Author: eeryan@andrew.cmu.edu

eeryan-Looking Outwards – 01

 

A piece of the pie chart is an interactive robotics installation that was created by Annina Rust. Viewers can look up different professions within the arts and tech industries on a monitor, a pie chart of the gender ratio in that profession is then printed and moved by a robotic arm and attached to a cookie. The pictures of these pie charts are automatically photographed and tweeted. I thought that the unique approach this artist/ inventor took to give a platform to examine the unequal ratio of men to women in colleges, labs, and the workplace in the tech world was interesting, and it’s reference to baking, considered traditionally a “women’s role” drew my attention. She began this project in 2013, and it is still on display. To my knowledge, she did not use custom software in creating this project. When I saw her speak she mentioned that while she isn’t currently updating the project, she has considered creating a version using something other than robot arms for assembly in the future. The only critique I would have of this work is that the pie charts are not actually edible, making the final product of the installation seem less unified.

The final product

 

eeryan-Project 1 self portrait

sketch

function setup() {
    createCanvas(500, 600);
    background(247,187,31);
}

function draw() {
    //hair
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(137,60,29);
    ellipse(240,280,300,300)
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(137,60,29);
    ellipse(185,350,290,310);
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(137,60,29);
    ellipse(300,360,280,270);
    //face
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(234,179,125);
    ellipse(250,300,250,260);
    //body
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(141,214,239);
    ellipse(230,580,355,240);
    //cheeks
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(250,178,125);
    ellipse(187,305,75,75);
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(250,178,125);
    ellipse(328,305,75,75);
    //eyes
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(137,60,29);
    ellipse(220,273,20,15);
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(137,60,29);
    ellipse(308,273,20,15);
    //nose
    strokeWeight(0);
    fill(244,151,89);
    rect(258,265,23,80);
    //mouth
    stroke(234,125,92);
    strokeWeight(5);
    noFill();
    line(230,370,290,370);
}

Process:

I started by mocking up my self portrait in Illustrator, to figure out the shapes and colors that would work best for this assignment. I found it easier to rough it out in Illustrator and in my sketchbook as opposed to diving in with code without first planning out how I wanted it to look. After I figured out the way I generally wanted it to look in Illustrator, I used the ruler function to find the x and y coordinates for each shape to insert into my code. Once I had coded everything to the exact coordinates that I had in Illustrator, I further tweaked some of the facial elements to get everything the way I wanted. I messed around with adding colored strokes to certain elements, as well as adding a neck, but decided in the end to keep to simple, rounded shapes to unify the composition.