Category: LookingOutwards-06

Airspace Tokyo is a multi-family residence spread over four floors, with two photographic studios located on the first and second floor. The exterior screen facade design expresses an almost non-existent distinction between interior and exterior. Designed by Thom Faulders, the screen is capable of giving the structure its own architectural identity and at the same time acting as an urban interface in a neighborhood of row houses. The façade pattern is inspired by the previous vine patterns growing over the walls, and the designer reproduced the ‘random’ pattern of the vegetation through computer programming and repetition of modules.

“The result – explain the authors of the project – translates into a reticular structure that gives shape to a transitory interstitial space between public and private, where the view changes every time you move, the rain does not reach the road by capillary action, the light is refracted on the shiny metallic surface”

Vera Molnar is widely known as a pioneering woman of computer generated graphics, but her works actually exist between the computer and the hand drawn. She primarily designs algorithms and computes these drawings based on a grid that corresponds to a computed set of variables. In the drawing below, Molnar has already defined the possibilities for each output, but uses an algorithm to offset the repetition and order of these outputs.

Structure de Quadrilateres (Square Structures), 1987, computer drawing with white ink on salmon-colored paper

Interruptions, 1968/1969, Ink plotter on paper

When Molnar worked with computers, there was a different richness to the drawing. Between this shift, from “machine imaginaire” to a “machine réelle,” (https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/vera-molnar-in-thinking-machines-at-moma/) Molnar was able to add more variation to her projects without the limitation of herself as the processor. Molnar’s randomness lies in the output of a logical algorithm. While the series of outputs is usually defined, the order, repetition, pattern of those outputs is randomly sorted based on the algorithm.

Interruptions à recouvrements (Disturbances through overlappings), 1969, Ink plotter on paper

After the drawing, Interruptions, was completed, Molnar then began Interruptions a recouvrements, which used the original drawing to compute the algorithm for the larger layering of drawings which includes variation in the scale, shape, and line thickness.

Molnar believes one power of the computer is that the random can create an aesthetic shock that ruptures the systematic and symmetrical. The rigor and meticulousness which she applies to her logics, is the human bias that computation and randomness cannot create alone. The work is so powerful because the “randomness” exists within Molnar’s bias.

See more projects from Vera Molnar: http://www.veramolnar.com/

 

This is a project created for the REYKJAVIK VISUAL MUSIC PUNTOy RAYA FESTIVAL 2014, meant to capture the visual identity of the festival. The dot and line graphics were processed with graphical glitches, filmed as they were projected on the wall, printed and then re-scanned to distort the images that make up the motion graphics. The description mentions that this distortion created color and texture.

I love this project because the resulting message of the project is that randomness can create a better product, basically that it can help the whole be greater than the sum of its parts. Deterministic methods are nice because we can reliably get a product we want, but randomness allows us to explore beyond what we expect.

VILLA by Malevo

4900 Colours by Gerhard Richter

A woman viewing 4900 Colors

4900 Colors is a piece by German artist Gerhard Richter, comprised of 196 square panels of 25 coloured squares each, which can be rearranged in any number of ways to constantly create a new viewing experience.

A computer program assigns a color to each square chosen randomly from a selection of 25 colors. A program can also be used to decide how to combine and hang the panels, thus making their arrangement even more distanced from the “artist’s” hands.

View of 4900 Colors at exhibition and Richter explaining his work

As is discussed in this handy article, it is important to note that randomness does not always look how we imagine it. True randomness develops some patterns, there may be the same color which happens to group itself together, which may not appear random to our human eyes trained in detecting patterns, but which reflects the true randomness of nature.

This piece was interesting to me because it makes me question at what point do humans cease being the “artists”, and must instead pass the credit for art pieces off to the computers which make them? This was a statement Gerhard alluded to, when he said discussed “eradicating any hierarchy of subject or representational intent, and focusing on color to create an egalitarian language of art” (full information available here). While perhaps his intentions are noble, what is the point of art if it does not reflect someone’s intentions? Is there a truly objective art? And is this art we as humans are able to value?

While it is easy to retrieve random numbers using a computer program, there are a handful of artists who use random numbers picked by hand to create unique pieces of art. One artist that I especially thought was interesting is Kenneth Martin. In this series of paintings, he has a grid of squares that are numbered. He writes down all the numbers on separate pieces of paper and picks out random numbers. Each successive pair of numbers becomes a line, creating similar but very different sets of artworks.

What I find interesting about the artist himself is that he used to paint realistic portraits and landscapes for 20 years, before turning to abstract paintings that explored spatial relationships.

Black Shoals Stock Market Planetarium is an art project in which the audience look up at a domed ceiling in which a computer projects the stock market in a system of stars and galaxies (like a planetarium). The project is presented in real-time and represents randomness in computational design in that it uses actual numbers of the stock market to deduce if, and which, stars glow, and how they move toward each other. The result of the installation is dependent on the activity of people in real life and determines how the planetarium looks at any given moment.

A visitor observing the project.

Each traded company is represented by a star, which glows as someone buys or sells a share. The stars do not stay stagnant; they drift and gather together according to the history of the company (the stronger the correspondence between two companies, the stronger the pull). Therefore, the stars can eventually form galaxies; however, they can also form black holes, in which specific stars, or companies, can be pulled into a vortex because of the collapse of a certain stock company. The stars start out randomly distributed at the beginning of the project but move toward each other and form ever-changing constellations, galaxies, and interesting outlines.

Two images produced by the planetarium at random moments of time.