LookingOutwards-06 – Page 6 – [OLD FALL 2017] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

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As stated on their official website, “the Reactable was conceived and developed since 2003 by a research team at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.”

Image result for reactable DJ

This project really intrigued me because I have a big interest in electronic music. The Reactable works similarly like the launchpad that many DJs use to create their sounds, but it differs in that it works on a flat interactive table. On a typical launchpad, the DJ presses stationary buttons on an electrical box, but with the Reactable, the DJ is able to place the small key boxes anywhere on the table itself to create sounds. Twisting and sliding the key boxes around the table alters the sounds and in turn creates new and unique music.

The video above shows a demonstration of the project itself.

I thought it was cool how technology is also evolving in the music industry in order to make new sounds in new ways that is also serving as new entertainment as the DJ performs with this device.

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“Flux” is a particle system based generative display typeface created by Gabriel Comym. The program generates 1,000 particles at a random location within a limited masking area, the type. Each particle behaves singularly and follows a random direction and velocity based on values from sine and cosine mathematical sequences. Each particles’ time, point size, and transparency value is randomized. Line segments are created between the particle’s starting point and the different points along the path the particle follows.

Gabriel Comym is a visual designer who specializes in interface design, which explains his use of typeface to explore the possibilities of computational design. I admire how simple the process actually is and how he makes such simple geometries come together to create a complex whole.

Flux; Gabriel Comym

hyt-Looking-Outwards-06: Randomness

For this week’s topic, I came across a multidisciplinary performance piece by Claire Bardainne and Adrien Mondot, “The Movement of air”. The piece was mesmerizing to watch as elements of acrobatic dancing movements, algorithmic stage design, and live music performance come together with the perfect rhythm and movement, eventually capturing the invisible movement of air using the tangible visuals and sounds.

It is interesting to learn about the duo artists’ work of progress and mechanism behind the final result. Particularly, the stage visuals are in fact projected and controlled by both human interventions and reactive data censors reinterpreting the three dancers’ location. Therefore, the factor of “randomness” is in some way controlled and “biased”, yet still spontaneous. That being said, each performance is real-time and never repetitive; while having an agenda, it concurrently allows the dancers to move freely in alignment with the digital projections, deconstructing the three-walled cube space.

However, it was disappointing that the artists disclose more information on how the set of algorithms is constructed, other than the fact that it was created with the software Millumin 2 (after ten years of using their custom made software eMotion). It seems that the speed and direction of the dancers are all detected by the sensor, then translated into those geometric patterns such as circling lines and pieces.

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For this blog post, I chose Ben Hemmendinger’s Wayfarer. This project is a randomly generated dungeon crawler game that is reminiscent of old text-based and 2D RPG games made with processing. This game is a blend of 2D and 3D graphics and is largely about exploration. There are items that you can find to defend yourself and attack monsters in the dungeons. I’m interested in this project because it’s simple and yet complex. There’s a certain charm in the 8 bit graphic style, top down projection (somewhat 0rthographic), and simple goals for simple ends. Unfortunately, my computer won’t let me play the game, but it seems from the Q&A page that the game is challenging. I also scanned the project website and I couldn’t find any specifics on the type of randomness used to produce the game, however you could make the assumption that the randomness needs to be limited for the game to be plausibly playable. Wayfarer is still under development, and I hope to see its end result. Even though it seems rudimentary, games like this show how simplicity can still be engaging.

Wayfarer wiki

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Pictooptic.com

By entering any word into the wordsearch, this website generates a random collage of icons related to the word. The arrangement of the icons are also random.

Pictooptic is a website that randomly generates icons and objects that relate to any searched or random word. The icons are then arranged in a mirror arrangement in which float into space. They can be dragged depending on the movement of the mouse. By clicking “shuffle this,” the arrangement changes into a random arrangements of color and organization. The site also includes a “random word” option where a random word is generated and new icons are brought about.

I like the spontaneity and whimsical nature of the generator. No two icons are the same and instead of a random cloud of icons, the arrangement is mirrored. In addition, the additional random color scheme adds to another surprising factor. I thought it was a creative way to generate a unique collage of items. The algorithms of the project would generate the random spatial arrangement and then have that arrangement mirrored across the canvas.

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Marius Watz and Jer Thorp, a generative and data artist respectively, used pseudo-random compositions of shapes and figures in order to create a set of computational designed artworks for the “Random Number Multiples” series. The photo above is supposed to be a volcano erupting with the molten lava colored as different streaks. I find this piece of work to be very intriguing; how a series of lines and basic colors were able to make a simple yet colorful piece of work. I admire the fact that even though these artists are skilled in computers, they chose instead to screen print their artworks that they created through their computer softwares by hand. I feel that this work of art is very representative of the artists themselves because although randomized to a certain point, the lines still look very uniform, clean-cut and neat.

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4900 Colours was a monumental piece of work by Gerhard Richter. Crafted with 196 square panels of 25 bright monochrome colored squares, arranged in a grid formation the piece ultimately created sheets of kaleidoscop-like colors. The patterns were configured to a number of random variations, all from one large-scale piece to multiple, smaller paintings. When preparing for presentation in the Serpentine gallery, Richter specially crated a version with 49 paintings.

Richter’s works are especially interested to me as that in reality it is a simple concept, really, but together it helps to make something so intricate. the history and inspiration for the project are truly intricate as they came out of the south transept window of Cologne Cathedral, replacing the stained glass that had been destroyed in the Second World War.

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These drawings were created by an app called Silk, developed by Yuri Vishnevsky. Users can generate their own art by picking colors and dragging their mouse through the canvas. Random algorithms are generated as your mouse moves across the screen to create the effect of the different strokes that can be seen in the pictures. When you stop mouse your mouse, colors and shapes are still generated around your mouse due to the random code in the software.

I thought this app is the perfect way to create interactive and generative art. I was really intrigued by the design of this app because it utilizes the random algorithms to create a piece of cool art that people can enjoy looking at.

Here is the link to the online website:
http://weavesilk.com/

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Website introducing Takashi Murakami

Takashi Murakami, Flowers, flowers, flowers, 2010, acrylic and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on aluminum frame.

The Japanese Artist Takashi Murakami is known as the Japanese Andy Warhol because of his style- superflat. He is a typical pop artist who tries to blend high art and street art together. The characters that he uses in all his drawings are from a cartoon. He then turns them into artwork to blur the boundary between high and street art. He also collaborates with many brands like Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Shu uemura, and Vans to bring his art to a higher level.

In his artwork, most of them have a highly repetitive patten. They bascially have one single prototype first. Then, after scaling, coloring, placing “randomly”, it can create a sense of depth out of the superflat drawing. The scale, angle, color, position, and overlapping all seem random by computational method. However, they are also chosen under consideration and randomness. His art is designed under randomness and to control it to be random.

His use of a bold graphic and colorful anime and manga cartoon style brings historical Japanese art, the cartoon from his youth, and comtemporary art together. The seeming randomness of this artwork makes it even more interesting to the audience.

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The inaugural exhibition, XYZT: Abstract Landscapes is a beautiful and profound exhibition that is created by a group of artists and engineers cooperating under the name of Adrien M & Claire B, which is led by Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne. XYZT that is named after four dimensions (horizontality, verticality, depth, and time) performs 10 works that are supported by a distinctive mathematical algorithm. The giant screen with sensors forms “could” of pixels and performers can interact with the projections during the show.

I am interested in XYZT exhibition because I have seen other exhibition or design using the computational algorithm, but I have not seen performances using the mathematical algorithm during the show. It is special because when planning for the performance, randomness of computational art is hard to predict. With the artists and engineers now the computational algorithm can be fully used for the performance using the randomness of the algorithm.