October 2016 – Page 24 – [OLD – FALL 2016] 15-104 • COMPUTING for CREATIVE PRACTICE

ShanWang-LookingOutwards-06

(Silk Pavillion Installed)

Silk Pavillion is not just a bold architectural attempt, but an “exemplary combination” of scientific research, digital design and biomimetic construction by the MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter Group.

The project is compelling in its thorough research in silkworms’ interaction in different three dimensional spaces.The design of the primary structure was very carefully executed with robot-woven threads wrapping a steel frame. Mimicking the formation of cocoon, the pavillion was however created with a certain extent of parametric control in the basic level and with the randomness of the silk pattern produced by 6400 silkworms.

I found the Silk Pavilion to be of great importance because it opens up potentials in the collaboration among biology, information system and architecture, and it’s fascinating how the insects instinctive behavior can create functional space for human beings.

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(silkworms weaving the pavilion)

Jessica Medenbach – Looking Outwards – 06

“Atomos” is a dance production by the choreographer Wayne McGregor. In this production, McGregor created a computer based dancer who is fed random movement data from a sci fi film of McGregor’s choosing. The computerized body then responds to the random algorithm created by the frames in the film and responds in real time, never repeating the same movement.

Real dancers would then respond to the movement of the computer creating a human-digital dialogue. As the dancers moved to the computer, the costume designers then monitored the biorhythms of the dancers, and then created costumes based off of that.

What I find to be interesting and inspiring about this piece is that it takes in so many different kinds of data, turns that data into numbers or movement based off of numbers and then creates something entirely new out of that. This creates a constantly evolving piece. To me, using all this outside data to stimulate the next part of the process creates the possibility for really interesting moments to take place that are completely grounded in the present moment of performance making the viewer aware of their own body and relationship to various outside stimuli and technologies.

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http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/unlikely-algorithms-wayne-mcgregors-troupe-combine-biometric-data-80s-sci-fi-movies-and-computerized-choreography

Isabella Hong – Looking Outwards – 06

One of the many digital designs printed by Vassallo, Thorp and Watz in their collection “Random Number Multiples” (2011)

The series “Random Number Multiples” by artist Christina Vassallo done in collaboration with Jer Thorp and Marius Watz uses custom coded software and traditional methods of silkscreen printing to produce digital abstract pieces on paper.

Christina Vassallo completed both her undergraduate and masters degrees at New York University, gaining extensive knowledge in art, history, literature and visual arts administration during her time as a student. Particularly knowledgeable in print based artwork, Vassallo worked with coding artists Thorp and Watz to curate a collection focused on demonstrating the possibilities of digitizing traditional art using code and analog printing methods

The custom software created by Thorp and Watz generates random lines, curves, and shapes to create intricate geometric prints. Some of the pieces also include text on the outer portions, the placement of the text being randomized as well. All together, Vassallo, Thorp and Watz showed their audience that technology does not nullify the value of traditional art, but rather enhances it. As a student pursuing graphic design, I greatly appreciate any work that brings attention to this point.

Sources:

Computational Art, From Screen to Paper: Prints by Jer Thorp, Marius Watz

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-vassallo-4158993

sihand – LookingOutwards 06 – Bauer

Random Paintings by Andrej Bauer

Sihan by Andrej Bauer The picture above was made by a computer program developed by the Slovenian computational artist, Andrej Bauer. The program accepts the name of a picture, which in this case is my name, and generates a random picture using the name as a “seed”. The same “seed” consistently yields the same painting.

How? You might ask. As Bauer explains it, upon receiving the “seed”, which is the name of the picture, the program constructs an according mathematical formula. The unique formula determines the color of each pixel in the picture. Although the composition of the painting may appear random, it always follows the same sequence. The online version of the program is converted from the original one in ocaml to javascript with ocamljs.

I really enjoyed playing around with the program because the results are constantly surprising. Most of “my” works aren’t as aesthetic as the popular ones, but I believe that if I keep on experimenting, something would eventually come up. I think Bauer’s work is a real-life manifestation of the Infinite Monkey Theorem (wiki).

Here are some more popular images in his gallery.

Sunshine unslumbering by Andrej Bauer Terrible reports by Andrej Bauer

Check out Bauer’s random art gallery here.

Learn more about Andrej Bauer.

Diana Connolly – Looking Outwards 6

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blòm by Lucas Tswick

blòm is a generative art piece by Lucas Tswick that includes 150 different rose-like iterations. I admire this piece because each pattern is beautiful, and the notion behind the piece admires the beauty and randomness of nature. The creator’s artistic sensibilities were produced in this piece because the artist was inspired by the infinite variations of nature’s patterns — in things like butterfly wings and reptile scales. The artist thus created 150 iterations of rose patterns, incorporating random variables within each iteration in order to replicate nature’s randomness and infinite variation. The algorithm used to create these iterations started with the rose’s center point, and gave random variables to the spiraling outer “petal” parts of each flower. Thus, each iteration looks different in pattern and shape.

More info about the piece and process:
http://lucastswick.com/blom-generative-art-for-thecardsproject/

Sarita Chen – Looking Outwards – 06

For this week’s Looking Outwards post, I chose one of the works from this blog: Rectangle World run by Dan Gries. The blog features many different types of randomly generated art pieces, but the one that stood out to me the most was the Colourful Cellular Automaton, published in June, 2012. The automaton generates random colour “tapestries” when you click the canvas. Each individual rectangle generates a colour and the colours eventually shift to match each other and form a certain range of colours. The automaton can be tested here. For the sake of the post, I tried out the automaton a couple of times and posted the images I generated below.

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What I admire about the work is how simple yet aesthetically pleasing the end product ends up being. As an artist myself I also think this project could be useful as a colour palette generator, and I tend to be really fond of those (for example, the twitter “manygradients” generates a colour wheel every half hour). I think the artist’s sensibilities come out in the work through the way that the project was conceived. According to the blog post, Dan Gries claimed “While thinking and reading about flocking algorithms and cellular automata, [he] had the idea of mixing the two algorithms together.” Personally I find those random bouts of inspiration to just create something to be the most interesting.

My understanding of randomness in algorithms is mostly limited to what I’ve been learning in p5.js. How the code works is that each square tries to mimic the colour of the neighbouring squares, but not exactly. The squares also try to match the direction of change of the colours of the neighbouring squares. More information about how the algorithm work can be found on the blog post.

More of Dan’s works can be found on his flickr.

His website can be found here.

Jihoonp_LookingOutwards_06

Montreal in March of 2013 was still in the midst of winter when Iregular unveiled their interactive installation called “Lift.” Iregular is a studio with Daniel Iregui at its head, seeking ways to mesmerize using computer generated art. The Lift was a projection set on a dome of 6 images that represented the city of Montreal. However, the fun part was that the audience could throw a glowing balloon into the wall, and the position and velocity of the balloon could give shifts to the projected video.

There was a controlled randomness to this installation, especially in the fact that no two balloons shot into the air were most unlikely to have the exact same motion. The following images on the dome were images never to be seen again.

Looking Outwards 6: Random Art

This image is called "panther tank" — This image is called “panther tank”

While looking for pieces that exemplified computation, randomness, and creativity, I stumbled upon a website called random-art.org. The website features a gallery of (literally) random art. All of the pieces are created from a computer program (ocaml) that generates an image based on whatever word a user types in. In other words, the name given to the picture is the starting point for the program to compute a formula that determines the image’s colors and pixels. However, the same word or name given always yields the same image, because it determines the same sequence of random choices that make up the picture.

This project is pretty cool (and random) because it takes a new approach to making computational art that makes it simple enough for anyone to take part in.

You can even make your own random picture here and upload it to the random art gallery!

Christine Kim – Looking Outwards – 06

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exterior view of the building

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in 2002 was designed by Toyo Ito, Cecil Balmond, and Arup. This pavilion was designed with randomly intersecting lines along the walls which created many different shapes of triangles and trapezoids. This exterior/interior wall design was actually derived from an algorithm of a cube that expanded as it rotated. I think this computational art allows people to appreciate the building as well as the way of design using an algorithm. Along with this algorithmic design, the transparency and translucency of the wall make it seem like the shapes of the walls are in infinitely repeated motion. This algorithm was developed by Balmond, who participated in this project as the artist and structural engineer. Although this project’s budget constraints didn’t allow the highest quality finish, the strength of the design made sure that it caught people’s eyes. I could not find what kind of algorithm Balmond used, but I suppose the algorithm made many different lines in a cube to reach these shapes of the building.

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interior sky view of the shapes

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interior view of the building

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion

Jessica Medenbach WallPaper

Wanted to create something that reminded me of 1960’s wallpaper in terms of color and style. wallpaper

function setup() {
    createCanvas(650, 400);
    background(255,255,185);
    var tw = 60;
    var th = 60;
    var oy = 50;
    var ox = 50;
    var rowCount = 0;

    rowCount++;

    for (var y = 0; y < 6; y++) {
        for (var x = 0; x < 10; x++) {
            var py = oy + y * th;
            var px = ox + x * tw;
            
     if (y*rowCount%2==0){
        fill(64,209,151);
     	ellipse (px,py,20,20);
        fill(255,255,0);
        ellipse (px-10,py-10,10,10);
        ellipse (px-15,py,10,10);
        ellipse (px+15,py,10,10);
        ellipse (px+10,py+10,10,10);
     }

     else {
        fill(255);
     	ellipse(px, py, 20, 20);

        }

}
}


    

    noLoop();
}






function draw() {
    // draw is not called due to noLoop() in setup()
}