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.

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Demonstration of installation

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.

 

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

The Protohouse project developed by a design group known as Softkill Design is a 3D printed prototype of a conceptual house. Through the use of computer algorithm that imitates bone growth to define where the architecture requires most structure, this high-resolution project made out of “fibrous web” organizes its material to its finest detail allowing cost and material efficient result. The complexity of this prototype is possible from the integration of algorithm in its technology. The Protohouse also utilize high technology such as Selective Laser Sintering Technology that uses laser to form solid by heat or pressure without melting to a liquid form. By manipulating those technologies, the creator manifests experimentation of future architecture as this project reflects how architects can create not only a cost and material efficient but also a structurally effective architecture by integrating algorithm in the process. Also, the prototype is light-weighted and therefore portable allowing it to be fabricated into parts, seven in this case, and assembled on site.

http://www.archdaily.com/335887/3-d-printing-protohouse-1-0-and-protohouse-2-0-softkill-design

 

Glenn Marshall’s Emergent Art

This mesmerizing work is created by a honors-winning digital artist, though maybe not so well-known, Glenn Marshall. Marshall started off in the 90s as a 3D animation artist, where he relied heavily on commercial software like Cinema 4D to create his ideal visualization. However, unsatisfied with the limitations that come with off-the-shelf software, Marshall started using Processing to create unique code artworks, until he found an even better tool: combining Python SDK and Cinema 4D. He has been utilizing such a powerful tool to create unique algorithms and splendid visual effects.

His work immediately grabbed my attention because of its almost philosophical appearance. They resemble the perfect designs done by nature, like the golden ratio that’s present in the veins of a leaf or on the wings of a butterfly, despite the fact that these works are completely artificial.

The work that is shown above, Star Girl, as well as another work shown below, Particle Man, was created by tracing the trajectory of particles colliding onto a 3D sculpted surface. It is as much mathematical and scientific, as it is artistic.

This is what I would call ‘emergent art’, in that I have no preconceptions of the final result, but rather rely on the unexpected results of a complicated simulation system using natural forces to create the final piece.

-Glenn Marshall

Additional Links

• Glenn Marshall – Personal Website: Butterfly
• Glenn Marshall’s account on his creative process

A generative art piece I really like is Dreamline by Leonardo Solaas, shown below.

Dreamline was open to the public from 2005 until a few years ago; users could enter words from dreams/of dreams they would like to have, and then, the system searched the Web for related images and conjured them into an ambiguous painting. The work was developed in both Java and PHP; PHP script made the Google Image search from the word input, and Java received the images and placed them. No complete images are shown – the work is made up of 1500 pixels in constant motion.

I think this work is a strong representation of Solaa’s fascination with the subconscious: it generates an impermanent, moving image (just like a dream). I admire that he was able to harness minimal user interaction (entering words) to still create something vividly complex and individual. He was probably inspired by other systems that follow rules, but still maintain flexibility, like the drawing machines of Jean Tinguely.

I do wish that he would reactivate the art piece because he said he had to stop the project due to outdated technology. I also believe this work would have benefited form the ability to save individual images and categorize them in some way, though this deters slightly from the transient element.

http://www.digicult.it/digimag/issue-051/towards-the-edge-of-chaos-an-interview-with-leonardo-solaas/
http://solaas.com.ar/dreamlines/about.htm

Casey Reas’ “Linear Perspective” connects code, art, and media into a generative piece that invites viewers to become more aware about their values and perceptions of the world around them. Reas incorporates primary editorial images in the New York Times from 2015 into a vortex-like projection, with each image beginning its projection from a single point and expanding out to fuller detail as the image moves to the right. These images represent some of the most salient and influential images in our world — these are the images that dictate how we converse with others, what we choose to believe as important information, and ultimately serving as an indication of what society values.

This piece stands out because of its ability to combine code with basic artistic principles — abstraction, line, direction, and of course, linear perspective. This combination of computation, artistic elements, and imagery from current events make it easier for viewers to find ways to interpret the piece in the context of their own lives.

‘Microscopic Leaps’ [2015]

(Commissioned by Pentagram based off of Nobel Laureate Eric Betzig’s work on the development of fluorescence microscopy)

Microscopic Leaps is a three-dimensional, animated view of the microscopic world that reveal complex cellular processes and forms.  It records the captivating process using artistically rendered 3d stimulations coupled with mysterious sounds.  The mixture of organic musical beats with the systemically changing motions of cells is absolutely stunning (and a little creepy).

This particular piece has two distinctive ‘algorithms’.  The first one is obviously the computer generated stimulations created from real life movements of cellular processes and the second one is the rythmic music.  The music resembles a heartbeat and matches perfectly with the way the graphics moves like a heartbeat. Pretty cool.

Microscopic Leaps was inspired by real rapid movements of a single cell protozoan T. thermophila and other cellular processes, but recreates it using more calming, approachable tones (pastel green, warm grey, liquid-like forms).  Prior real life stimulations (as shown above) were outdated in that they used very extreme bold colors with rigid movements; However Microscopic Leaps creates a certain mood of mystery with its use of unconventional colors and rhythmic sounds.

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Illustration from the Stimulation