Looking Outwards 01

One piece of interactive computational art I interacted with that helped shape my interest in design more than anything else is the browser game by developer Orteil called Nested. When loaded, the program generates a universe via the creation of hundreds of folders titled “galaxy”. Clicking into one of these folders reveals more folders containing descriptions of solar systems, planets, and going further shows the life and geological forms on each one. When I was twelve, I spent recesses with some of my friends looking into the procedurally generated descriptions and translating them onto paper, drawing detailed creatures from just knowing their individual body parts. This type of computer generated art, with the extra steps of our own transitions of text to images. When I read about this class, I was reminded of Nested, and how it inspired me to create art with nothing more than randomly generated text. With the knowledge from this class, I want to take that idea further and learn to wed coding and art.