Category: LookingOutwards-02

blog 02

Screen shot from n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com

Section D 

Evette LaComb

Nervous System – Jessica Rosenkrantz

  • Regarding the project, what do you admire about it, and why do you admire these aspects of it?
    • The company states they are, “a generative design studio that works at the intersection of science, art and technology”. They have several concepts highlighted on their site, but many utilize an interactive program to create one of a kind jewelry pieces for the customers. The first item I looked at was a custom earring made out of a honeycomb structure. The program allowed me to choose the outline of the cells, divide the cells, as well as apply “forces” that swirled and manipulated the cells further. What I admire most is how they allow the customer to have a creative hand in the final product they are receiving. The concept not only spreads the work of the creator, Jessica Rosenkrantz, or that of  the program alone, but the interaction between the three.
  • What do you know (or what do you suppose) about the algorithm that generated the work?
    • I would guess the program I interacted with used a visual generation system. The forces probably manipulated the arks and positions of the visual features to some mathematical formula. The Interface interacted with the human to change variables in the code that displayed the final product generated on the side display.  
  • In what ways are the creator’s artistic sensibilities manifest in their algorithm?
    • Jessica Rosenkrantz, is credited as the founder. From looking at the work on the site, I think there’s a clear inspiration from the interaction of computational and organic creation. The designs are based on grid systems that end up looking almost like a ptree dish, or growing plant. In particular one of their projects was originally developed to simulate the generation of veins in leaves, and later became a tool for art.

https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/sets/networks/

pliii – Tina Frank

‘pliii’ by Tina Frank is a project dedicated to her late friend, musician and collaborating artist Peter Rehberg. It is a continuation of the project they published together in 1996 titled ‘iii’. To create the images for this work, Frank recorded the on and off flicker of an LED lamp, then processed the recordings using various methods. After isolating the central visuals, she altered speed, frame, and color to create the movement that we see on screen.

I suppose what I admire most about the project is that she has taken something so mundane and turned it into a complex and dynamic work of art. I also appreciate Frank’s continued emphasis on the interaction between sound (which, in this project, includes high frequency waves from the same LED lamp) and visuals. It is clear that Frank is in tune with that which cannot be immediately seen or heard, and this makes her art-style distinct. Rather than being led by common aesthetics, she has built an artistic voice out of experiences that the majority of us cannot easily access.

[flash warning]

pliii (Trailer) from Tina Frank on Vimeo.

(above image sourced from sixpackfilm.com)

Alex Dragulescu’s “Real Body Meets Data Body”

Alexia Forsyth

“Real Body Meets Data Body” is part of Dragulescu’s Data Ghosts series. This painting, like others in this series, is created through software development creating a visual array of dots. The picture itself shows a person walking through what appears to be an obstacle course with a weapon in their hands. I really admire the message behind the piece: the shifting relationship between man and technology. He raises questions concerning technological addictions and ethics. I also appreciate how it harmonizes with the other pieces in his Data Ghosts series.

The artist does not go into specifics on what program they used to develop the art, only saying: “ His projects bridge multiple computational domains including information visualization, social media design, and computer games…” (Dragulescu). The program looks to have specific lines to develop the relative shape and then a command to fill in between spaces randomly with a certain number of dots. I assume he utilized functions like “random()”. Dragulescu’s artistry appears in the unique shapes he computes and his mastery over three-dimensional computation.

Link: https://www.archivebay.com/site/sq.ro–2020-05-17__13-15-46–759493

Looking Outwards 02: Generative Art

The project “The Orbitals (Variation B)” by Jared Tarbell is about a collection of particles operating on one simple rule: choose another particle in the system and orbit it with a fixed radius at a constant velocity. In this variation, a single root particle is instantiated in the center of the stage. All other particles introduced to the system fall into orbit at some level. I admire how the creator manipulates the work by finely crafting the semantics of each program. The results look random but organized, messy but beautiful. Tarbell creates his images by programming Java applets or Flash ActionScripts to construct visual images based on algorithms. Java applets are used to provide interactive features to web applications and can be executed by browsers for many platforms. In an interview with Jason Bailey, Tarbell explained his perspective on the relationship between art and math, “you can break the world down into these very simple rules that interact on orders of magnitude beyond what we’re capable of imagining.” Tarbell is a programmer and an artist, and his beautiful works seem to have minds of their own.

The Orbitals ( Variation B) August 2004 J.Tarbell

Favour -Looking Outwards 02

This project by Michael Hansmeyer is called The White Tower, and is a 29-meter tall tower which is entirely 3D printed. Things I admire about the project apart from its monumentality, is how the patterns were coded to create a spatial atmosphere. I enjoy that the shape was generated by code, because you can see how perfect each pattern is, how incredibly symmetrical each pair of pillars are, as they wrap perfectly around the structure, forming different kaleidoscope-like patterns. The White Tower will be 3D printed using a concrete extrusion process. In this new-age fabrication process, a robot applies 5mm thin layers of soft concrete through a nozzle. For the design process, digital technologies are used. It is not mentioned what the specific software is called but it is a generative modeling software which likely runs with Python as language. Without custom software, precise geometrical definition would not be possible. Michael’s artistic abilities manifest through the types of patterns used and how many are used at a certain time. The scale of these patterns also impact the design, as well as how the architect planned the pillar placements, bevels and embellishments to create different types of pillars on one project.

The White Tower- render

Looking Outwards -02

Hannah Wyatt

I admire Luluixixix’s art pieces because they exude a sense of humanity and beauty, yet are entirely Ai-generated. The color palettes are vibrant, and contrast well with the subject matter, creating an abstract human-like form/gesture. LuluxxX is a generative artist and software developer specializing in vibrant, feminine works and controversial statement pieces. 

Transformative Work by LuluxxX
“Not Minted”

Luluixixix works as a CGI/3d artist in the Paris Visual Effects industry, and started experimenting with Artificial intelligence technology in 2015. Her art combines the “glitch and pixel sorting” aesthetics using optical flow analysis tools to capture motion and convert to moving footage.

The creator’s artistic sensibilities manifest through the use of several different algorithms with “infinite combinations” as she states on her website. She also notes her attention to color manipulation in this piece, applying the technique to her other projects. Luluixixix uses a cli workflow, final compositing with Gimp Linux, and lastly, she builds all her own tools using open-sourced and custom code

Link to her work and website

https://www.luluixixix.com/pixsort#!

Looking Outwards-02

Section A

Project Website:

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Vimeo Sample:

While looking through different generative artists, I came across the work of Aaron Koblin, who’s project “The Wilderness Downtown,” caught my eye immediately. The project involves using google street view, as well as google maps in general, to extract data which influences a short film based off of a particular city. From the different alterations displayed on his website, each of the short films are incredibly distinct and personal to the locations they are “set” in. This concept is absolutely fascinating to me, as growing up I always wanted to watch a movie set in my hometown, a sentiment I’m sure that many others felt. Now, with the technology that Koblin has created for us, this dream is starting to become a reality, albeit in small steps. Despite the short length of the film (somewhere around 30 seconds), simply seeing a single artistic representation of a personal location must be thrilling for us viewers. Although the locations of these short films are being produced from the data on a computer, they still give off the illusion that skilled artists have both visited and cared for our homes, enough to make a movie out of it.

LO: Generative Art

aDiatomea is a complex artificial life system produced by Markos R. Kay, a multidisciplinary artist focused on exploring biology and conducting a-life research through screen-based media & generative art. Fully generated with a mathematical equation capable of reproducing organic lifeforms, Kay’s microscopic organisms – also known as Diatoms – are injected with granular sound to act as their external force of life as they interact with the environment as well as one another. At its very core, aDiatomea is an evolutionary algorithm made up of particles placed randomly within 3 dimensions, each with a confining parameter that limits how far they can spread from their initial number. Driven by sound and randomness, the diatoms grow, evolve, and interact with the conditions of the environment, enabling the process that we know as artificial life.

Aside from being an (r)evolutionary artist, Markos Kay is a digital scientist and “genetic engineer.” His works are often beyond even the scope of both modern art and science. As a digital artist mesmerized by the integration of generative visual media with other fields of research, I am beyond envious of both Kay’s abilities as a programmer as well as his imagination as an artist.

https://www.mrkism.com/adiatomea.html

Markos R. Kay, aDiatomea, 2008