While browsing previous week’s looking outwards responses, I stumbled upon Jessica’s article from Week 7 on data visualizations. She chose to write about a New York Times Graph that displays how different demographics spend their time throughout the day.
A still photo of the interactive New York Times graph representing how time is spent by different demographics
I agree that the creator’s artistic touch was manifested in the composition and intrinsic complexity of the data being represented. Though the graph doesn’t look extraordinarily eye catching, the data it represents is fascinating and the way it has been organized makes it intuitive to understand. It is difficult to have the results displayed in a data visualization obvious at first glance. As more facets are added to the data, the more information and variables must be squished into one visual, and things can get messy. The creator of this visualization elegantly combined a huge amount of data in a way that can be understood immediately.
Hyper-Toroidal Deep Surface, Sean Ahlquist, Prof. Achim Menges, Boyan Mihaylov, Viktoriya Nicolova, from seminar Deep Surface Morphologies.
This is one of the many pieces of artworks by Sean Ahlquist who is an expert architecture professor within the fields of interactive systems and computational media at the University of Michigan. This initially caught my eyes because of the intricate details of form within the art piece. I learned that this piece was created through a Java-based framework to represent multiple membrane systems that represent the delicacy in our human body. I also enjoyed Sophia’s personal view on this project how it reminded her of knowledge of DNA molecules that she learned in high school. I would have also really enjoyed her take on analyzing the specific process of this sculpture and what the artist’s intentions were when developing the project.
A digitally designed, 3D printed human carapace, by Fitchwork, threeAsfour, and Stratasys, 2016
For this week, I looked over Veronica Wang’s Looking Outward posts. I found this particular work interesting because I have been fascinated by designers that focus their works on digital fabrication and computation.
I am inspired by Travis Fitch’s art pieces that are generated from minimal surface geometries. I was introduced to his work by one of his former thesis advisors on minimal surface design and the process. He used Rhino modeling as well as a custom Grasshopper script to create a minimal surface module, with inputs being curves or meshes. I have also tried playing with similar scripts and using components such as ‘mesh relaxation’, ‘exoskeleton’, and ‘iso surface’. His wearable pieces were taking 3D printed rigid modules and connecting them to create a flexible piece of ‘fabric’. There are also many different materials in his products, including porcelain, metal, and nylon.
I agree with Veronica on how this work can inspire others. I feel that designing clothes or a fashion line based on a digitally fabricated medium is still relatively new and I believe that pursuing this sort of work can open up new doors towards the fashion/costume design scene. A lot of my friends majoring in art also told me how great it would be if some of us could trade skills so that they could be able to do more unique projects and I agreed with them. With the introduction of computational software, other artists/designers can incorporate that into their work to create something new and the outcomes could be amazing!
This post is in response to Mimi Jiao’s looking outwards post from week three, which can be found here.
Andrew Kudless is an architect and professor who leads Matsys, a studio based in Oakland, California which does work at the intersection of form, growth, and material systems. Material systems, the central motif of the studio, refers to the interactions of a material’s biologic, geologic, and synthetic qualities.
P_Wall (2013) FRAC Centre, Orleans, France concrete cast into preformed panels secured on steel frame
I was drawn to the piece “P_Wall” in for the same reasons Mimi was. I feel a personal connection to the piece and a desire to interact with it through touch.
Mimi proposed the idea of an extension of this piece through the installation of a more interactive iteration. I am interested in this idea because of the indirect dialogue the piece would conduct amongst those who have engaged with the form.
After further research into the fabrication process for “P_Wall” I have found that although Matsys renders a the panel forms digitally, they also embrace the inaccuracies in how the concrete slurry settles into approximate equilibrium.
view of concrete settling into the fabric stretched over a wooden frame, manipulated by wooden dowels, to create a panel of P_Wall (source)
Mimi touched upon the connotations in the final organic form resembling that of a tree. I agree that the wall feels very natural, although I initially felt that the wall looked like a collection of torsos smoothly cropped out of context. The folds resemble that of a sitting or turning person.
This impression is in sharp contrast to the inflation test Matsys used in modeling a sister piece to P_Wall, titled Sevenstar (2011). The initial form of this piece reminds me of a tessellation of lounge cushions, inviting me to sit. As the render progresses, it comes to live and begins to warp in a breathing motion. The rendering process is mesmerizingly beautiful, placing me as a spectator to an abstract materialization of life.
Cylindrical Mesh TopologiesHyper-Toroidal Deep Surface
The works are shown in the exhibition ‘Textile Morphologies'(2013) showcasing the doctoral work of Sean Ahlquist. And the original post is from Sophia Kim in Section C. I agree with her the impression of molecules and I did more background research after reading her post.
At first, what fascinates me of the project was the designer making use of the inner tension between objects to create forms. I felt the technological as well as the aesthetic thinkings behind the artwork. After further research, I’m even more interested because of the spatial potention of it. What presented in the exhibition was actually prototypes of tactile interfaces and environments for developing motor skills and social interaction in children with autism. I regarded the work as ‘art’ at the first glance but suddenly the scientific thinkings and profund meaning behind unveil before my eyes. I think computational tools play very important roles in the design process in analyzing the relationship between the form and effects on human such as visuality and touchability and also the integration of the forms and other technologies such as projection.
Children playing with the installationForm analysis
Different examples of what the MIT media lab produced using their voxel-based 3D printing. (Created in June of 2018)
Looking at Julie Choi’s Looking Outwards-03, I was instantly drawn to the vibrant, accent colors within the clear, gel-like material. I like to study projects that fuse science with art/design, because with visual representations, the common person is able to appreciate something that is very complex like the human brain. I really appreciate how these pieces were visualized not on a sheet of paper, but rather printed in layers to create 3D forms. I especially like the 3D printed brain, because using various colors, it represents the different elements of the brain like neurons. Also, I believe it addresses the interaction between the right side of the brain, creativity, and the left side of the brain, logic/thought.
For this Looking Outwards, I looked to Eunice Choe’s week 6 post on Matt Deslauriers‘s randomly generated line work called Color Wander (2016). This artwork generates a new composition of lines randomly with every click, expressing unique patterns and color palettes.
I agree with Eunice that this work is very pleasing since the growing abstractions are not overwhelming or large to the point of them being uncomfortable. However, I would add that he way he used Simplex noise to make the objects move is arguably the most pleasing part of this work. There is something so wonderful about the way that you never know what line or color will appear next, what direction or form it will take, or at what speed it complete those two actions at. It is as if someone is painting on your computer screen and it is simply mesmerizing to watch.
For this week’s assignment, I have decided to look at Xindi Lyu’s Week 7 Looking Outwards Project and Lee Krasner’s painting. I decided to review this entry because I really enjoyed that week’s promo of randomness as well as the way that Xindi interpreted this assignment. For me, I still chose to continue with something relating to technology and did not consider stepping out of that field into fine arts. I enjoyed how she describes the simplest elements of strokes and slashes to create something random and yet still beautiful. In addition, the story behind the painting attracted me to reinterpret the visual language of the strokes and look at the painting differently than how it looks upon first glance. (I’m also a huge Jackson Pollock fan). As a whole, I appreciated the choice to step out of conventional choices for projects and this post inspired me to branch out with future subject matters for Looking Outwards.
I loved the piece that Anthony posted; Hush‘s interactive sound-art installation invites onlookers to rotate prism pieces of a board that refracts and changes color— and therefore sound.
My favorite statement from Anthony’s post is that the project ” allows for a calm duality in light projection and soundscape.” The elegance for this duality is exactly what makes the project so astoundingly sublime— and generates such a calm, multi-sensorial experience.
close up of board pieces
The pieces are elementary, and simple in a way that makes the piece inviting to touch and understand. What generates as a result, is something that feels seemingly complex, but aesthetically correct (and therefore simple). This duality is something that speaks to me as well, as someone who aims to create experiences that draw from inherently complex processes, this immediate and simple harmony is something I hope to achieve in my work in the future.
For this week I looked at Alex Kaplan’s looking outwards post about Neil Mendoza. Neil Mendoza is an artist who has an MA in math and computer science from Oxford University and MFA in design media art from UCLA. One of his projects that particularly stood out is “Hamster Powered Hamster Drawing Machine”, where he built a contraption that, when a hamster runs on its wheel, draws a picture of a running hamster. I really resonated with Alex’s comment about how Mendoza opened her mind to the different possibilities of programming and code outside of the digital world. So far, I’ve been looking at and thinking about code in a very digital sense. Even when it is interactive, I think about it as the user vs. digital interactions, whereas Mendoza’s work integrates code to create physical and analog pieces. This opens a ton of new possibilities, especially for artists, to create unique and meaningful work.
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