hojicha – [OLD SEMESTER] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Looking Outwards-11

I read “How Artists Can Bridge the Digital Divide and Reimagine Humanity“, and the societal issue that was addressed was access and affordability of information and communication technologies (ICT). The article discussed the problem in filling the digital divide known as the “production gap” and how the majority of user-generated content is built from a small sector of ‘elites’. This highlights the importance of digital collaboration with digital artists through transdisciplinary educational initiative can become the solution to bringing these multiple divides.

I liked how the writer showcased numerous artist-led experiments in order to give a visual representation of these unique creators. For instance, I thought Victoria Vesna‘s hacked gaming technology to show the destructive power of noise pollution across oceans was a great example of STEAM artists utilizing their resources and knowledge to foster both a positive and sharable attitude for using digital media. Overall, I enjoyed educating myself on the significance of creating a sustainable and equitable digital society.

Looking Outwards-09

For this week’s blog, I wanted to highlight the accomplishments and work of Sougwen Chung, a Chinese-Canadian female identifying multidisciplinary artist who bases the majority of her art on the conversation between humans and machinery. She is a former researcher at MIT’s Media lab, and currently works in a London-based studio. A specific piece that I found uniquely interesting is her piece called “Omnia per Omnia”, in which the project reimagines the traditional art of landscape painting as a collaboration between an artist, a robotic swarm, and the dynamic flow of a city. Chung creates these beautiful and intriguing artworks through the collaboration of ‘Doug’, her robotic arm that paints, powered by artificial intelligence. Chung uses the arm alongside other robots in her artworks, working together in a sort of dance. I admire the creativity and nuance approach Chung utilizes throughout her art pieces, each project more unique and meaningful than the other.

Looking Outwards-08

Sara Schnadt is an artist who also works in a variety of different fields mainly as a UX designer and software systems architect. She is currently a designer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is mostly focusing on software human interface design and different types of system architecture for machine learning for the Europa Clipper mission.

Schnadt’s
“Visualizing the idea that we simultaneously live in a real and virtual world, and that the virtual is infinitely expansive”

Personally, I was very intrigued by her work primarily because of the perspective, scale, and ambitious nature of the projects she creates and is heavily involved in. Sara Schnadt talks about how her work in NASA inspires the majority of her installation works and vice versa because she finds numerous similarities between the creative processes of both practices. Schnadt also discusses that although space projects involve an abundance of technological skills and an engineering mindset,
the projects should also be thought of as also creative projects and design problems, which opens up endless possibilities and complexities.

Looking Outwards-07

Wind Map is a living portrait of the wind currents over the U.S., where it conveys the movement of the air through visual motion. The creators, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, wanted the artwork to reflect the real-world and how its “emotional meaning” changes on a daily basis. For instance, on calmer days with little to no wind, it can can represent the “soothing mediation” of the environment, whereas days that are more rampant (e.g. hurricanes) the visuals are much more sporadic and ominous. I can see how the artists’ creative sensibilities have manifested into their work as they have used their project for artistic exploration within dramatic patterns and delicate tracery of wind, combining weather elements and art together.

The two artists created this work through surface wind data collection of the National Digital Forecast Database, which are near-term forecasts revised once per hour. Further, the technique is implemented entirely in HTML and JavaScript, which is another facet of what I like about the piece because it is what we are learning right now!

Looking Outwards-06

I browsed through various articles showcasing beautiful randomized computational art, but the artwork that I found the most unique was Rami Hammour’s “A Text of Random Meanings“.

“A Text of Random Meanings” by Rami Hammour

Hammour is an architectural designer based in Brooklyn, NY and has garnered his artistic attention through his sporadic, yet structured artworks. For this piece in particular, I admire the randomized bars and lines that look like a collection of mazes, or a labyrinth. Hammour creates this effect using a random number generator to visually create 18 lines of a “Registers and Taps” coupled with python scripts. The drawing comparing three different registers of 9, 11, and 13. I can see how Hammour’s artistic sensibilities manifest into this randomly simulated artwork because he aims to create random yet systematic pieces, and blend both the natural randomness of mathematics with artistic mapping.

Looking Outwards-05

Antoni Tudisco is a creative director and 3D visual artist based in Hamburg, Germany. The artist has garnered attention from brands like Nike and MTV through his unique and surreal 3D artwork that blends streetwear and futuristic elements. He also has hopped on to the NFT and Metaverse trend, selling artwork valued at roughly $5 million.

Tudsico utilizes Photofiltre (a freeware) and Gimp. Alongside these softwares, he combines Zbrush, Cinema 4D, and 3D renders of the human form with simulations of smoke, fur, and organic forms to create his portraits. I can definitely see Tudisco’s personal style in his work, and how he translates his interest in streetwear fashion into his artwork to create pieces adored by other streetwear lovers. Not just by me, but Kanye West, Post Malone, and Frank Ocean have all applauded Tudisco’s cinematic and conetemporary hip-hop 3D art.

Looking Outwards-04

Since starting to research different computational artists for future blog posts, I have been amazed by the flexibility and application of coding software to art. This week’s topic, Sound Art, has led me to the discovery of Renick Bell, an American musician, programmer, and teacher based in Tokyo. Bell is famous for his live coded music performances, which have become a recent phenomenon in the underground electronic music scene known as ‘Algorave’.

Bell first used SuperCollider, a programming platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition, to create some applications which produced generative music. He realized he didn’t need the graphical part of interface, and began to focus more on the manipulation of symbols, creating abstractions. Bell started live coding with his self-built live coding system ‘Conductive‘, following a pattern of 130 to 160 bpm. I can see Bell’s artistic sensibilities manifest into his work because he creates a utopian and complex experience through his design, contextual symbols, and storytelling.

I admire Renick Bell’s live coding algorave performance at Algorave Tokyo in 2016. I’m amazed at how fast he is able to code, and also orchestrate the code on its own in order to a literal concert (which I wouldn’t mind attending). Bell has truly created a trans-disciplinary tool for innovative collaborative live coding.

Looking Outwards-03

If you have read my first blog post, you will remember that I am an advocate for fashion design, especially if the usage of advanced technology are involved. Through this class, I have been able to discover a variety of different computational design artists. In this blog, I would like to highlight Nervous System‘s famous and innovative 3D printed Kinematic fabric dress, which has been featured in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Nervous System has created their first dress using Kinematics, a unique 3D printing system that creates complex, flexible forms of articulated modules. They first use WebGL, a JavaScript API for rendering 2D and 3D graphics, to write computer programs based on processes and patterns inspired by nature. The team also uses 3D scanning and a physics simulation to fold a piece of fabric into the machine for fabrication, and later is printed with SLS technology. The idea is that once the fabric piece is removed from the machine, it can unfold into a dress.

Kinematics Dress in motion

I greatly admire the intricate detail and the thousands of unique interlocking elements that were incorporated into the dress. I believe it showcases the future of both sustainably made garments and fashion in general, with digital fabrication making any designer’s wildest ideas come true. Nervous System mainly draws inspiration from natural phenomena, and I can see how they implement the complexities of nature in their designs. Their design platform pushes fashion and computational fabrication in a way where they are able to express and customize their concepts with CAD software and 3D printing to create evolutional and affordable wearable art.

Project-02

Here is my changing face! I think I struggled the most with deciding what nostril shape I wanted, as well as whether I wanted the eyebrows to be downturned (making them angry) or flat. I decided on flat, so that the face could smile.

sketch

// Amanda Wen Section C

var eyeSizeW = 50
var eyeSizeH = 70
var pupilSizeW = 20
var pupilSizeH = 30
var faceWidth = 180
var faceHeight = 150
var noseWidth = 5
var noseHeight = 3
var eyebrowWidth = 30
var eyebrowHeight = 10

var skinR = 60
var skinG = 137
var skinB = 97

var eyeR = 144
var eyeG = 185
var eyeB = 147

var pupilR = 34
var pupilG = 83
var pupilB = 75

var eyebrowR = 22
var eyebrowG = 59
var eyebrowB = 34

var noseR = 22
var noseG = 59
var noseB = 34

var mouthR = 186
var mouthG = 202
var mouthB = 181


function setup() {
    createCanvas(640, 480);
    background(255);
    text("p5.js vers 0.9.0 test.", 10, 15);
}

function draw() {
    background(58, 81, 78); // background color
    noStroke();
// face
    fill(skinR, skinG, skinB); // face color
    ellipse(width / 2, height / 2, faceWidth, faceHeight); // face shape

// eyeballs
    var eyeLX = width / 2 - faceWidth * 0.25;
    var eyeRX = width / 2 + faceWidth * 0.25;
    fill(eyeR, eyeG, eyeB); // eye color
    ellipse(eyeLX, height / 2, eyeSizeW, eyeSizeH); // left eyeball
    ellipse(eyeRX, height / 2, eyeSizeW, eyeSizeH); // right eyeball

// pupils
    var pupilLX = width / 2 - faceWidth * 0.25;
    var pupilRX = width / 2 + faceWidth * 0.25;
    fill(pupilR, pupilG, pupilB); // pupil color
    ellipse(pupilLX, height / 2, pupilSizeW, pupilSizeH); // left pupil
    ellipse(pupilRX, height / 2, pupilSizeW, pupilSizeH); // right pupil

// eyebrows
    var eyebrowLX = width / 2 - faceWidth * 0.35;
    var eyebrowRX = width / 2 + faceWidth * 0.2;
    fill(eyebrowR, eyebrowG, eyebrowB); // eyebrow color
    rect(eyebrowLX, height / 2.5, eyebrowWidth, eyebrowHeight); // left eyebrow
    rect(eyebrowRX, height / 2.5, eyebrowWidth, eyebrowHeight); // right eyebrow

// nostrils
    var noseLX = width / 2 - faceWidth * 0.05;
    var noseRX = width / 2 + faceWidth* 0.03;
    fill(noseR, noseG, noseB); // nose color
    rect(noseLX, height / 1.8, noseWidth, noseHeight) // left nostril
    rect(noseRX, height / 1.8, noseWidth, noseHeight) // left nostril

// mouth
    var mouth = width / 2 + faceWidth * 0.01;
    fill(mouthR, mouthG, mouthB); // mouth color
    arc(mouth, height * 0.6, 40, 20, radians(0), radians(180)); // mouth shape
}

function mousePressed() {
    // face shape random
    faceWidth = random(180, 150)
    faceHeight = random(180, 150)
    // eye shape random
    eyeSizeW = random(50, 70);
    eyeSizeH = random(50, 70);
    // pupil shaperandom
    pupilSizeH = random(20, 30);
    pupilSizeW = random(20, 30);

    // skin color random
    skinR = random(180, 200);
    skinG = random(180, 200);
    skinB = random(180, 200);
    // eye color random
    eyeR = random(100, 160);
    eyeG = random(100, 160);
    eyeB = random(100, 160);
    // pupil color random
    pupilR = random(108, 90);
    pupilG = random(108, 90);
    pupilB = random(108, 90);
    // eyebrow color random
    eyebrowR = random(110, 103);
    eyebrowG = random(110, 103);
    eyebrowB = random(110, 103);
    // nose color random
    noseR = random(130, 200);
    noseG = random(130, 200);
    noseB = random(130, 200);
    // mouth color
    mouthR = random(120, 100);
    mouthG = random(120, 100);
    mouthB = random(120, 100);
}

Looking Outwards-02

Music has always been a large aspect of my life, as my daily routine essentially revolves around it. Whether I’m getting ready in the morning, studying, or cooking, there’s always some kind of playlist being played. After perusing through a variety of generative art creators, I discovered an artist that also shared a love for music.

Toni Mitjanit is well known for their ‘Spaghetti Coder’, a project that has a complex and tangled control structure that creates rhythm through motion and sound. I admire the blend Mitjanit created between art and mathematics, and their goal of modeling nature’s appearance, motion, and sound. The interesting variations of Mitjanit’s coded designs give off a sensual and “vibey” feel when you watch them on top of music, and I can definitely see them being played at festivals or concerts.

AAAC (An Autonomous Agent Coder) from Spaghetti Coder on Vimeo

Mitjanit uses a combination of different mathematical tools (i.e. trigonometry, calculus, matrices, etc.) with programming languages like C++, Java, Processing, and openFrameworks in order to generate these unique visuals. If Mitjanit wants to include an user interaction aspect to their artwork, they also utilize communication hardware like MIDI, OSC, or DMX protocols. I think my favorite usage of programming and media that Mitjanit used was using fractal brownian noise as texture a piece involving for geometric lines and patterns.

Mitjanit’s artistic sensibilities can be clearly seen throughout their algorithm, the play between mathematics and physics coupled with their creative nature-centered concepts are a work of art, and a step forward in the mix between modernization and appreciation for our environment.