Jamie Dorst Looking Outwards 02

For this week’s Looking Outward post, I am choosing to write about Daniel Eden’s Drawing With Numbers project. Eden has created many works of generative art, all created with Processing, p5.js, or OpenFrameworks.

Some of Eden’s pieces, with his captions describing the code behind them:

Pack as many circles as possible within another circle, ensuring they don’t overlap. Draw a line through the middle of each of the sub-circles at a random angle.
“Given an origin and a parallel destination, draw 1000 points of varying transparency between them. Using Perlin noise, calculate a delta vector for both origin and destination, with x coordinates between -0.2 and +0.5, and y coordinates between -1 and +2. Add the delta vectors to the origin and destination. Repeat until either the origin or destination points are at least 80px from the bottom of the canvas.”
“Plot a series of connected points around the center of the canvas, using three-dimensional Perlin noise to vary the radius. Repeat this with an increasing base radius, stepping forward through the Perlin noise function to slightly vary the next shape.”
“One example of the kinds of sketches that would collapse on p5.js and demanded a more powerful medium.” Titled: Fabric

I selected this because I admired that he created these as a way to combat his inability to draw traditionally. He drew inspiration from designs he saw in the real world, then found a way to create them through his computer. I was attracted to the simplicity of the black and white patterns, and how he really focused on making the shapes emulate movement. I think it would be interesting to see the actual code behind it (versus just the pseudocode) to see how complex it is. Some of them seem doable to me, like the circle filled with dashes, while others seem much more complicated. I also found his blog post about how he began creating generative art interesting, because describes how he started out with p5.js which is what we are using in this course.

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