LookingOutwards-06 – Page 3 – [OLD FALL 2018] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Eunice Choe – Looking Outwards -06

The canvas randomizes after every click.

The lines are random – some are curly and some are straight.

Matt Deslauriers, a creative developer created a generative art project (2016) that shows randomly drawn lines on a composition. In addition, clicking the canvas randomizes the composition into a new random set of lines and colors. I admire this piece because the different textured lines and splotches are visually pleasing without being too overwhelming. I also like the idea of entering a new experience with every click because of the randomized shapes and color combinations. Matt Deslauriers used Node.js to create the piece because it is reliable when working with large resolutions. Deslauriers also took inspiration from the strokes of impressionist paintings but accumulating the lines instead of constantly clearing the canvas. Simplex noise is used to make the particles move, as they are given random positions. In addition, the noise that controls the lines’ movement is randomized, which causes some lines to curl up and others to run straight. Deslauriers’ artistic sensibilities manifest in the piece through the impressionist influence and the randomized color palettes. Deslauriers based the color palettes off of popular and visually pleasing color combinations and ended up using 200 palettes in the final form.

Jason Zhu-LookingOutwards-06

This is an image of Tyler Hobbs work, Community 5, created with various algorithms.

http://www.tylerlhobbs.com/writings/probability-distributions-for-artists. Created in 2014 by Tyler Hobbs.

Community 5 is an artwork derived from various algorithmic work. In this case, the artist, Tyler Hobbs, used pseudo-Pareto distribution to vary the length of width of polygons used in the piece. He does this quite successfully in my opinion as it neither seems overly generated or overly humanistic; achieving the right balance of algorithmic work and human effort. The Pareto distribution is a form of power law distribution and is useful in situations where one wants to create balanced objects of various sizes. Other applications of the Pareto distribution include in Hobbs words “the population of cities (many small cities, few very large cities) and the wealth of individuals (many poor indiviuals, few very rich).”

Sarah Yae Looking Outwards 6 Section B

‘Pier and Ocean’ by Kenneth Martin was created in 1980. I found this artwork interesting because the lines, although randomly placed, created an artwork with meaning. Although the lines have a color sequence that is patterned and similar, the placements of the line are random — parallel and intersecting. The artist, Kenneth Martin, was inspired to produce this artwork by an era, called Constructivism. This era focused on abstract art and randomness; his focus in this period of time allowed to create this artwork ‘Pier and Ocean,’ which incorporates abstract placement of the lines and randomness.

More information on the artwork could be found on:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/martin-pier-and-ocean-p07743

Ean Grady-LookingOutwards-06

Matt DesLauriers, a self-titled creative developer, uses Node.js and HTML5 to create high-resolution generative artwork. His main project in this regard is called “Color Wander”, a high-resolution full-browser form of the generative artwork. He has a blog post describing some of the methods he used to make Color-Wander. In order to make his art and renderings look more ‘polished’, he used various photos of snails, flowers, architecture and geometry as what he calls “distortion maps” to help drive the algorithm. Each particle in the algorithm is rendered as a “small line segment in the direction of its velocity.” Also in order to randomize whether some lines curl tightly or head straight, the artist randomized the scale of the noise.

I find this project interesting because it shows specifically how you would use randomization in creating art, which makes it easier to visualize and see when looking at the actual artwork. Additionally, in the blog post, it shows some actual code, which is really interesting to look at and try to understand it.

Link to Color-Wander: http://color-wander.surge.sh/
Link to Color-Wander blogpost: https://mattdesl.svbtle.com/generative-art-with-nodejs-and-canvas

Lingfan Jiang- Looking Outwards 06

http://color-wander.surge.sh/

The project that I am interested in this week is done by Matt Deslauriers in 2016, called generative art with node.js and canvas. The project created distorted images using the codes.

Here is an example. It transfers the image into the artists’ own style just using codes.

The reason I admire this project is that create a new and unique art style itself is already very interesting. However, I think there are much more opportunities to the project. At the early stage of the project, the artist was only able to convert existing images into this kind of style. However, when the database grows into certain size, it is able to call out a random image by itself, just like the link I added at the beginning of the post. For the next stage, I think the project would be benefited a lot from the machine learning process where the codes could understand and establish links between words and images. To me, that would be the most interesting aspect of the project.

For the algorithm of this project, I would assume that based on the contrast of the image, the codes are able to identify the shapes of the images and use codes to generate random geometries according to the fundamental shapes of the images. Also, it is very wise for the author to use color palettes that are existed from ColourLovers.com API to make his work pleasant to look at.

Here is the original link to the artist’s own page.

https://mattdesl.svbtle.com/generative-art-with-nodejs-and-canvas

Xiaoying Meng-Looking Outwards 06

(Black Shoals Stock Market Planetarium)

Black Shoals is an art project by Joshua Portway and Lise Autogena. The project displays the activities of the stock market as a planetarium. The project uses randomness in a very interesting way. In the beginning, the stars representing each company are randomly distributed. As time passes, the stars start to drift and clog together, moving into constellations. Without the random placement of the stars at the beginning, the relationship and attraction between each star cannot be shown in this way. I admire this project because it turns numeric data of the stock exchange into visually pleasing graphics that can be better understood. I guess the algorithm for this project could be inputting real-time data into graphics and use randomized locations for the beginning.

Christine Chen-Looking Outwards-06

Above is the music piece Ryoanji(named the same as the artwork) composed by John Cage in 1985

John Cage was an American composer who is best known for his avant-garde music and his use of randomness in music composition. In addition to composing music, he also uses randomness to create graphic art. For his piece Ryoanji, he had his assistants read computer-generated random numbers off a list. This chooses which rows of rocks to be chosen, which painting brush to be used, and the position of the stone on the paper. The numbers are “truly” random numbers. After this, Cages paints around the stone to trace the outline. In other words, he used computer-generated coordinates which are randomly generated to determine the positions of the graphics in the picture. This piece was created in conjunction with one of his musical piece, which partially composed through randomness, that was named the same title. The is composed of 3375 rock tracings.

What I admire most about this piece is that at first glance, it just seems as if there is nothing special about it. However, after knowing the algorithm that was used to create it, the entire piece seems more interesting. All those lines seem to be random and not random at the same time! Random because the computer chose the numbers through random process and the numbers are entirely dependent on chance. However, at the same time, the piece also seems to be not so random as the values are defined entirely by a machine and drawn according to that. I also enjoy the fact of how it is created to be congruent with the music. Cage’s artistic sensibilities is shown through his choice of only graphite and paper as his medium. The monotone vibe expressed through the piece reflects the serious, heavy experience that the music expresses.

Yingying Yan- Looking Outwards-6

An example of showing pattern within random generation

Coding Architecture: Randomness project is an assignment from Rhode Island School of Design. The project I found interesting is not named, nor is not part of the author’s portfolio anymore. Yet, Daejeong Kim uses algorithms to draw sets of lines in a random but systematic way.

For instance, she used two random number set: A and B and centered at random (A, B) to create a drawing with random lines. Due to the algorithm, the lines together form patterns showing density and directionality. It is also interesting to read the product as a animation and see the changes that are generated by the random numbers. This project caught my attention. Because among all the other project, it uses randomness to result in a non-random form.

random fill converted-superhigh from Coding Architecture on Vimeo.

Jenna Kim (Jeeyoon Kim)- Looking Outwards-6

“PPPP”
He kept developing his original idea (the first photo on the very top).

Manolo Gamboa Naon’s project, “PPPP”, is a generative, random digital art had been developed over a long time. Its vibrant colors and interesting geometric forms blend in beautifully. . His project is very admirable because through this project, he shows that making errors is essential to generative artists and errors are “beautiful”. He shows that as he develops more series to this project, he demonstrates growth of his style through series of errors. It is definitely fascinating to see how he develops so many styles and combination of color from one idea. The algorithms and the randomness in the work are generated from Processing, a programming tool that he learned when he started studying design. Although this simple random art seems to be simple with its geometric forms, he manifested his artistic ability in the color palette and the pattern. Although the colors are so bold and striking, the different colors interact well with each other. Also, we can see inspiration from artists and designers such as Ben Fry, Joshua David, Ivan Ivanoff, and many more.

Link: “https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/8/8/generative-art-finds-its-prodigy”

Robert Oh- Looking Outwards- 06

Chance, Order, Change 6 (Black) 1978-9 Kenneth Martin

This painting is one of many paintings in Kenneth Martin’s “Chance and Order” series. As the name suggests, Martin was able to create this piece using pure chance events. Out of all the other paintings in the series, I liked this one the best because the black and white contrasts really well in terms of straight lines. I really appreciate this drawing, not only because it looks mysterious and complicated, but also because of the procedure Martin went through to make it.

The article states that to create the network of lines, Martin initially marked a blank drawing with points, moving clockwise around a rectangle. Lines were then generated by taking numbers, two at a time, at random out of a bag. Martin chose eight pairs of numbers for this work. He then turned the drawing by 90 degrees and repeated the process. After being repeated twice more, the drawing was then transferred to canvas.

Martin’s artistic and “random” side truly comes into play when you look at this painting. I am very excited and curious to see how other artists can incorporate randomness in their future art pieces.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/martin-chance-order-change-6-black-t03190