Beautiful chaos is an interactive app created by Nathan Selikoff that displays abstract shapes and imagery as a reaction to 3D motion. The app was created and initially exhibited in 2013 for the Leap Motion controller, a virtual reality device. Based on certain hand motions, the app calculates new algorithms and moves swiftly and gracefully on the screen.
I find this specific piece really interesting because of the interactive aspect of it. The app relies on the movements of a user in order to morph. I find it very inspiring how physical movements can be converted into digital actions on screen.
Also, there’s an interesting juxtaposition between the calming, elegant visuals and the constant recalculating and thinking of the programming. While the display is seemingly soft and smooth, behind the scenes, the app is actually continuously calculating the movements and interaction of the user in order to project the video.
Generative design is a huge part of what has led to the resurgence of the architecture industry in the past few decades. Methods of parametric modelling and design have monumentally transformed the way that architects develop a formal logic to designing complex buildings.
Photo: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
One of the pioneering pieces of parametrically designed architecture came just after the turn of the century. Designed by Zaha Hadid in 2003, the Guangzhou Opera House has become a major staple to the community while expressing a generative algorithm derived from an early prototype of a now-popular modelling language called Grasshopper. The algorithm considered various inputs including topography, sunlight, and population density projections to achieve a superfluous design that achieves optimally designed sonic clarity while adapting to environmental conditions in China.
Grasshopper is now used throughout the architecture industry to make important considerations like weather, topography, or mathematical logic a staple in the design process.
This is a piece of installation arts created by Montreal-based digital art studio Iregular, and It was inspired by Concentric Squares of Frank Stella, an American painter. This project was projected on a rounded curved wall to allow the audience to look at the animation from different aspects. But wherever they stood, they could always see a square shape on the wall. The animation looked like a tunnel floating in the air with a black background, and somebody called it an “infinite digital wormhole”. The whole visual content was fully generative, random and infinite.
This installation inspired me as of how we could create the infinity of visual effects by using a computer program. I particularly admired that it combined the physical environment with the visual content to strengthen the immersion of the arts, and because of the non-repetitive animation, the audience can stay in the immersion even longer.
I guess the creator wrote a specific program to generate random moving lines along the four sides of a square. At the same time, these lines follow a “deep space” rule on the surface, so that to create a feeling of a tunnel.
Iregular created the animation following the one point perspective rule to fulfill the need of making a digital aisle. The random movements and changes of lines had its own rhythm to make the animation look comfortable. The original painting has been completely transformed into a futuristic and mesmerizing visual content.
Explain, inspires, critique, research their inspiration
Dr. Woohoo created a series which explores the dynamic between automated robots and the natural movement of humans in order to combine the strengths of each and create exciting art. He codes a robot to paint with watercolor designs, and you can see the how the pattern fluctuates because of the natural elements of watercolor. Some of his other work in the series include robots carving mandalas on wood and the use of leap frog technology to copy his human movement onto robots. His work inspires me because of the finished product of the human+robot arts – the art strokes are surprisingly inconsistent even though they were created by robots. I’m interested in the fluctuations of automatization which will inspire my art later on. As a critique, Dr.Woohoo could create more mixed media art with robots and human rather than just one-on-one robot with the material. What is working is that all his artwork looks beautiful and he should continue that. Dr. Woohoo specializes in algorithmic art, generative patterns, and design.
The Strata series by Quayola is a form of digital art combining custom-prgrammed algorithms and traditional cathedral paintings. To be specific, Quayola creates three-dimensional art with layers built up out of “The Triumph of the Name of Jesus”. The process is that the artist would film a cathedral painting in a very high resolution. Then, he will use custom-programmed algorithms to fracture the image in parts and fill color.
At first, the color choice of the geometric shapes prevent me from realizing the essence of the piece; I was attracted to its vintage look. The matching color of the original work, the correspondence of the background music, and the pattern of the geometric shapes, all build up a harmony that admires the feature of the Ancient Rome and also delivers the geometry and iconography of perfection. Continue exploring the piece, I found that this creates a visual metaphor for history. “Strata” here refers to the layers of stones. Although the method of building the algorithms here is not explicitly stated, I observed that the size, color, and the location of the geometric shape is related to the background music and the historical understanding of baroque and renaissance periods. I assume that the artists determine the sizes of each fold and layer first and program them in a way that the shapes interact with other elements. The relationship between complex algorithm and the painterly traditions is most effectively represented in Strata #3 where the geometric shapes are first drawn on the painting, according to the structure of the subjects, the folds of clothes, and the concentration of movements.
Strata #3 by quayola, 2009 | The process where there is pure geometry‘strata #3’ by quayola, 2009 | The process when some layers of colored shapes have built up
Together, Quayola built a successful bridge between the conceptual and philosophical spirits with the scientific and numerical combination of geometric shapes. While the two subjects may seem to be unrelated to each other, they correspond and echo from each other.
Strata #1
(HD Video on 1-ch projection with 2-ch sound, Edition of 6, 2008)
Strata #3
(HD Video on 1-ch projection with 2-ch sound, Edition of 6, 2009)
This particular work is part of Leonardo Solaas’s coding experiment called Walking in Color Space. He wanted to generate art that made color seem explosive and omnipresent. Therefore, the artist took sample pictures, in this case, the Powerpuff girls, and extracted the colors. He then took those colors and projected them in a 3-D manner by adjusting and specifying the direction of the colors to create these trajectories that you see in the picture. In addition to the various translations of the image, Solaas introduced contrasting colors in the multiple trajectories to make the color variations stand out and more visible.
I was intrigued by this work because the artist utilized an already existing image and made it his own simply by taking the colors and directing the lines in a 3-D setting.
Ian Cheng’s Emissary Sunsets The Self (2017) is the last work in his Emissaries trilogy (2015-2017). Emissary Sunsets The Self is an open ended live digital simulation that explores the complex themes of evolution, human behavior, and the history of consciousness. These themes were derived from Cheng’s background in cognitive science. Cheng utilizes a video game engine to create unpredictable animated worlds. He employs computer generated simulations, similar to those used in predictive technologies, to create these complex settings. Each character in this simulated world is equipped with custom AI that reacts to the surrounding environment as well as other characters within the simulated world.
The idea that a computer generated simulation could basically react to itself is very compelling yet a bit disturbing. The artist himself does not even know what outcomes would be produced from this simulation. Being able to learn more about the human condition through this technology is ironic. This irony gives the simulation an even more mysterious personality.
“Forest Friends at Osu Wexner Medical Center”
2014-2015
In the medical center, Forest Friends was installed to help doctors cure cancer patients. Focusing on helping alleviate stress and pain for children suffering from cancer, Forest Friends is an interactive touch screen set in the waiting room. Patients can come in and check in their hospital wristbands, which would then summon a forest animal. The forest background reacts to the patients; for example, when a patient presses long enough on to a screen, a tree grows. The background changes due to such elements, and the constant change of background helps patients not get bored of the game. However, to give a sense of familiarity, a specific animal is assigned to patient. Therefore, when a patient logs in, the animal from last time appears once again.
The programs the computer utilized to cut the sculptures for Quayola’s Laocoön Series were custom-designed by Quayola himself. done by Quayola is a really clever piece of generative art in my opinion – the way he took Laocoön and his sons and interpreted their images through computational algorithms designed to re-iterate the uncompleted works in a surreal and clearly computer-graphics influenced polygonal form begins to create a bizarre hybrid between the traditional/classical forms of art and computers through utilizing monuments and icons in western art culture. The precision of the computer and way it generates lines throughout the sculptures and filters them creates a bizarre narrative with the classical sculpture itself.
Frederik Vanhoutte’s Equivor graphics was inspirational and memorable for its natural yet carefully compositional balance. I appreciate how Vanhoutte attempts to achieve aesthetic beauty through his otherwise algorithmic work; I feel that most people in this field tend to sway towards focusing on perfecting their algorithm and their aesthetic awareness fades with it. From looking at the graphics, there is a strong inclination of a radial composition, most likely with associated degrees of freedom for each petal so as to not create repeated identical petals, maintaining the natural aesthetics of flowers. I also appreciate Vanhoutte’s monochromatic choice of palette; it allows the viewer to focus on his generative art. Reading through his website, it gave an insight as to his way of thinking, which I find it helped my understanding of his work better. He writes, “Code gives me a way to play, to explore the odd behavior of our world, to find the systems beneath it.” He also shows his thought process as to how to define his work. He believes art is too pretentious and algorithm not showing as much of the “art” as he would like. He concludes that constructs seems to be a suitable choice of vocabulary.
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