LookingOutwards-11 – Page 5 – [OLD FALL 2019] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Sarah Choi- Looking Outwards – 11

Precarious

Camille Utterback is an internationally acclaimed artist and pioneer in the field of digital interactive art. She explains her work as “an attempt to bridge the conceptual and the corporeal.” Represented by Haines Gallery in San Francisco, she is currently an Assistant Professor of Art Practice at Stanford University. She went to Williams College for a BA in Art and achieved a Master’s degree in Interactive Telecommunications at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. In May of 2018, she created Precarious for the National Portrait Gallery exhibition called Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now. It was an interactive installation tracing human silhouettes with an algorithmic apparatus on a backlit screen.

Using contemporary digital tools, it actively traced the audiences’ figures continuously. Through custom coded interactive drawing systems, she built an algorithmically generated visual language she had been working on for many years. The points of the silhouettes exert a force on others creating this ongoing momentum to keep redrawing outlines and forming bodies together into one shared space. Through this piece of art, Utterback tries to redefine the aspect of personal boundaries as her audience is able to explore what happens when these barriers are broken creating a more open and welcoming atmosphere.

She believes ur bodies portray abstract symbolic systems and how functions like communication and language echo our physical self. Forming the relationship with interfaces and representational systems of our machines, Utterback uses interactive and computational mediums to depict different aspects of ourselves in her works of art.

Katrina Hu – Looking Outwards – 11

beauty, 2018-

In the “beauty, 2018-” exhibit by Addie Wagenknecht, a Roomba is reconfigured to spread a lush mixture of cosmetic pigments, pharmaceuticals, perfumes, and skin care across canvas by way of a programmed algorithm. The result is a reinterpretation of beauty and a contemporary portrait of a modern woman.

The purpose of this work is to reclaim visibility with devices typically used to conceal. Wagenknecht has worked with substances that manipulate appearances in the past. She often works with cosmetics and technology to create pieces that resemble a female presence. Many of her works are on display in the artist’s solo exhibition in New York City.

I really admire that this piece is an abstract representation of femininity. It is interesting how the artist often uses Roombas in her work. Now, new models of the Roomba are striving towards memory capabilities and AI edge detection. Wagenknecht takes advantage of this feature in her work constantly.

Mihika Bansal – Looking Outwards – 11

For this post I will be analyzing the work by Nataly Gattegno. She creates very interesting work that explores the use of physical space in her physical interactions and digital interactions. The specific project I am looking at is Anemone, an immersive pedestrian experience.

The piece itself is instillation art and is located in Albany, California. Anemone creates a place to engage in conversation with people. The manner in which the sculpture works with light and space also allows the views to enjoy the animated play of light and shadow created by the artwork’s intricate geometric structure.

The space is immersive and creates a new sense of place for conversation which works well with the space that it is located in. Gattegno creates other similar pieces that serve similar purposes, all very cleanly made and designed.

Anemone Canopy Clusters: The hexagonal tiling pattern allows for larger canopy clusters to be formed (Phase 2 is unbuilt) — Digital Model of the space

Picture of the in which they are located

Xu Xu – Looking Outwards – 11

For this week’s looking outwards, I decided to focus on LIA, an Austrian software and net artist. Her primary working medium is code, which consists of translating a concept into a formal written structure that then can be used to create a “machine” that generates real-time multimedia outputs. Her works can be regarded as a conversation between the human and the machine.

I chose to focus on one of her projects called Fluctus, which is a generative application that was displayed by Dong Gallery Taipei. Most of LIA’s works is not about creating an object, and her computational art exists beyond the material flow of things. Her works are enacted to give rise to objects: the art are temporarily and fleetingly created, they are brought to the canvas just to quickly disappear, leaving nothing but impressions in the memory of the viewer. Art is flow, process, concept, but more so an event. Art is brought alive through computation.

Dong Gallery Taipei, Taiwan, 2019/02/16 – 2019/03/23

What I admire about LIA’s Fluctus is that the work often seem to display organic traits, and the unfolding of forms leaves behind traces that builds up morphological processes of its computational core, while expressing its wholeness. The abstract and alien forms created are mesmerizing, the patterns almost seem ornamental. One would be intrigued by this artwork while passing by it on the streets, and stand for a while beside it to study its movements and developments throughout time.

looking outward – 11 – ilona altman

Allison Parish is an artist who is currently based in Brooklyn, New York, where she works at NYU as a professor in their Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). There, she teaches classes like Computational Approaches to Language. Most of her work seems to deal with poetry, and generative explorations of poetic space and poetic exploration. I couldn’t find for some reason any information on her undergraduate background, but I did find that she attended NYU’s ITP program in 2008.

A good example of her work is the twitter bot, The Ephemerides, which is a reflection of generative poetry exploring new frontiers, just as physical space probes explore the physical space around us –

Tweets by the_ephemerides

exploring space, poetically and physically

This work was first made in 2015, though it has made posts up through 2019. I admire the aspect of this project that it exploration for the sake of exploration, and the simple contraction of the poems. Some of them are very beautiful. As a critical note however, I feel this project could have been pushed a little bit more, as the connection between the exploration of physical and metaphysical space and the simple diptych almost feels too surface level / maybe there could one been a more complex relationship going on between the images and the text.

really cool Allison Parish transcript – http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/semantic-space-literal-robots/

Allison Parish portfolio – http://portfolio.decontextualize.com

CJ Walsh – Looking Outwards 11 – Women Practitioners

Video explaining the creative process for the myThread Pavilion

The person I have chosen to focus on this week is Jenny Sabin, an experimental architect with her own studio based in Ithaca, NY. While I found many of her projects to be super interesting, I wanted to focus on the myThread Pavilion, which was designed for Nike. I was drawn to this project by the video above, which goes into detail about the creative process and research conducted that lead to the final form. Through a series of creative workshops, her team wanted to make connections between physical activity and architecture. Using data from a workshop focused on exercise and movement, Sabin created personalized algorithms that translated the data into methods of weaving and creating pattern. These developed patterns and methods were then created at a large scale for the pavilion structure.

Sabin shown in front of myThread Pavilion

I think it is a really compelling project because of all the elements that went into creating it. It combines a mixture of branding, creative workshopping, computation, data physicalization and environments/architectural design. I am really inspired by both the creative process and the physical itself.

Link: http://www.jennysabin.com/mythread-pavilion

Jenny Sabin is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in architecture in the 21st century. Her practice often focuses on the intersection of architecture and science, pulling information from biology and mathematics to inform the structural possibilities of material. In addition to working at her firm, she is also a professor of architecture at Cornell.

Her education path is pretty interesting. She completed her undergrad at the University of Washington, getting degrees in ceramics and interdisciplinary visual art. She then went on to get her masters of architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. I think that its really interesting that she didnt begin studying architecture as an undergrad. She discovered this path after already starting a different one and has become very successful with a line of work she was really passionate about.

Overall, I find her practice and work to be super exciting and it is cool to see a blend of so many different mediums, styles and elements. Her work really reflects the pathways she has taken in order to create really amazing spaces.

Nawon Choi— Looking Outward 11

Landscape Abbreviated from Nova Jiang on Vimeo.

Nova Jiang is a Chinese artist who creates interactive works that encourage new forms of participation from the audience. She received her Master’s in Fine Arts in media arts at UCLA. She currently works in Los Angeles.

I chose to write about her project called “Landscape Abbreviated” (video above). In this project, she collected live moss from walls and cracks from around New York City to create a unique type of garden. She designed the space to create interventions using a software that continuously generates a new maze patterns based on mathematical rules. The arms rotate to form new pathways and block others. She intended to encourage viewers to change directions and viewpoints as they move throughout the space, not necessarily to trap them.

I thought this was a really interesting piece because of the way she collected live materials from around the city to create a shifting garden. I think it would have been cooler to have interactive features, and not just be an independently running program.

Min Ji Kim Kim – Looking Outwards – 11

Minicade, created by Chloe Varelidi, is essentially a mobile web-app built in JavaScript that allows you to play mini-games with your friends. I admire Varelidi’s work because it’s not only fun and interactive, but it also teaches one how to code their own mini-games, making learning fun. This could appeal to different age ranges, from young children learning how to code, to older people who want to make more complex games.

Chloe Varelidi received her Masters in Fine Arts at Parsons’ Design and Technology Program. She worked in game design studios and multiple organizations that mostly focus on incorporating play with human learning, such as Mozilla and littleBits where she created Minicade. She recently founded Humans Who Play, which is an organization that strives to use play to bring a positive impact on learning, especially in children. She currently resides in Washington D.C which is where Humans Who Play is also located at.

You can see more of her work here.

Chelsea Fan-Looking Outward 11

Molmol documents stories through media, moving images, robotics, kinetics and interactive sculptures. Molmol received an M.P.S at the Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU and a B.A. at Communication Arts in Taiwan. She also spent a year interviewing an isolated leprosy community in Taiwan. She recently has been focusing on producing media work to create social impacts. For example, she create a film on homelessness, youth, and social justice called Treasure Hill.

Looking at her Treasure Hill film, I really admire that she is creating interesting films not just for art, but for a cause. I really admire this because her films touch important topics that are difficult for people to talk about. Because of this, it can bring more awareness to these issues.

Molmol’s projects do not involve the creation of a custom software.

Molmol Treasure Hill Film (2006).

Nadia Susanto – Looking Outwards – 11

Chloe Varelidi is an indie game designer/developer that designs and builds playful products that empowers humans to be creative, kind, and curious.

One of her projects was the Minicade, and this was a collaboration with Atul Varma for her artist residency at Eyebeam. The Minicade is a website and app where people can collaboratively build mini arcade games with multiple users. Each person can add a link to one or more games to a custom playlist and instantly play them as one massive game, that keeps track of score and increases the difficulty. Its very simple to use and users can either play the games already provided or remix the mini-game with their own code. While the Minicade is mostly used by kids to encourage them to learn the basics of programming, it is fun for everyone to use.

The use of mini-games itself reminds me of mini-games in popular apps like Dumb Ways to Die, and it adds a cool competitive aspect for kids to interact with each other by building games they did themselves.

The Minicade also has a creative external feature looking like an emoji come to life

To learn more about this project, click the links below:

http://www.minica.de/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wnpj3b/provoking-participation-through-art-at-eyebeams-2015-annual-showcase