Category: LookingOutwards-06

http://www.random-art.org/about/

Random Art is a website created by Andrej Bauer in which you can type out anything in a text box and it turns into an abstract computer generated painting. The words you type cause a pseudo-random number generator to create a formula that changes the color of individual pixels in the picture. The first word makes the colors, while the second creates the arrangement of graphical elements. Below are the words “Blue Demo” (left) and “Demo Green” (right).

 

Random-art.org uses a computer program that takes a name and then runs it through a pseudo-random number generator. I like the piece below, labeled “Demo Green” because it incorporates several colors and shapes. There are several operators that are randomized. I also like that the real artist is the programmer of the number generator which creates the possible outcomes. The generator allows users to create their own random pieces based on a word entry which is pretty unique.

John Cage was an American composer, writer, artist, and music theorist. Cage was a leader of the post-war avant-garde and one of the first to explore aleatoric music, non-standard use of musical instruments, and electroacoustic music. Aleatoric music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, or some primary elements of the work is left to be determined by the performers. He created many of these pieces so that others could perform them and interpret his instructions. I admire these works because they are instructional yet leave open to interpretation of the performer. This allows for a level of randomness that varies from performance to performance, making a body of work that can never really be replicated in the same way.

 

Here is a link to a video of some students performing his “Imaginary Landscape No.4” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0BNsBlzQII )

 

The project that interests me a lot is “4900 Colors” series by Gerhard Richter. The version II consists of 49 plates of 10×10 grids. A computer assigned random colors to each grid. And together they make up a huge color pattern. I find it interesting for it reveals some “pattern”s inside randomness and the weakness of human eye to distinguish colors. For example, each plate contains approximately 4 grids of black and at least one grid of white. If the colors the computer assigned are based on true color system, the chances that there are 4 black grids out of 100 is subtle( that would be 1/256^12). One way to explain this may be our eyes can hardly distinguish a “true” black from dark blue, dark red, etc.

Gerhard Richter’s 4900 Colors, 2007

When I read the topic, the sculptor Dale Chihuly came up to my mind. People might not know who he is, however I’m assuming that students from CMU are really familiar with his artworks.

This art work is located in Phipps conservatory.

And this art work is located in Cohon center.

He is also well-known as a artist who created an artwork at Bellagio hotel, Las Vegas.

Fiori Di Como – Dale Chihuly

His works are created by glass, and his works are located in more than 200 different places. He started to make glassblowing art in late 1960s, and he was so amazed by how random shapes of small glass pieces form another one beautiful art piece. His artworks do have random shapes, however when they are all arranged together I am amazed how they are shown as a whole new pattern. He used many different colors but these created whole harmony.

This video is showing the working process of his artwork.

 

I was instantly drawn to Hailei Wang’s art piece All See Eye. I was especially drawn to the dark palette and the feeling that I was staring into someone’s eye and thus their soul. After I researched more, I found Wang’s blog post describing how he created the piece. He talks about his method, programming within python, and the use of randomness within the piece. He goes on to describe the relationship he sees between digital art and the traditional painting styles. Wang makes an observation in his blog post that I really liked about the randomness in his images. He says, “The random parameters are not only unpredictable, but also non-reiterative, so these images cannot be recreated—they are completely unique.”

Wang’s Blog Post

Artist: Memo Akten

Title: My secret heart

Year: 2008

Excerpts from My Secret Heart

My Secret Heart is a blend of restricted randomness that organically animates a set of flowing ribbons. It was a part of a music and film performance by Streetwise Opera – a charity that uses music to help homeless people. It is an impressive rendering that resembles flocking behaviour but also evokes a wandering spirit drawn by random attractions.

Memo Akten explains that the ribbons have random attractors at random intervals. Stronger attractors result in flocking. In this case, the mouse was used as a ‘very strong attractor’. Perlin noise was also used in the movement of the ribbon head to its target and in the sway of the other parts of the ribbon. I imagine that it was used to keep the movements from being erratic.

The resulting animation is random but organic akin to a sea creature with tentacles. The movement is random but fluid. It blends seemlessly into the Streetwise Opera performer.

My Secret Heart demo – testing flocking

I chose Jasper Johns’ work False Start (created in 1959) for this week’s looking outwards. False Start at first seemed like a completely random painting as if the artist just smashed the colors onto the canvas. But then when I took a closer look there were actually words of colors on each patch of color even though the words did not identify the color it was written in nor did it identify the patch of color. I feel like this aspect of the artwork further randomizes it. I really like how randomization is expressed in every possible aspect of this piece. The artwork looks like an explosion of colors and produces an erratic theme. From this work of art, we can guess that Jasper was feeling inspirational by uncertainty and nervousness when he created this piece. The title of the piece False Start may also suggest something about the artist. I did some research on Jasper’s other artworks and they were usually organized at first but gradually became more random. This piece may symbolize a transition of Jasper’s artistic style to randomness.

False Start, 1959 by Jasper Johns

Link of artwork: False Start,Jasper Johns

I found an image that I particularly liked (seen below), and discovered that it was by AGIA’s 2010 graphic design medalist John Maeda. He has an extensive background in research, technology and art, and was a professor at MIT, but is currently the president at Rhode Island School of Design. (This information was taken from the website here).

I was not able to find much about this particular picture, but I liked it a lot because of its colorfulness and how it appears to be random, yet it still created a pattern that vaguely resembles a flower of sorts.

However, I did find a TED talk that Maeda gave, and attached the link here. In it he discusses his background and various projects that he has done or is currently working on. There are also other works that he has done displayed on the webpage below the video.