LookingOutwards-09 – [OLD SEMESTER] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

LO9:A Focus on Women and Non-binary Practitioners in Computational Art

In this week’s Looking Outward, I picked Eva Schindling’s work called Liquid Sound Collision.

In this work project, Eva shows a simulation of sound wave’s collision with the property of water waves. She initials the simulation with a cylinder, and the on the two ends of the cylinder, she started to implement sound on the surface. These sound waves expands like actual waves, and as they collide in the middle, the whole shape of the cyliner start to twist and change. There are a lot of uncertainty in the shape of the cylinder, as the sound waves have various shapes. Eva refers these shapes as a tension resulted from confrontations of body and mind, chaos and order, and simplicity and complexity. She uses this simulation into sculptures and other art works.

I think this is a very useful and meaningful exploration in visualizing abstract ideas. We usually talk about conflict, confrontation, and tension between relationships, but it’s very hard to actually see these ideas. But this simulation makes people feel these confrontations.

Eva is a female artist that explores technology, computation, and design. She visualizes a lot of abstract ideas such as higher dimensions into something that we can feel and understand.

http://www.evsc.net/home/liquid-sound-collision

Looking Outwards-09

One project I found when looking at all the amazing female computer artists was called “Another Moon” by Mimi Son. This was in development since 2015 as an outdoor art exhibition with lasers, code, solar panels, and other elements. It creates “a technically sublime second moon in the sky.” It was made using scanning mirror laser projectors, which were protected from weather during the day as it gained energy from the solar panels to be released through the laser into the sky again at night. I admire this work because it’s very energy efficient while also spectacularly beautiful to behold – I think the use of the lasers is innovative and breathtaking, and I appreciate the thought and care that went into it. The artist, Mimi Son, is the founder of the Seoul-based art studio called Kimchi and Chips, which this exhibition was also a part of. She has a special interest in geometry and Buddhist philosophy, which allows her to use space and time to form various perspectives. Her area of expertise is Conceptualization & Interaction Design, which she studied at the Landsdown Center of Middlesex University in London. She’s also been a teacher of Interactive Storytelling in Korea for six years.

Watch “Another Moon” here.

Read about “Another Moon” here.

LO 09: Women in Computational Art

I looked at the project A Global Retail Interactive for the brand On Running by Vera-Maria Glahn. Glahn is a digital artist who combines data art and immersive experiences to create immersive storytelling. This project is a digital wall of gradient colors with motion sensors that tracks the movement of people in front of it. I think this is a smart design for a running store because it allows interaction between the product of the store and the artistic installation design of the walls. The customer can try on the shoes and run across the wall and the wall would respond to the movement and create a biomechanical profile of their movement, resulting in digital art. When the customers return after their purchase they can run again and the digital wall can show how the shoe can improve their performance. This system is composed of multiple motion sensors that capture the running motion from 3 angles. I find it inspiring how digital programming can create a system that can both be useful to track and compare running data and create artistic art.

Link https://field.systems/work/on-running-try-on-global-retail-interactive

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

Sinew Flex is a responsive installation by architect Jenny Sabin. Jenny Sabin is an architect using a computational techniques to create experimental form, bringing new perspectives to ways we see structures around us. She studied interdisciplinary visual art for bachelors and architecture for masters degree. Since she specializes in adaptive architecture, material computation, and biomimicry, most of her works contain bioinspired design created through knitting of responsive fibres. Similarly, Sinew Flex, a 2 story double canopy structure connected with a central bifurcated tubular form, is mathematically generated and activated by digital knitting process and light.The responsive fibres used in the structure change color and glow in response to an integrated lighting system and changing programs. She employs artificial intelligence to translate the data from environment into an immersive and interactive light and color. Also, the inhabitable structure provides various points of engagement; transformational views when audience descends the stairs, pause, productivity, and reflection at the base of the sculpture. I admire how she breaks down the barriers of disciplines and create a integrated work of engineering, architecture, biology, and mathematics. Especially, how she branches “knitting” into structural and architectural applications is very creative and compelling as it’s not a common material used in architecture.

https://www.jennysabin.com/sinewflex

Looking Outwards – 09

I admire the project Active Ecosystem (SMF) by Camille Utterback and Michelle Higa Fox created in 2011 for Sacramento International Airport’s ticketing hall. I like how it continues the surrounding structure’s idea of “bringing the outside in”. It shows the interest of its maker in its inspiration: the “cycles of growth, movement, and decay in the natural agricultural environment or Sacramento”. The piece changes in response to multiple factors including the elevator that it surrounds, the time of day, and seasons. The piece combines hand drawn animations and dynamic calculations to generate the movement of growing or moving. It embodies the Utterback’s goal of creating physical-digital stems that engage surrounding and people’s bodies instead of just grasping attention of passerbyers. Camille Utterback is an artist with a focus on digital and interactive art. She explores possibilities of linking computational systems to human movement and physicality in many ways. Utterback combines sensing and display technology with custom software. She has a BA from Williams College and an MPS degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program from New York University.

Active Ecosystem (SMF) | Camille Utterback

Camille Utterback and Michelle Higa Fox piece for Sacramento International Airport. The animations change based on its surrounds, the time of day, and seasons. When the seasons or outside conditions change the type of fish changes and in the spring there is drifting pollen instead of fall’s falling leaves.

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

Caroline Record’s Falling OBJs was such a delightful treat to look at. With her use of random, oscillating lines that transform the perceived object into something else entirely, as well as the colors utilized to portray a clash of normality and chaos, she showcases her artistic and coding skills in an intersection of art and technology. Within each piece, she utilizes motion, as well, to create a sense of dissolving and forming. Record is a developer and artist that focuses primarily on writing the software to bring her installations to life. She has a background in fine arts, programming, and user-interaction design, having studied it at Carnegie Mellon University. She is currently focused on creating more digital, interactive works to be displayed in museums. She has also contributed to projects such as Popbox, which studied childhood obesity and the pressures and constraints that lead the children to their unhealthy weight gain.

Her website here

Bhaboo’s Looking Outwards – Week 9

I really enjoyed looking into this week’s “looking outwards” because the work women and non-binary people are doing around the world is INCREDIBLE. After looking through a lot of the work of these people, I decided to look more into Chloe Vardlidi who loves “designing and building playful products that empower humans to be creative, kind and curious about the world around them.”

A project she worked on, “The Littlebits Codekit + App” caught my eye quickly on their website because it helps teachers teach younger children by engaging them with fun games and cool entertainment. Using this kit, paired with the app, kids can create games and make inventions like a keytar instrument, hot potato, or button master. I find it really cool that Chloe was able to partner up with the company Sphero to work on a project of these level.

Link to Chloe’s Website
Link to the Project

Looking Outwords:09

The Horticultural Spa is a spa for plants and people. It is part greenhouse and part “pneumatic bubble”. The purpose it to create a place for people to breathe and connect. I chose Rachel Wingfield as she has experience with large-scale architecture which is something I am also interested in. In this space, she transforms this public garden in order to tell her story about water scarcity and how innovative technologies can start to be redeveloped to reduce consumption. Meditative practices are also used in the spa and certain soundtracks generate music as well. I like how she tries to merge biological and technological futures through her work especially at an urban scale.

link

Looking Outwards 09- Section A

I was inspired by the work of Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat. I specifically was intrigued by the Musical Swings project. I like how it is interactive and different notes are played based on the swing. I have always loved swings and so I think it would be so fun to go to one of these swings. Not only are the swings fun but they create a lively atmosphere for the surrounding area.

Additionally, I really like how the swings create a musical composition when they are moving together. It is cool how, when people swing in sync, more complex melodies are triggered; so when people are swinging together, the music sounds nicer.

As mentioned before, there are two creators. Andraos recieved a Master’s degree from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and a Bachelor degree from Concordia University. Mongiat has a Master’s degree in Creative Practice for Narrative Environments from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, UK.

Both women now work at Daily tous les jours where they make these interactive art pieces.

Here is the link to their work:

Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat, 2011, Musical Swings.

momol kuo – drink up fountain

Molmol Kuo is an artist and educator whose interests range from experimental film and AR to storytelling and collective memory. The Drink Up Fountain, created in partnership with creative agencies, is my favorite project she’s worked on. This is a public water fountain that spouts out entertaining prerecorded greetings and compliments when a water drinker sips from it (creating a circuit that is broken when the drinker pulls away). This goofy fountain brings so much joy to unsuspecting people in an otherwise fairly typical urban setting and creates collective memories shared by all that engage with the public fountain.

the drink up fountain – a compilation of people’s first reactions

This appreciation of joy, discovery, and sharing is found across Molmol’s work. During lockdown, she created “The Care Package”, a recipe of sorts that gave people a daily photography project that she would compile, overlay, and gift as a single print. One of her neon works combines the physical neon rods with an animated projection that seems to react to the physical rods like cars piling up on a road.