LookingOutwards-09-ssontag

In my peer, Sara Jahanian’s, most recent Looking Outwards she looked into the work of Jake Barton. Personally I found his work and her post about his work very compelling. She wrote about her appreciation of his work as work that is breaking ground by bringing together a diverse groups of creators to produce experiences like none other. His firm Local Projects specializes in storytelling through an interactive space. This is actually a field of work that I am extremely interested in pursuing. Using my space making skills learnt in Architecture school and a growing background in coding and hopefully human computer interaction, I will one day make spaces as dynamic and impact full as the his work called “A Museum of Collective Memory.” This space is a memorial for those who experienced the tragedy of Sept 11.

Here is Their Website.

Here is  a Video about the Project

Project- 09- ssontag

Cross Hairs

var baseImage;

//pre load my underlying image
function preload() {
    var imgurLink = "https://i.imgur.com/jjMBr8v.jpg";
    baseImage = loadImage(imgurLink);
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(480, 480);
    background(0);
//load the pixels of the image so they can be referenced later
    baseImage.loadPixels();
    frameRate(15);
}

function draw() {

//randomly select a pixel on the canvas
    var px = random(width);
    var py = random(height);
    var ix = constrain(floor(px), 0, width-1);
    var iy = constrain(floor(py), 0, height-1);
//loads the color from the base image so the cross hairs coordinate with the colors of the base image
    var theColorAtLocationXY = baseImage.get(ix, iy);
//randomly generate points for the lines to make cross hairs
    var rX = random(1,8);
    var rY = random(1,8);

    noStroke();
    fill(theColorAtLocationXY);
    stroke(theColorAtLocationXY);

//create cross hairs
    line(px, py, px + rX, py + rX);
    line(px + rY, py, px + rX - rY, py + rX);

}

For this Project I decided I did not want to make shapes like ellipses or rectangles, but I wanted to use line work. Instead of just randomly placed lines I decided to make randomly generated cross hairs to add another layer to the sketch.

hannajan-LookingOutwards-09

Pictured above are two people interacting with the Lumifolia artwork.
Shadow of a woman exploring the art piece.

For my Looking Outwards Post this week, I looked at the very first Looking Outward Post by Rachel Park from the first week of classes. She wrote about an art piece made by the duo Scenocosme: Gregory Lasserre and Anais met den Ancxt called Lumifolia (press for link). This interactive garden “questions sensitivity, artistic, and musical relationships with the plants and the environment” according to its official website. The closer the human’s touch, the brighter the lights shine.

I agree with Rachel that the idea behind this art piece is both very refreshing and also innovative. It can be used for a greater purpose such as a future public installation in more uninteresting areas. However, I also thought of how this piece could be used for safety measures in dark allies such as in urban areas.

Rachel also mentioned the unique design of the art piece, which encouraged human interaction. I also thought of the tree model they used for this particular art piece. Maybe, there is a more subtle message that encourages more interaction between humans and nature in this specific art piece. The message can be seen with the bright light that shines specifically only when the human touch comes closer to the tree model itself.

It reminded me once again that my art can be used for more than just aesthetic purposes. It can beautify the setting that surrounds it, but can also help serve the usability of that area also.

Below, is an interactive video of the art piece.

 

lookingoutwards-09 Thomas Wrabetz

My looking outwards of someone else’s looking outwards is the Ross Spiral curriculum from week 7 (data visualization).

Ross Spiral Curriculum

The original looking outwards

I agree that the visualization is quite cool and nicely suggests the spiral nature of k-12 education (most of it anyways- in my british elementary school all we spiraled through was the tudors). However I am skeptical about the computational nature of the spiral- i.e., it seems to just be a linear sequence of topics arranged into a spiral, and not reflecting an actual data computation that would reveal the spiral-like nature of data on certain parameters of k-12 curricula.

Project-09 Thomas Wrabetz

sketch

//Thomas Wrabetz
//Section C
//twrabetz@andrew.cmu.edu
//Project-09

var underlyingImage;
var locations = [];
var squares = [];


function preload() {
    var myImageURL = "https://i.imgur.com/uCMUDGO.jpg";
    underlyingImage = loadImage(myImageURL);
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(200, 250);
    noStroke();

    underlyingImage.loadPixels();
    frameRate(60);
    for( var i = 0; i < width / 5; i++ )
    {
        locations.push( [] );
        for( var j = 0; j < height / 5; j++ )
        {
            locations[i].push(0);
        }
    }
}

function draw()
{
    for( var i = 0; i < len(squares); i++ )
    {
        squares[i].draw();
    }
}

function squareStep()
{
    if( this.y == this.targetY ) return;
    this.y += 1;
}

function squareDraw()
{
    push();
    fill( this.color );
    rect( this.x, this.y, 5, 5 );
    pop();
}

function makeSquare( sx, sy, stargetY, scolor )
{
    s = { x: sx, y: sy, targetY: stargetY, step: squareStep, draw: squareDraw, color: scolor };
    return s;
}

function draw() {
    background(0);
    var targetX = int(random((width-1)/5))*5;
    var test = false;
    for( var i = 0; i < locations.length; i++ )
    {
        if( locations[i][0] == 0 ) test = true;
    }
    for( var i = 0; i < squares.length; i++ )
    {
        squares[i].step();
        squares[i].draw();
    }
    if( !test ) return;
    while( locations[targetX/5][0] )
    {
      targetX = int(random((width-1)/5))*5;
    }
    for( var i = 0; i < height / 5; i++ )
    {
        if( locations[targetX/5][i] == 1 )
        {
            locations[targetX/5][i-1] = 1;
            squares.push( makeSquare( targetX, 0, (i-1)*5, underlyingImage.get( targetX, (i-1)*5 ) ) );
            break;
        }
        if( i == height/5 - 1 )
        {
            locations[targetX/5][i] = 1;
            squares.push( makeSquare( targetX, 0, i*5, underlyingImage.get( targetX, i*5 ) ) );
        }
    }

    
}

It’s a picture of me from highschool made out of falling blocks.

Project-09-sjahania

sketch

var underlyingImage;

function preload() {
    var myImageURL = "https://i.imgur.com/Q9MzvBG.jpg";
    underlyingImage = loadImage(myImageURL);
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(400, 480);
    background(0);
    underlyingImage.loadPixels();
    frameRate(10);
}

function draw() {
	var lineStartX = random(width);
    var lineStartY = random(height);
    var lineStartX2 = random(width);
    var lineStartY2 = random(height);
    var ix = constrain(floor(lineStartX), 0, width-1);
    var iy = constrain(floor(lineStartY), 0, height-1);
    var theColorAtLocationXY = underlyingImage.get(ix, iy);

    stroke(theColorAtLocationXY);
    line(lineStartX, lineStartY, lineStartX + 20, lineStartY + 20);
    line(lineStartX2, lineStartY2, lineStartX2 + 20, lineStartY2 - 20);

}

I wanted to do something with lines, so I started by just making the line from one random point to another. The problem was it was only using the color from the starting point, so it just made this big blob with no actual portrait. So I shortened the distance of the lines so that the colors wouldn’t stray from their rightful spots too much.

HaeWanPark-LookingOutwards-9

Wind Map by Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg

 

Wind Map, US
Hurricane Issac, 2012

This wind map is generated based on a nearly real-time data from National Digital Forecast Database. It is revised by one hour. Two creators, Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg implement entire map only with using HTML and Javascript. With this map, people can immediately read the continuously changing flow, density, and direction of winds over all areas of the United States. Also, it highlights a region with the high-speed wind. They depicted the movement of air simply with the visual motion. I admire their work because it is able to communicate the specific types of information to audiences. People might understand what it tells about without many explanations. Also, the quality of quite simple but elegant visualization with motion and black and white color scheme looks really nice and makes me very intriguing to this work.

Wind Map

svitoora – 09 Looking Outward

“Our Time” is a piece commissioned by the MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) which was intended to take you on an ethereal sensory journey, warping the way you view and think of time.”

I agree that “the amount of effort put into immersion in this is remarkable, and the piece utilizes our most basic senses to warp our perceptions of human constructs”. Although the code is simply an analog input of a person heartbeat being actuated by the motors of pendulums and the lights, the immersion effect created by the multitude of lights ad movement overwhelms our sense of time and space, thereby transporting us to a whole different state of existence. As somebody who is personally interested in physical computing, I deeply admire this project because it takes computing away from the digital screen and into the physical realm, thereby blurring the line between physical and digital environments. Although the algorithms itself is not sophisticated or complex, the whole of the artwork is greater than the sum of its mechanical and digital parts. If possible, I would love to experiment more with writing code on a physical level.

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Jonathan Perez Looking Outwards 9

For this weeks Looking Outwards, I found ikrsek’s looking outwards 5 to be particularly interesting, which discussed the work of Hayden Zezula.

Hayden Zezula is an animator who creates designs for companies such as HBO, Adidas, and Adult Swim. To sum his work up in a word… unsettling.

A lot of Zezula’s work, to me, explores the relationship between 2D and 3D. This perhaps differs or expands a bit from ikrsek’s description of his work as a “3D style on a 2D screen”.

Hayden Zezula’s “end”, a gif depicting a 3D human leaning over and covering his/her face with his/her hands in a 2D landscape.

This image on “end” for instance, shows a 3 dimensional figure sitting on a pretty 2 dimensional surface. The relationship between the two is both visually and thematically interesting.

Also, as ikrsek mentions, much of Zezula’s work has to do with texture. This, to me, is the most interesting aspect of his work.

Hayden Zezula’s “Options” gif, displaying a plastic-like human face and a fuzzy, synthetic tongue

The image above shows the kind of unsettling contrast between textures that Zezula likes to use. In fact, it’s much more unsettling if you watch the gif, since part of texture/material is shown through movement (for example, the tongue sort of ripples when it hits the top of the mouth). Not only is this visually really interesting, but actually I think Zezula is working with deeper ideas of the relationship between synthetic and organic things, like how organic things like humans and plants can be defiled by synthetic things; How what should be organic can be “replaced” by something synthetic; and how unnatural organic things can be when twisted and manipulated.

Check out his work for yourself at

his instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zolloc/

or his website: http://zolloc.com/work/

 

atraylor – Looking Outward 09 – Section B

For this post, I want to respond and add to my classmate’s post on the Disney short Paperman, directed by John Kahrs. I saw this video discussing the computer graphics and techniques a while back, and thought it would give more context to how the 3d and 2d images are combined.

I really love this short because hand drawn animation has a certain charm which is hard to replicate with cg (really, this goes for most practical effects when they are well executed). What the original post didn’t mention is that not all of the 2d lines or effects were drawn frame by frame. Disney used software to compute in-betweens on key frames which acted like 3d blend shapes, tangents to place lines, and motion vectors to determine texture placement.