Looking Outwards – Jason Salavon

By Eamonn Burke

I found myself fascinated and inexplicably compelled to Jason Salavon’s Glassware Still Life. What initially grabbed my attention was how tangible the glass appeared with only manipulated light, and how texturally satisfying it seems. His artistic sensibility certainly came in for this, as well as so elegantly showing how the glasses morph into one another, and create recognizable intermediary glass designs in the process. 

On a deeper level, Salavon’s piece attracted me because it’s relatable – unlike many other generative pieces that depict complex and unfamiliar  systems. This piece shows how simple objects in our lives are simply variations of one another following a generative “code”. I admire that he was able to dissect one of these everyday systems and show it so clearly. 

I know that Salavon used custom software, but I would guess that the basic code involves stretching of parameters bounded by “if ” statements. These dictate when a glass stretches (ex. Height=height+1, If height=x -> width =width+1), by how much, and in what direction, while holding certain other dimensions constant. Again, his sensibility comes in knowing when to change which parameters to create interesting intermediary designs.