Category: LookingOutwards-09

Practitioners in Computational Art: Höweler + Yoon

http://www.howeleryoon.com/work/

Memorial photo from above
Perspective changes form

When looking for an artist, I came across Höweler + Yoon. They are more of a team of people rather than just one person and their work. I was interested in their work because it looks very futuristic or otherworldly. Their architecture reminded me of many dystopian films. One particular work that interests me is the Collier Memorial in Cambridge, MA. The structure makes a star/hand shape out of blocks of granite. Its form was helped with new digital fabrication and structural computation technologies. In my research, I think this is the largest structure I have seen that used computation. Höweler + Yoon is an architecture practice and creative studio with some 20 workers spanning from architects, designers, and researchers. It seems that the company does not rely on computation to create their designs, but a lot of their architecture and shape reminds me of the randomness used to create images and animations when coding.

Shapes of Models Remind Me of Computation

Looking Outwards 09: A Focus on Women and Non-binary Practitioners in Computational Art

Demonstration of all the possible transformations of “Augmented Hand Series”

The “Augmented Hand Series” is a real-time interactive software system that presents playful transformations of participants’ hands. The project was developed in 2013-2014 by Chris Sugrue, Golan Levin, and Kyle McDonald. Chris Sugrue, currently based in Paris, is an artist and programmer developing interactive installations, audio-visual performances, and experimental interfaces. She received her Masters degree in Fine Arts in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design. Since then, she worked as a creative engineer, a lead developer, and also as a teaching artist. She enjoys experimenting with technology in playful and curious ways. The “Augmented Hand Series” is one great example. The project is presented as a box that allows visitors to insert their hands, then a screen will display a “reimagined” version of their hand. For instance, there may be an extra finger on their hand or a finger is relocated to the other side of the palm. I find this project to be extremely interesting because it provides such a dynamic and fun way for visitors to interact with the software. The resulting behavior of the displayed hand depends on both the visitor and the algorithm. I really admire that dynamic aspect of this series.

How the visitors interact with the project

Looking Outwards 09: A Focus on Women and Non-binary Practitioners in Computational Art

A permanent art installation created in 2012, Assembly is built of acrylic blocks and steel combined with digital emulsion. 5,500 blocks hang in the air, while digital light is projected onto their faces. This allows the spectator to study “a boundary line between digital and natural worlds, experiencing figurations of imaginary digital forms rendered into the limiting error-driven physical system.” The artist is trying to display how for the digital world to exit in the real world, it must bend to the rules of physical existence, while also gaining new possibilities. 

Assembly was produced by Kimchi and Chips, a Seoul based art studio founded by Mimi Son and Elliot Woods in 2009. They use a research based approach, especially with volumetric images in fog and 3D projection onto non-design forms.

For Assembly, the production staff are Minjae Kim and Minjae Park. The mathematicians are Daniel Tang and Chris Coleman-Smith. 

What drew me to this project is how it combines such rigid, physical objects with something as malleable and inconstant as digital light. Until recently, artwork has been restricted to one medium, or groups of similar media. With recent development of so much digital technology, artists have countless more options. Technology is also at the point where combining vastly different mediums is relatively accessible for the average artist, which will allow art to constantly evolve and expand in its possibilities.