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)

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

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

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):

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~~