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!