Category: LookingOutwards-06

Jacky Tian’s LookingOutwards 06

Generative randomness — CHARLES STREET CAR PARK

Seemingly random pattern can be generated by a comprehensive computational logarithms. This multi story public parking space in Sheffield city centre has natural anodized aluminum panels on its external envelope. Each of the aluminum panel is manufactured from a single sheet of folded aluminum hung in four different orientations with a seemingly random rhythm. The gaps between the panels in four direction provides natural ventilation and creates a sense of sculpture for a box.

Shannon Ha – Looking Outwards – 06

Entanglement I by Markos Kay
Photo taken from mrkism.com
Superposition I by Markos Kay
Photo taken from mrkism.com

Quantum Superpositions is a moving image installation create from particle simulations inspired by the physics that goes on inside the Large Hadron Collider. These simulations are superimposed to create random yet intricate digital paintings that allude to quantum properties such as wave-particle duality, superposition, entanglement etc. The image is projected onto the floor to allow viewers to experience the unstable nature of life as random microscopic patterns are blown up in proportional contrast to their own bodies.

I really appreciate how Markos Kay bases the subject of his art on such intangible matters and uses it to elicit sensorial awareness from the viewer. I also admire how he beautifully merges the physics and art to create an unfamiliar yet intriguing image as you don’t quite know what it is actually suppose to be at first glance. The randomness of the patterns reflects what we don’t see in reality, leaving viewers to reflect on our state of being as humans.

Projected art onto floor.
Photo taken from mrkism.com

Charmaine Qiu – LookingOutwards – 06


Image of the artwork “3 Standard Stoppages”

Marcel Duchamp was a French American artist who enjoyed the creation of conceptual art. He created an artwork in 1913-14 called “3 Standard Stoppages”. The artist dropped three meter long threads from one meter above three canvases, and the threads naturally adhered to the canvases with the random curves upon landing. The canvas was later cut along the threads, and the shapes were being preserved. The artwork was intended as a satire against the metric system that Duchamp described as an “intellectual construct rather than a universal absolute”(moma.org). I found it interesting how Duchamp utilized chance operations to distort the unit of length, creating a breakthrough to conventional measuring systems. The artwork is now displayed in MoMA in Manhattan.

Yoshi Torralva-Looking Outwards-06

Tony Curran’s Random Feels Familiar in the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
Art titled: ‘Just not enough blue to hold it down’ in the exhibition

Random Feels Familiar by Tony Curran is a randomly generated series of art pieces on oil on linen. Created in 2017 and currently exhibited at the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, art hangs on the wall encompassing the viewer in fine art that feels familiar but is quite different. Abstract designs hang on the wall are printed on canvas yet are, in reality, randomly generated by code. The art piece use texture and expressive techniques to confuse the viewer if it’s created by code or done by a human. What I admire about this series is how it blurs the lines between who has ownership of the painting. Although the computer uses pseudo-random generation, the foundation remains on the artist’s visual language.

Cathy Dong – Looking Outwards – 06

2015, NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan
The Irreversible, Dimensions Variable

Norimichi Hirakawa is a Japanese artist whose work centralizes in real-time digital audio-visual installations. The series of video, The Irreversible, is generated by a time-evolutionary algorithm. The process starts from randomizing the initial constants. As described by the artist, “everything within the video is just a result of meaningless calculation.” Math calculation is Hirakawa’s variables and parameters, and the final results are somehow confusing but appealing at the same time. The audience are astonished by the strong visual impact. The background sound fits into the visual rhyme well. Through two-dimensional media, such as lines and points, Hirakawa achieves a three-dimensional effect.

Rachel Shin – LO-6

Aaron Tobey generated a project that involved the mechanics of brainstorming and coding architecture. In his Vimeo video showing the code running, we see 36 rectangular frames generating a randomized series of shapes drawn in each frame. I admired that while the overall piece looked organized, it also included a factor in which it created a chaotic yet cohesive mood. The boundaries of each rectangular frame created a clean structure that contained the chaotic randomness of the architecture shapes inside. I suppose that Tobey first drew the rectangular frames in the code and then generated loops that drew random architecture shapes within each frame. This algorithm then creates the piece that we observe in Tobey’s Vimeo.

Aaron Tobey. “Coding Architecture.” 2015.

Gretchen Kupferschmid-Looking Outward-06

Artist Manolo Gamboa Naon from Argentina creates art from the randomness of computational algorithm he creates. His art looks very intentional and involves lots of hard shapes and geometry, yet the idea of randomness is very fluid, so its interesting to see these two styles intersecting. I enjoy how the art itself is very reminiscent of mid-century art and feels as it could fit right in place with the 60s style art that relied so heavily on paint and traditional materials. His abstract and random work is grounded through shapes and color. By using just a circle and triangle, Naon is able create a piece of art by color changing and object placement.

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

SooA Kim: Looking Outwards – 06


Takeshi Murata is an American media artist and one of his works, Monster Movie (2005), uses a digital file that has been datamoshed. In his work, he tends to use video and animation techniques to create this datamosh effect. I enjoy watching the randomness of images or pixels popping out from the result of datamoshing. I believe he was able to achieve this effect by manipulating different kinds of frames, which are I-frames, P-frames, and B-frames. He removes one of those types of frames in this process, where the video player generates the video without realizing that the actual image content has been changed. This results as datamoshing with abstract motion of pixels with other types of frames in the video to continue with the next frame pixels.

Crystal Xue-LookingOutwards-06

Rami Hammour: A text of random meaning!

The text-like black and white visualization is a mapping of a ‘Register and Taps” random number generator in action. Rami Hammour is an architect graduated from RISD. Utilizing three integers in the script, Rami Hammour is able to show randomness with limited input values

The definition of randomness is known as “a non-repeating, non-biased, non-patterned sequence of values” . And randomness in computational art is finding a tool to record the irregular pattern.

I think in any form of randomness art. There should be logical representation used to project the randomness. Otherwise, the randomness will just be unable to read and lost its meaning.

Minjae Jeong-Looking Outwards-06

I found the installation by John Cage in Kettle’s Yard gallery in Cambridge as very interesting art using randomness.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/kettlesyard/photos/?tab=album&album_id=436476306159

John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day

The randomness used in his installation was computer generated random coordinates, and Cage hung up the pictures on the generated coordinates, and reinstalling them according to the newly generated coordinates. When we integrate art with technology, there are many more ways that we can get creative. I thought the creative process of art is to think what to draw, but another creative process to think is what to draw with.