iea@andrew.cmu.edu – Page 2 – [OLD FALL 2019] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

looking outwards – 07- ilona altman

edit (forgot to put this earlier) – I am using 1 of my grace days for this late submission.

The project “Melting Memories” by Refik Anadol Studio created in 2017 is a beautiful series of artworks created from visualizing different EEG data collected. By representing the EEG data gives it a tactility that emphasizes the materiality of memory. The EEG data collected was based off of the prompt to focus on recalling specific moments of childhood.

I think it is beautiful and admirable that the project has this large scale, and this sense of having an organic life of itself. It is interesting to me how the data was able to have such a sculptural form. This sculptural form makes me think about how all EEG data is collected from the flesh of our being, and that the integration of data into this piece allows one to understand this generated sculpture as part of one’s own personal world.

I suppose the algorithms that generated this work broke down the EEG data into several characteristics like the amplitude of the wave, the duration of the spikes, and used these broken down variables in order to also cue the drawing for the moving image.

The artist’s sensibilities for simplicity and emotional impact are clear through the clean documentation for this piece in the photographs and the video of this work.

image of person standing in front of EEG data map

Melting Memories – Drawing neural mechanisms of cognitive control

ilona altman – project 07 – curves

sketch


// Ilona Altman
// Section A
// iea@andrew.cmu.edu
// Project-07

function setup() {
    createCanvas(400, 400);
    frameRate(10);
    noStroke();
}

function draw() {
//pink background
background(121,20,20);

// variables d/n = petal variations
var d = map(mouseX, 0, width, 0, 8);
var n = map(mouseY, 0, height, 0, 8);

// translating the matrix so circle is in the center
push();
translate(width/2, height/2);

//changing the colors
var colorR = map(mouseX, 0, width, 200,255);
var colorG = map(mouseY, 0, width, 50,245);
var colorB = map(mouseX, 0, width, 50,200);

// the loop generating the points along the rose equation
for (var i = 0; i < TWO_PI *3*d; i += 0.01) {
    var r = 150* cos(n * i);
    var x = r * cos(i);
    var y = r * sin(i);

    //making the circles more dynamic, and wobbly
    fill(colorR,colorG,colorB);
    circle(x +random(-1, 1), y + random(-1, 1), 1, 1);
    }

pop();
}

With this project, I was thinking a lot about auras, and energy, and how to make something digital that feels organic. I wanted to experiment with a flickery effect, achieved by alternating the size of the circles which compose this curve. I like the idea of these patterns looking like they are created from vibrations. I have been thinking about sacred geometry a lot, and about the patterns made in water when sound reverberates through it.

looking outwards – 06 – Ilona Altman

I thought this piece was very interesting in its simplicity. This work is by Robert Krawczyk and is part of a series called “Summer Diversions”. This work is manifested as a website that creates a series of repeating shapes that create different mandalas. The interactivity and randomness of the project is where one can input more or less shapes, altering their repetition, shape and rotation.

I thought it was really lovely because the article even mentioned these were made with p5.js! It also reminds me very much of our line art project. I would guess this project was programed much the same way: variables are set and correlated to the number of mouse clicks on the “=” and “-“. These variables alter the looping of a repeated form, which is also translated in order to create the mandala effect.

I admire how something so simple could be so beautiful. I love that uncertainty exists within any structure.

“My overall interest is to investigate methods which can develop forms that are in one sense predictable, but have the element to generate the unexpected; the unexpected in a predictable way. The custom software becomes the instructions for producing the work itself.” Robert Krawczyk

These values of predictability and unpredictability are very well communicated in the work. Making the mechanisms of the mandalas so transparent and allowing for interaction gives a sense of structure and predictability, whereas the results are often much more beautiful and complex than one might have imagined.

https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2003/bridges2003-547.pdf -cool article on Sol LeWitt , one of Krawczyk’s inspirations

http://bitartworks.com/summer/

Summer 2019 Diversions!

project- 06 – clock

sketch


var circlecenter = 0;

function setup() {
    createCanvas(480, 480);
}


function draw() {

    // variables for time, hour, minute, second
    var h = hour();
    var m = minute();
    var s = second();

    // variables for color mapping
    var colorR = map(h, 0, 23, 0, 255);
    var colorG = map(m, 0, 59, 0, 255);
    var colorB = map(s, 0, 59, 0, 255);
    // variables for lighter color mapping
    var lightcolorR = map(h, 0,23, 180, 255);
    var lightcolorG = map (m, 0, 59, 180, 255);
    var lightcolorB = map (s, 0, 59, 180, 255);

    // time keeping seconds
    var exactSecond = (h*60)+(m*60)+s;



    // background to change color as day progresses
    background(colorR, colorG, colorB);

    // interlapping pattern of circles that change color with the time
    for (var y = 0; y < height+50; y += width/2) {
        for (var x = 0; x < width+50; x += width/3) {
            fill(255-colorG,255-colorB, 255-colorR,30);
            ellipse(x, y, width/2, width/2);
            noStroke();
        }
    }

    // tiny little dots
    for (var y = 0; y < height+10; y += 2) {
        for (var x = 0; x < width+50; x += 2) {
            fill(lightcolorR,lightcolorG,lightcolorB);
            ellipse(x, y, 1, 1);
            noStroke();
        }
    }

    // mapping for exact second along the x axis 
    var secondMapX = (exactSecond, 0, 86400, 0, width);
    // mapping for exact second  along the y axis 
    var secondMapY = (exactSecond, 0, 86400, 0, height);

    // circle for current second
    ellipse(secondMapX,secondMapY,2,2);
    fill(255, 255, 255);

}

I wanted to create a clock that emphasized how time is a fluid progression of movement, difficult to conceptualize at times. I decided to do this through a slow gradient of color, that shifts with the time. I wanted to create something that would emphasis both the fluidity of time, as well as how it can be broken into the tiniest of chucks. I did this through overlaying the smallest of dots on top of the work.

Ideally, I would like to make a clock that was rooted to the moon cycles of Lithuania, where my family is from. I think it would be interesting to show how our ancestry, what we adopt from those before us roots us especially in the way it affects our unconscious and when we sleep. I had some trouble figuring out how to embed API data into processing, but I would love to learn this sometime.

Project 05 – Ilona Altman – Section A

sketch

var step = 0

function setup() {
    createCanvas(400, 500);
}

function draw() {

    background(255, 255, 255);


    for (var y = 0; y < height+25; y += 100) {
        for (var x = 0; x < width+25; x += 100) {
            fill(250,180,112,40);
            ellipse(x, y, 200, 200);
            stroke(255,50,50);
        }
    }

    for (var y = 0; y < height+25; y += 100) {
        for (var x = 0; x < width+25; x += 100) {
            fill(255,240,240);
            ellipse(x, y, 10, 10);
            stroke(150,70,75);
        }
    }

    for (var y = 0; y < height+25; y += 50) {
        for (var x = 0; x < width+25; x += 100) {
            fill(230,255,255);
            ellipse(x, y, 5, 5);
            stroke(60,110,100);
        }
    }

    for (var y = 0; y < height+25; y += 100) {
        for (var x = 0; x < width+25; x += 50) {
            fill(0,0,0);
            line(x, y, x+50, y+50);
            stroke(204, 102, 0);
        }
    }
}

I am really interested in how a simple shape like a circle can become incredibly complex, through the repetition of its form repeating. I have always loved the idea of intersections, and transparency. I wanted to experiment with these ideas, the transparency of color and harshness of the outlines.

Looking Outward – 05 – Ilona Altman

Even though I find the visuals of this work to be less lyrical than the concept, I find this work incredibly beautiful. Especially that it could only ever be created with a computer. In this work titled Blackberry Winter by Christian Mio Loclair this year, space activated by the body is explored. He fed images of different poses of the body relating to space to a neural network, which then created these simulations of human movement . I found it very interesting how what it means to dance is to explore the spacial potential around oneself. I admire that something without a body can give a visualization of what it is to have a body.

Image of imagined body movement / dance by AI n

The creators sensibilities are present in the final form by the relationship between chaos and organization within this piece. The chaos of generated body movements and a, at times, fragmented body is pared with an orderly. background and color scheme. The color scheme itself also reveals the theme of chaos and order, as the color was chosen by the neural network (chaos) after analyzing the color schemes of different artist works (order).

I am unsure about the way this was created because I don’t know too much about how one might program an AI to generate an image. I do get the sense though that it requires a lot of Data to “train” a neural network. And I would imagine there must exist a programming language that can represent three-dimensional data/space which helps to encode the motion.

Blackberry Winter – Artificial human motion in asymmetry

project 04 – Ilona Altman – string art

This project was very interesting. It really helped me to isolate the changes of the variables in terms of width and height.

sketch

//Ilona Altman
//iea 

function setup() {
  createCanvas(400, 300);
  background(230,212,160);
}

function draw() {


for(var x = 0; x < 2*width; x = x + 5) {
    line(x, width, 0, -1*x);
    stroke(194,130,150);
    }

for(var x = 0; x < 2*width; x = x + 5) {
    line(x, width, height, -1*x);
    stroke(180,200,190);
    }

for(var x = 0; x < 2*width; x = x + 5) {
    line(width - x, -1.5*height, 0, height-x);
    stroke(230,212,160);
    }

for(var x = 0; x < 2*width; x = x + 10) {
    line(0.000000005*width + x, height, width, height - x);
    stroke(180,120,140);
    }

for(var x = 0; x < 2*width; x = x + 5) {
    line(width - x, height, width, 0.000000001*width + x);
    stroke(190,130,90);
    }


}

looking outwards- 04 – ilona altman

video explaining the workings of the Weather Thingy

I was so happy to discover this project! This project is a beautiful mix of computation and sound. It is called “Weather Thingy” and it was made by Adrien Kaeser, a fellow bachelor’s student in school in Switzerland, last year! In this project, a musical can create music, that responds to, and changes with the local weather conditions.

I especially admire the visual design and the conceptual vision of this piece. Visually, this work is stunning, so simple and looks easy to use. I love the images that pop up on the screen associated to each facet of weather. Conceptually, I love the idea of the weather influencing song. It kind of makes me think about Ellaisson’s Weather Project/ meditating on how weather is one of the ways we experience nature within our city, it is an ever-present source of chaos. (link below)

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series/unilever-series-olafur-eliasson-weather-project-0

Algorithmically, I would guess that each input (of the weather, and the musicians movements on the keyboard), are combined together in the ratio requested by the musician. Each weather input (rain, wind speed) affects a different aspect of the music. Thus the input of the music from the musical must also be analyzed according to these distinct parts so that it can be mixed with the weather inputs accordingly.

The artists artistic sensibility is present even within the name of this project, which is really funny and causal. A sensibility for clear design is also present within both the project’s interface and the documentation.

Weather Thingy – Real time climate sound controller

Looking Outward 03 – Ilona Altman

I am really interested in the Polymorph project by the artist Jenny Sabin. This project is especially interesting because of how she combined form and function. The structure is made of clay and was digitally fabricated. The sculpture is rooted an algorithmic process that formulates the way that the ceramics are formed, fired and connected.

This piece of work is also interesting in how it uses natural structured in order to build it own structure, that this work could only be created aided with technology. As Jenny Sabin writes: Biology provides useful systems-based models for architects to study and understand how context specifies form, function, and structure. While the first phase of this design work resides within the spirit of research and discovery, the current phase engages design-oriented applications in experimental ceramic material systems ranging from new concepts of materiality to adaptive structures and complex geometries. Key to this design research is the exploration of new tectonic organizations for application at the architectural scale.

Here is a link to the project documentation and writing – http://www.jennysabin.com/polymorph-1

Ilona Altman- project 2- variable faces

sketch


var thetime = 1
var othetime = 1
var clr= 1


function setup() {
    createCanvas(200, 20);
    background(220);
    text("p5.js vers 0.9.0 test.", 10, 15);
}



function setup() {
    createCanvas(480,640);
    noStroke();
}

function draw() {
    background(215,126,107);

    //variables

    var x = 1/5*width;
    var y = 1/8*height;

    //moon static 
    fill(130+clr,170+clr,170+clr);
    circle(2.5*x,y,100);

    //moon dynamic
    fill(215,126,107);
    circle(2*x+othetime,y,100);

    //face base
    fill(235,150,140);
    circle(2.5*x, 5*y, 300);
    
    //moon eyes static 1 green
    fill(100+clr,140+clr,100+clr);
    circle(1.75*x, 4.5*y, 50);

    //moon eyes dynamic 1
    fill(235,150,140);
    circle(1.5*x+thetime,4.5*y, 50);

    // moon eyes static 2 green
    fill(100+clr,140+clr,100+clr);
    circle(3.25*x, 4.5*y, 50);

    // moon eyes dynamic 2 
    fill(235,150,140);
    circle(3*x+thetime, 4.5*y, 50);

}

function mousePressed() {
    thetime=random(-20,60);
    clr= random(-50,150);
    othetime=random(-150,150)
}

I had trouble getting the image to load earlier for some reason! Here is my project