "Rue Visconti", which used the following confusion, stopped traffic and blocked communication as the true art of the temporary installation (proper permits were apparently obtained for this through the city).
The wall was constructed specifically using 50L oil barrels of various brand names, such as BP, SHELL, and ESSO, with no alteration to the barrels whatsoever, leaving rust, leftover oil and original paint with brand names visible to make up a massive blockade of rust and worn color. This style was closest to the works of the followers of Dadaism, taking average things and displaying them in a manner which participation from those who see the "piece" are the ones who truly can classify it as art, such as Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, the urinal taken off of the production line and placed in the middle of an art exhibit.
While not as biting nor questioning of what "art" is, the "iron curtain" was part of a protesting movement against events such as the Berlin Wall and joined protests of the Algerian War that were echoing throughout Paris, with the common interest of demonstrating the kind of disconnect and confusion that erecting simple walls to block small streets could cause, as what was happening in Germany at the time. The name itself is a direct reference to events at the time with the rise of Russia in conquering its neighbors and forming the real "Iron Curtain" as a buffer zone between the western world and itself, making the piece a fairly heavy political statement for the time period connected to the state of Europe during the 1960s. The use of oil barrels in particular aludes partly to the Algerian War for independence from colonial France, where a major perk of France owning the country was the oil present, but also relates to the large pushes against oil companies in the 60s seen mostly in the United States with environmental concerns rising. Then again, Christo and Jeanne-Claude also seemed to have an affinity with oil barrels as building materials as seen in other much larger pieces done throughout their careers, thus it could be that oil barrels were just their preferred medium.
Officially though, to get the project approved by the city of Paris, a use for the wall was listed as a manner of creating dead end roads and blocking off streets for construction work (not very practical or safe solutions to say the least).
In the original project description submitted to the city of Paris to authorize the installation of such a wall, it was stated that the concept of the curtain could easily be applied to the rest of the city. In various renditions, the "iron curtain" could have relatively high entropy, while always being a wall of oil barrels, the original plans by Christo and Jeanne-Claude also included the possibility of using 200L oil barrels rather than 50L ones, and had no specific requirements beyond volume for the barrels. Beyond that, the differences between streets would contribute to the entropy by not allowing for uniformity of stacking the barrels in order to cut off the street. Thus, every subsequent "Iron Curtian" could vary greatly from the original based on where the barrels were obtained, what they looked like, how they were stacked, and the place the wall existed as an installation.
In the end though, any rendition would be a piece of Conceptual Art, relying on the reactions drawn to it to truly create the "Art", and give it a meaning.
Sources (only one): www.christojeanneclaude.net/projects/wall-of-oil-barrels---the-iron-curtain
Up for 8 hours on June 27th, 1962, the "curtain" was a pile of horizontally placed oil barrels set to block a small side street in Paris, "Rue Visconti", which used the following confusion, stopped traffic and blocked communication as the true art of the temporary installation (proper permits were apparently obtained for this through the city).
While not as biting nor questioning of what "art" is, the "iron curtain" was part of a protesting movement against events such as the Berlin Wall and joined protests of the Algerian War that were echoing throughout Paris, with the common interest of demonstrating the kind of disconnect and confusion that erecting simple walls to block small streets could cause, as what was happening in Germany at the time. The name itself is a direct reference to events at the time with the rise of Russia in conquering its neighbors and forming the real "Iron Curtain" as a buffer zone between the western world and itself, making the piece a fairly heavy political statement for the time period connected to the state of Europe during the 1960s. The use of oil barrels in particular aludes partly to the Algerian War for independence from colonial France, where a major perk of France owning the country was the oil present, but also relates to the large pushes against oil companies in the 60s seen mostly in the United States with environmental concerns rising. Then again, Christo and Jeanne-Claude also seemed to have an affinity with oil barrels as building materials as seen in other much larger pieces done throughout their careers, thus it could be that oil barrels were just their preferred medium.
Officially though, to get the project approved by the city of Paris, a use for the wall was listed as a manner of creating dead end roads and blocking off streets for construction work (not very practical or safe solutions to say the least).
In the original project description submitted to the city of Paris to authorize the installation of such a wall, it was stated that the concept of the curtain could easily be applied to the rest of the city. In various renditions, the "iron curtain" could have relatively high entropy, while always being a wall of oil barrels, the original plans by Christo and Jeanne-Claude also included the possibility of using 200L oil barrels rather than 50L ones, and had no specific requirements beyond volume for the barrels. Beyond that, the differences between streets would contribute to the entropy by not allowing for uniformity of stacking the barrels in order to cut off the street. Thus, every subsequent "Iron Curtian" could vary greatly from the original based on where the barrels were obtained, what they looked like, how they were stacked, and the place the wall existed as an installation.
In the end though, any rendition would be a piece of Conceptual Art, relying on the reactions drawn to it to truly create the "Art", and give it a meaning.
Sources (only one): www.christojeanneclaude.net/projects/wall-of-oil-barrels---the-iron-curtain
Sunday, September 8, 2013
ISTA 301 Project 1: Algorithmic Art
First Post! Mandatory congratulations: http://i.imgur.com/rfEjwTF.gif
For one of my classes, "Computing and the Arts", the first assignment of the year was to create a piece of "Algorithmic Art", or at least, quasi-algorithmic art, as within art, the formal definition of an algorithm is corrupted to still include some aspect of random variation between realizations of the piece.
What the piece truly is, is a rule set for people to follow and create a form of art, like a directed drawing class, where the only differences between pieces come down to what the instructor allows and individual abilities of the artists making the art.
In my scheme of rules, I wanted to be able to have a greatly varying sample of material to base the art of of, thus, I took an idea from examples of generative art in the class, where the main portion of the piece is taken randomly from photo websites like flickr.com, so that the chances of multiple renditions being based on the same image were slim (very slim). Another big aspect that I incorporated, which in my previous art experience in AP Studio Art stood as one of my favorite and most used styles, was utilizing randomly placed lines to create sub sections of the image and work each section as if it was a different piece itself, varying style, color and the such to get a conglomeration of sections adding up to one whole image, with this being a prototype visualization based on an earlier draft of my rules (by me):
The medium of digital art proved to be the easiest to use in order to incorporate random aspect to the rule set which would, while in some cases rely on the artists decisions in small aspects, would keep the rules more uniform and allow for more possibilities in creating entropy and yet reigning in the various possibilities that could take affect with art done in other mediums such as ink or graphite, which were considerations, but took into account too heavily in my opinion, personal skill with said mediums, as well as paper, so a digital canvas which could be adjusted accordingly was the best option.
The biggest objective in my rule set was to accomplish this style of splitting the image, and using both drawing by the artist and the original image (not present in the example above). I also wished to vary the art by allowing the artist to place the lines where they wished, though I set the amount and rules to where they had to be placed and how much they needed to intersect to make enough sections to work with. However, the amount of sections could vary significantly based on the artists placement and decisions, though limited significantly. From there, the piece moves in the direction of treating different sections differently based on numbering in a reading method (right to left, top to bottom), which then allows later rules to affect each cell and applies either fills or blackouts to break the image up, between the artists sketching and the original image.
Overall, the entropy within the rule set comes from the random image, and the choices made by the artist in where the lines cutting up the image go, leading to very similar renditions, yet all formatted slightly different, giving it a decent level of entropy. While nothing comparable to the Dice game used by Mozart in randomness, it is similar to how the dice game will always make a functioning musical piece, as the art will always be an image partially drawn, and partially covered in a geometric fashion.
And that is what I wanted to make, as it is a style that I personally have used to relative success and love. I had a great deal of fun with the project, and being creative, though it was tough at times figuring out what in the world I should do. This is what ended up happening. I suppose you still stick to what you are comfortable with in the end.
For one of my classes, "Computing and the Arts", the first assignment of the year was to create a piece of "Algorithmic Art", or at least, quasi-algorithmic art, as within art, the formal definition of an algorithm is corrupted to still include some aspect of random variation between realizations of the piece.
What the piece truly is, is a rule set for people to follow and create a form of art, like a directed drawing class, where the only differences between pieces come down to what the instructor allows and individual abilities of the artists making the art.
In my scheme of rules, I wanted to be able to have a greatly varying sample of material to base the art of of, thus, I took an idea from examples of generative art in the class, where the main portion of the piece is taken randomly from photo websites like flickr.com, so that the chances of multiple renditions being based on the same image were slim (very slim). Another big aspect that I incorporated, which in my previous art experience in AP Studio Art stood as one of my favorite and most used styles, was utilizing randomly placed lines to create sub sections of the image and work each section as if it was a different piece itself, varying style, color and the such to get a conglomeration of sections adding up to one whole image, with this being a prototype visualization based on an earlier draft of my rules (by me):
 |
| Quick rendition based on early designs of my quasi-algorithm |
The medium of digital art proved to be the easiest to use in order to incorporate random aspect to the rule set which would, while in some cases rely on the artists decisions in small aspects, would keep the rules more uniform and allow for more possibilities in creating entropy and yet reigning in the various possibilities that could take affect with art done in other mediums such as ink or graphite, which were considerations, but took into account too heavily in my opinion, personal skill with said mediums, as well as paper, so a digital canvas which could be adjusted accordingly was the best option.
The biggest objective in my rule set was to accomplish this style of splitting the image, and using both drawing by the artist and the original image (not present in the example above). I also wished to vary the art by allowing the artist to place the lines where they wished, though I set the amount and rules to where they had to be placed and how much they needed to intersect to make enough sections to work with. However, the amount of sections could vary significantly based on the artists placement and decisions, though limited significantly. From there, the piece moves in the direction of treating different sections differently based on numbering in a reading method (right to left, top to bottom), which then allows later rules to affect each cell and applies either fills or blackouts to break the image up, between the artists sketching and the original image.
Overall, the entropy within the rule set comes from the random image, and the choices made by the artist in where the lines cutting up the image go, leading to very similar renditions, yet all formatted slightly different, giving it a decent level of entropy. While nothing comparable to the Dice game used by Mozart in randomness, it is similar to how the dice game will always make a functioning musical piece, as the art will always be an image partially drawn, and partially covered in a geometric fashion.
And that is what I wanted to make, as it is a style that I personally have used to relative success and love. I had a great deal of fun with the project, and being creative, though it was tough at times figuring out what in the world I should do. This is what ended up happening. I suppose you still stick to what you are comfortable with in the end.
~~Nathaniel Hendrix~~
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