Caroline Song – Looking Outwards-02

Mitchell Whitelaw specializes in creating generative systems, as well as data-aesthetics. This specific project called Local Colour (made in June 2011), is made out of recycled vegetable boxes, that are both laser-cut and laminated into bowl forms such as the one below. After that, there is a network diagram graphic that is mounted onto the bowls by using a second generative process.

I find this project to be interesting because of its use of recycled vegetable boxes to create a bowl, which then showcases a network diagram. Network diagrams can visualize data from places such as social networks, biological systems, and etc. The network diagram being on a bowl is the part that intrigues me because this bridges together the scientific data that network diagrams have, with the artistic form it takes in the shape of a bowl.

I do not know much about the algorithm that generated the work, but I suppose that it took into account the specific curves and edges of the bowl in order to properly infuse the graphic into the form. I also suppose that the algorithm had to somehow take numerical data and translate it into a visual form in order to incorporate it into the bowl.

Whitelaw’s artistic sensibilities are shown in this algorithm very clearly. As I stated above, his algorithm had to take this precise, scientific data and turn it into a graphic that could be presented visually on the laser-cut vegetable boxes. The fact that the data had to go from numbers to graphics alone shows Whitelaw’s artistic side.