October 2018 – Page 3 – [OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Emily Zhou – Looking Outwards – 10

Sputniko! is a Japanese/British artist and MIT Media Lab Assistant Professor who is known for tech-inspired film and multi-media installation works. She studied Mathematics and Computer Science at Imperial College, London, and continued to pursue a Masters in Design at the Royal College of Art. Her project, Tranceflora – Amy’s Glowing Silk (2015) is an exhibition piece in the Gucci Gallery, Tokyo.

Motion photograph capturing fluorescent kimono dress.

The exhibit displayed a Nishijin-Kimono dress designed by Sputniko!, that incorporated transgenic glowing silk. The silk was created by injecting the genes of a glowing coral and jellyfish into silkworm eggs. The dress was showcased around a large-scale installation of 3000 transgenic silkworm cocoons.

Video documentation of exhibition view.

I admire her work in combining art and technology in a way that can be shared with many people. The exhibition attracted 10000 visitors in 3 weeks and can be appreciated across cultures.

Kyle Leve-LO-Week-10

A woman that I discovered in the field of interactive artwork is Caroline Record. A project that she did during her time as a student at Carnegie Mellon University was assisting with the “Very Eric Carle” exhibit at the Children’s Museum. As a part of a four-student team called Click’d, Record worked to create an interactive exhibit that both children and adults could enjoy. What they created was an interactive play area based off Eric Carle’s most famous book “A Very Hungry Caterpillar.” This play area had different components such as grass, rocks, and hills that the children could play on and depending on their interactions with the landscape, the landscape would have different sounds. I admire how this project was done in a way that focused on creating a real-life version of a popular children’s book. I like how the play area considers of many different interactions and it seems like there is a lot to do even though it is a limited space. It was also interesting to study a project that is so close to me!

Link to project and video: https://carolinerecord.com/clickd/

Joanne Lee – Project 09

Project 09

// Joanne Lee
// Section C
// joannele@andrew.cmu.edu
// Project-09

var christine;

function preload() {
    var myImageURL = "https://i.imgur.com/beoY7rv.jpg"; // load image
    christine = loadImage(myImageURL);
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(480, 480);
    background(0);
    christine.loadPixels();
    frameRate(50000000);
}

function draw() {
    var px = random(width);
    var py = random(height);
    var ix = constrain(floor(px), 0, width-1);
    var iy = constrain(floor(py), 0, height-1);
    var rx = px + random(0,6); // randomize line x-value
    var ry = py + random(0,4); // randomize line y-value
    var rs = random(1,4); // randomize stroke weight
    var theColorAtLocationXY = christine.get(ix, iy);

    strokeWeight(rs);
    stroke(theColorAtLocationXY);
    line(px,py,rx,ry);
}

I chose a photo of my gorgeous current roommate (although the style of the photo made it hard to really capture her eyes!). I knew I wanted to do lines in order to emulate “strokes” and to further emulate this, I tried to vary the stroke weights as well as direction and lengths of the line. I didn’t want to make the line extend too far in order to ensure that facial features could moderately be made out.

I very much admire impressionist type paintings and so I tried to emulate thicker brush strokes. I made the frame rate ‘50000000’ because I preferred to see the photo render quickly. Below are photos further in to rendering and near completion.

Joanne Lee – Looking Outwards 09

Nunu & Willump League of Legends Champion Spotlight

In Robert Oh’s first Looking Outward, he reviewed the visual game update of a longtime League of Legends (multiplayer online game) champion. He mentioned that, “Riot is aiming towards making their boring characters more interesting by adding new skills that make them feel more fun to play.” As an avid player of this game, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Although I only started playing League of Legends 2 years ago, I find that something that keeps me engaged in the game is the consistent changes they make to their champions, gameplay, items, and abilities. This is a very great strategy implemented by Riot Games to keep the game feeling fresh despite the base mechanics of the game remaining the same.

One aspect I would like to clarify on is when Robert states that every couple months, Riot chooses to to update old characters to make them feel fresh and new. The original Nunu was released far back on February 21, 2009. The updated Nunu was released on August 29, 2018. It took about 9 years for them to update this champion. Many other champions are also waiting on a visual game update. My hypothesis is that they want to make sure that their updates will be radical and refreshing and not just minor changes. In between, they will often release brand new champions, further delaying the updates of previous champions.

As a player of this champion, the visual game update proved to be very exciting and worth the wait. I hope Riot will continue to re-envision their previous art and champion styles in order to keep the game a fresh and exciting game to play!

Looking Outwards 9 Liz Maday

I am using 1 of my grace days for this late submission.

For this Looking Outwards post, I was inspired by Kai Zhang’s post on Kinetic Generative Music Installation (2017) by Andrius Sarapovas. This project creates an environment that you walk into, which contains various forms of instruments that create sounds meant to represent connections to a 4G network in Lithuania. There are a lot of features of the instrumental setup that correlate to the amount of data being processed and the number of connections to the network. The setup was also designed to take into account the size and features of the space it was built in. I think that this installation is a really cool idea, something I would want to experience myself. I like how the experience of this project has the potential to meet the expectations of the subject, or to make them view big data in a new way. I agree with Kai’s assessment that this exhibit made something relatively “cold” such as data connections into something “warm” like the echoing music which was produced. I think that this project could also have the effect of making the subject feel as if they are “part of something bigger”, through the experience of literally walking within the space and experiencing something that creates a sonic collage of interconnected events which are happening in the world. I also appreciated the pleasant nature of the sound that was created – for example, the designer could have chosen to make the sounds more harsh or pointed, but this richer sound has a more welcoming and relaxing effect on the listener. I think that this choice reflects the designer’s intent with this piece.

Erin Fuller – LookingOutwards-10

Emily Gobeille is an artist and renowned designer who specializes in merging technology and design to create rich and immersive design experiences. She is a Partner and Creative Director of Design I/O, and due to her unbound energy and affinity for telling stories, she tends to create of high-end but playful interactive installations for children. With an emphasis on meaningful interaction and systems built to support open play and discovery, her work creates a sense of wonder and delight.

The Carnival Interactive Aquarium, commissioned by Arnold R&D, was installed in storefront windows in 6 cities across the US. Gobeille used computer vision to cause the seascape to react to the motion of a user – seaweed will sway and fish will scatter – who can dial in with any mobile device and create a fish using their voice. Users play a game with the installation in real time through voice and phone keypad. I think this installation, though it was created as an advertisement, is really neat in how the public can interact with it.

Video of Installation, 2009

Austin Treu – Project 09

atreu-proj-09

/*Austin Treu
    atreu@andrew.cmu.edu
    Section B
    Project-09*/

var underlyingImage, strtX = 0, strtY =0, iter = 0;

function preload() {
    var myImageURL = "https://i.imgur.com/gJg4CSd.jpg";
    underlyingImage = loadImage(myImageURL);
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(240, 427);
    background(0);
    underlyingImage.loadPixels();
    frameRate(1000);
}

function draw() {
    var px = random(width);
    var py = random(height);
    var ix = constrain(floor(px), 0, width-1);
    var iy = constrain(floor(py), 0, height-1);
    var theColorAtLocationXY = underlyingImage.get(ix, iy);

    noStroke();
    fill(theColorAtLocationXY);
    ellipse(px, py, 6, 6);
}

I found this picture of my little brother in my files, thought it was an interesting snapshot, so I utilized it in this. It is interesting to watch the image be formed and try to figure out what it is before it is complete.

Final Image:

Original Image:

Robert Oh- Project 09- Portraits

chris

//Robert Oh
//Section C
//rhoh@andrew.cmu.edu
//Project-09-Portrait

var Chris;

function preload() {
    var myImageURL = "https://i.imgur.com/0FU7jf7.jpg?1";
    Chris = loadImage(myImageURL);
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(480, 367);
    background(0);
    Chris.loadPixels();
    frameRate(1000);
}

function draw() {
    var px = random(width);
    var py = random(height);
    var ix = constrain(floor(px), 0, width - 1);
    var iy = constrain(floor(py), 0, height - 1);
    var col = Chris.get(ix, iy);

    //randomly creating the X length and thickness
    var len = random(2, 7);
    var thick = random(1, 5);

    //creating the X's
    stroke(col);
    strokeWeight(thick);
    line(px - len, py - len, px + len, py + len);
    line(px - len, py + len, px + len, py - len);
}

For this project, I used a photo of my friend, Chris. I thought the X’s were a nice touch and I liked how I generated the X’s using randomness (in both the length and the thickness.

This is a photo of the early stage:

This is the final product:

(The original photo was of my friend sitting on a colorful staircase)

Yingyang Zhou-Project-09-Portraits

self-portraits

//Yingyang Zhou
//yingyanz@andrew.cmu.edu
//Project-09
//section A

var img;
var randomPos = 0;

function preload(){
  img = loadImage("https://i.imgur.com/GvPS1Fr.jpg");
}

function setup() {
    createCanvas(360, 480);
    background(200);
    // imageMode(CORNER);
    img.loadPixels();
    frameRate(500);
}
function draw(){

  //image(img, 0, 0, width, height);
  var px = random(width);
  var py = random(height);
  var ix = constrain(floor(px), 0, width-1);
  var iy = constrain(floor(py), 0, height-1);
  var col = img.get(ix, iy);

  noStroke();
  fill(col);
  var randomSize = random(10);
  ellipse(px, py, randomSize, randomSize);
  stroke(col);
  strokeWeight(2);
  line(px+random(10), py+random(10), px+random(10), py+random(10));
  strokeWeight(1);
  line(px+random(10), py+random(10), px+random(10), py+random(10));
}

I like this project for a chance to envolve with something we are familiar in our daily life and it provide an interesting to way to look at the common thing in a different way.

Robert Oh- Looking Outwards-09

James White- Early Forge random output using Vormator shapes Version 4 (2007)

For this week’s Looking Outwards, I decided to use Joanne Lee’s Looking Outwards-06 Post.

I really appreciate randomness and how White was able to use it in order to create such beautiful art. His program, Forge, creates art pieces where many features and elements are all random and out of his control. I really do love how art can look so amazing complex and detailed despite the fact that everything was created randomly. Supporting Joanne’s opinion, I really do appreciate the fact that White created this program to allow other artists to use to also implement randomness in their art.