Month: September 2016

JamesKatungyi-LookingOutwards-02

Printing Porcelain In 3d By Nervous Systems By Nervous System – 01 June 2016

Nervous studio uses generative design inspired by natural phenomena and digital fabrication to make unique art, jewelry and housewares (nervous system inc, 2016).
The process of fabricating a two layered porcelain cup whose outer layer is an organic cellular composition akin to ‘frozen foam of bubbles’ is described on the studio website. The cup is 3D printed with a method called Porcelite using Stereolithography (SLA) which differs from the more common extrusion based or powder 3D ceramic printing. In addition to intricacy and aesthetic appeal, the double skin with air spaces insulates from hot liquids contained in the cup.
The source algorithms are not described on the website. Nevertheless, the allusion to frozen foam of bubbles suggests random ellipses constrained both by minimum and maximum size and spacing.
The suggested algorithm reflects the ethos of Nervous System design studios’ two artistic founders. Generative design captures organic patterns in a way that is impossible using any other means. I always thought of art as incompatible with the rigidity of mathematical formulae. This project dispels that misconception.

Bibliography

nervous system inc. (2016). about us. Retrieved 9 8, 2016, from nervous system: http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/about_us.php

nervous system inc. (2016). printing porcelain in 3D. Retrieved 9 8, 2016, from nervous system: http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/blog/?p=7341

3D-printing porcelite on a Form 2 from Nervous System on Vimeo.

3cups-750x422

imgp1452-750x563

Christine Kim – Looking Outwards – 02

zaha

gehry

A new media project that I came across this week is DeepArt’s portrait style that uses neural algorithms to create and mimic the abstract art styles on photographic images. DeepArt is an online service produced by a team of five researchers, Matthias Bethge, Alexander Ecker, Leon Gatys, Lukasz Kidzinski, and Michal Warchol. These researchers created and provided an easy way to mimic any artistic style for anyone to use. This algorithm combines the stylistic elements of one image to create the content of another photo. It is interesting how anyone can create and mimic any style of art he or she wants in a photo because no one has to be afraid to create art using this algorithm. Since this algorithm was created for the public to access and create cool art, the artistic sensibilities of the creators are mostly manifested in the selection of different styles that people can choose from, which also includes styles of many famous artists and architects.

lebbeus

1

lecorb

Sarita Chen – Looking Outwards – 02

screen-shot-2016-09-08-at-4-52-24-pm screen-shot-2016-09-08-at-4-58-48-pm

Flickr. Tumblr.

The Generative Artist I chose for this week’s Looking Outwards assignment is Mario Klingemann. Mario Klingmann is stationed in Munich, Germany, and describes himself as and “Artist, Coder, Data Collector, Archivist, Speaker and Obsessive Compulsive Orderer” according to his twitter page. One project that I liked in particular from him was his “Pinuptic Curve” series, where he creates Pinup photos of women purely out of ellipses. The full series can be found here.

What I admire about this project (aside from being a fan of pinup photos) is that he manages to capture the expression and form of a pinup photo with the single usage of a primitive shape: the ellipse. The images themselves are fairly complex. He created the series in 2011. I can imagine that describing himself as an “Obessesive Compulsive Orderer” has some backing, as the images for this project are incredibly precise in what they are trying to represent. There is very deliberate usage of the ellipses to create the models of the women in the pinups.

Mario uses a self made tool known as ScribblerToo, and Flash for his works.

William Latham (rnayyar looking outwards 2)

William Latham has a rich history in computer-facilitated arts. With experience from working with IBM’s Advanced Computer Graphics and Visualisation Division, Latham moved onto being the CEO of the computer games developer “Computer Artworks Ltd.” and managing/closing contracts with Microsoft, Nokia, Atari, and Virgin Interactive. Nowadays, he is a computing professor and the CEO of “Games Audit”. Nevertheless, these achievements hardly scratch the surface of Latham’s career in the digital realm.

  

Latham creates these organic, molecular, and somewhat digitally-genetic graphics that portray these fantastical mutated quasi-organisms. He and mathematician Stephen Todd co-created a “Mutation” code which allows these virtual life forms to breed and evolve into hybrids. Latham calls himself a “gardener” driven by aesthetic evolution.

source 1
source 2

Mdambruc, Generative Art, LookingOutwards-02

Demonstration of installation

weirdfaces

Every piece is unique

Matthew Dorfelt (MOKA), “Weird Faces Vending Machine”, 2013

Link to piece: http://www.mokafolio.de/works/Weird-Faces-Vending-Machine

Matthias Dorfelt’s (Moka) “Weird Faces Vending Machine” is a piece that creates a limitless amount of hand drawn faces that are each unique for $3. This project caught my attention because a robot was creating drawings that had the same style as the artist. This piece allowed the viewer to have a truly custom experience due to the robot conversing with them with their name, as well as receive a one-of-a-kind artwork. I admire Dorfelt’s efforts to attempt to create a robot that created drawings that did not appear mechanical or computer generated.

All of the faces were expressed by algorithmic rules and were programmed in Java Script using paper.js. To create the custom experience, I assume there was a changing variable that substituted the current name of the buyer. Dorfelt created this piece in an attempt to combine both his interests in illustration as well as programming. I believe Dorfelt did a great job of attracting people through his use of humor in the robot as well as the customized “handwritten” notes on the back of the piece – people want to feel special and “Weird Faces Vending Machine” supplies that. Moka’s work is daring to me because it questions the value of his art, as well as art in general by creating it with a robot.

 

Kyle Lee Looking Onward 02

Kung Fu Motion Visualization – Tobias Gremmler (2016)

What initially drew my into this project was the innovative expression of motion. Although it is certainly not the literal visual version of martial arts, I do feel like I get a strong understanding of the movement and the feeling of the activity. If I had just seen a video recording of the live motion capture, I doubt that I would have the same understanding of the movement.

I know from movies that motion capture generates data that can then be used as building blocks for new synthesis. I suppose that in its simplest form, it is similar to what we have been doing in class, drawing objects, but using motion capture data as the dynamic variables for placement, speed, and direction.

I think that the creator has done a terrific job of stripping down a complex phenomenon and representing it in a way that brings something new to the picture. I like how many of the physical distractions like the human form and the environment are minimized. I particularly like how I have to infer where the human form exists solely based on the represented motion. The way in which Gremmler identified these underlying motions and properly expressed them is impressive.

Sofia Syjuco – Project-02

sketch

// Sofia Miren Syjuco
// Section A
// smsyjuco@andrew.cmu.edu
// Assignment-02-C

// 5 pixels / inch

// Simple beginning template for variable face.
var eyeSize = 20;
var faceWidth = 100;
var faceHeight = 150;
var mouthWidth = 50;
var mouthHeight = 20;
var pupilSize = 10;
var cheekSize = 10;
var noseWidth =5;
var noseHeight = 20;
var browHeight = 2;
 
function setup() {
    createCanvas(640, 480);
}
 
function draw() {
    background(244,147,144);
    noStroke (0);

    //Ears. On either side of the middle of the face.
    fill (217,115,77);
    ellipse(width/2 - faceWidth/2, height / 2, eyeSize, eyeSize);
    ellipse(width/2 + faceWidth/2, height / 2, eyeSize, eyeSize);

    //Face: Center of canvas
    fill (217,115,77);
    ellipse(width / 2, height / 2, faceWidth,  faceHeight);


    //Cheeks (blush). Positioned just under the eyes, but same idea.
    fill (255,104,77);
    var cheekLX = width / 2 - faceWidth * 0.25;
    var cheekRX = width / 2 + faceWidth * 0.25;
    ellipse(cheekLX, height/2 + faceHeight/8, cheekSize, cheekSize);
    ellipse(cheekRX, height/2 + faceHeight/8, cheekSize, cheekSize);

    //Eyes.
    fill (250);
    var eyeLX = width / 2 - faceWidth * 0.25;
    var eyeRX = width / 2 + faceWidth * 0.25;
    ellipse(eyeLX, height / 2, eyeSize, eyeSize);
    ellipse(eyeRX, height / 2, eyeSize, eyeSize);

    //Eyebrows, just above the eyes
    fill (0);
    ellipse(eyeLX, height / 2 - eyeSize/2, eyeSize, browHeight);
    ellipse(eyeRX, height / 2 - eyeSize/2, eyeSize, browHeight);

    //Pupils, in center of the eyes
    fill (0);
    ellipse (eyeLX, height/2, pupilSize, pupilSize);
    ellipse (eyeRX, height/2, pupilSize, pupilSize);

    //Mouth
    fill (246,30,74);
    ellipse (width/2, height/2 + faceHeight/4, mouthWidth, mouthHeight);

    //Nose
    fill (179,66,34);
    ellipse (width/2, height/2 + faceHeight/15, noseWidth, noseHeight);

}
 
function mousePressed() {
    // when the user clicks, these variables are reassigned
    // to random values within specified ranges. For example,
    // 'faceWidth' gets a random value between 75 and 150.
    faceWidth = random(75, 150);
    faceHeight = random(100, 200);
    eyeSize = random(16, 30);
    mouthWidth = random(20, 50);
    mouthHeight = random(10, 15);
    pupilSize = random(2, 15);
    cheekSize = random(10, 25);
    noseWidth = random(5, 15);
    noseHeight = random(10, 30);
    browHeight = random(2, 5);
}

My process involved a lot of experimentation. Being a visual learner, it’s hard to try and understand things purely in terms of numbers. This project allowed me greater freedom with which to practice my programming, but set it within the bounds of facial proportions – which is something I am more familiar with. I am trying to stay away from using “magic numbers,” and instead work through how I can represent values through arithmetic and variables.

Sofia Syjuco – Looking Outwards-02


MicroImage B Prints
Casey Reas

Casey Reas’s MicroImage series encompasses a very interesting set of prints (and some videos) of generative art. Reas himself developed the software used to create these pieces of art (pictured above, prints from the “B” group within this series). I very much admire the formal qualities of these non-representational pieces that he programmed, because they speak to a high level of understanding both art and technology – Reas is so skilled as to be able to naturally channel one medium into another, and create a work that is stunning in both forms.

Reas used the MicroImage software to develop this project, using Processing – an open-source language that he and Ben Fry created together with the intention of opening up programming to artists. The creator’s artistic sensibilities manifest in the aesthetic of all works produced through this software, a strange mid-ground between fractal and organic.

Isabella Hong – Looking Outwards – 02

Karl Sims is an artist that specializes in fusing elements of life sciences, his primary area of study as an undergraduate at MIT, and machinery to produce interactive media designs.

In 1997, Sims created an interactive exhibit called “Galapagos”, inspired by the studies that Darwin had completed on evolution at the Galapagos Islands. The exhibit was displayed for three years (1997 – 2000) at the ICC in Tokyo and for one year in 1999 at the DeCordova Museum in London.

Images of abstract organisms were displayed on twelve different screens that were arranged in an arc form. The viewers chose the organisms that they liked by standing on particular sensors and watched as the other organisms disappeared from the screens. The genetic code and intricacy of the newly mutated and evolved organisms are completely controlled by the computer, demonstrating the lack of human power over nature. Newly mutated and evolved organisms, the offspring of the selected organisms, appeared on the screens and there was no predicting what they would look like.

I particularly admired Sims’ ability to create direct interaction between a human and a machine, to show that art extends beyond the wall of a museum or the screen of a computer. He gaps the bridge between hardware and humanism, something that is rarely done very well.

An example of what happens when an organism is selected.

 

JihoonPark-LookingOutwards-02

winter2011

For the course, Case Study on Architecture, I was given an object in a school to research and identify materialistic, social and political relationship to its context. The object being a fire sprinkler, tracing back to the water source seemed to be a reasonable path to take.

Water is an indispensable utility along with gas and electricity, more than if not just as much as these. To trace water is to trace our path  of living and the way we curve nature to gain what we want.

spring2011-detail

The works of David Wicks maps the water ways of the US through water consumption data and rainfall statistics. Basically, the program identifies locations which consumes the most water and therefore requires more water to be pumped and channeled from faraway places with rainfall.

Though only data shown in the map pertains to rainfall and water consumption, it is more than that. The map reveals simple statistical information from population density to geography and climate, and further providing insight into the fact that the utility we use daily are not in fact for granted.

realtime-screenshot

The way he amalgamated the interactive animation to a crucial problem of today in a way that could be so consistent in its representation of the core value is admirable. Wicks’ computational creation is reveals something we should strive for in making social conscious art.