Category: SectionA

Panoramical, a generative video game created by Fernando Ramallo and David Kanaga responds to the player’s movements to create an audiovisual experience that combines the worlds of both music and art. The game’s psychedelic experience gives nods to virtual reality and is mostly used now by DJ’s at music sets. Not only is this video game visually beautiful, but it is admirable for the endless mediums it can be used for. Music is often a personal experience for the consumer, so Panoramical pairs well with concerts, studying, virtual and augmented reality, or even something to just play around and get mesmerized in. It’s assumed that the algorithm relies on user touch interface to randomly generate different patterns for the visual element, and different rhythms and beats for the musical element. Ramallo wants the heart of the experience to be the multiple sensory abilities that can be created within the game. One can get absolutely lost in this interface, and a very personal element arises as the user creates an experience tailored for themselves, by themselves.

The project I’m choosing is Michael Hansmeyer’s Zauberflöte(2018), which is a stage design for Mozart’s Magic Flute.  In my previous research about Hnsmeyer’s architectural design, I admire how he focused more on the process of generating design and the visual impact. And for this stage design specifically, Hansmeyer used the computer to generate countless details and constellations, which makes astonishing visual effects for the audience. The visual impact helps the audience directly sense the stage atmosphere. With the cooperation of actors, the audience will be able to gain novel spacial feelings about the show, using their own imagination to dig into the deeper core of the opera’s philosophical part.

Moving on to the algorithm that generated the work, Hansmeyer said that they “seek to create an architecture that defies classification and reductionism”. The algorithm runs continuously and forms a constant and holistic shape. The computer algorithm plays a major role in the design: with the organization of designers, the computer can bring some of the expected effects, while also bringing unexpected results with its own permutation.

here is a link: https://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/zauberfloete

    The project I admired the most about is the ” algorithmic modulations” by Manfred Mohr. It’s a projection of a rotating 12-D hypercube onto a 2-D surface with thin black lines in the center that changes upon the movement of the quadrilaterals to provide visual impact.

    I was first attracted because I thought the shapes of cubes looked like the shape of a human with different movements. As I watched the animated version, I was impressed by the beauty of images created by the randoms of rotating quadrilaterals. The randomness of the quadrilaterals was impressive not only for its excitement for unknown changes of the image, but also for a pattern due to the rotation of the 12-D hypercube that there are rules in the randomness.

    The work was generated by the algorithm with random transparency and random 3 colors for the quadrilaterals . The code was also created with blacks lines that extend to negative x-values with different thickness to create a visual effect of reflection of different black lines.

    The creator’s artistic sensibilities were demonstrated in the randomness that created by the rotation 12-D hypercube and the dynamicness of colors and transparency of the image.

Link: Manfred Mohr, algorithmic modulations, P2610, animation example, 2019 (emohr.com)

Goerge Michael Brower – Staggering Beauty

Regarding this project, I really admire its comedic nature as the rapid moving of the worm causes a spastic response with tiled images of explosions flashing very colorfully. It completely violates all contextual expectations of the silly-looking worm and the majestic-sounding website/project name. The worm seamlessly follows where your mouse goes, and there’s a threshold of moving it around enough that it will start generating an absurd amount of colors and images that flash really fast at the user. I actually decided to do this because I was looking at Leander Herzog’s work first, and it really reminded me of this nostalgic viral phenom that is the Staggering Beauty.
I mean, the code for this algorithm can probably be figured out or reverse-engineered pretty easily in theory. Since it is known as a javascript demo, I can definitely conceive of it in p5.js. The shape of the worm flowing is probably the most difficult part, but generally moving with your mouse is using the mouseX and mouseY variables with whatever makes up the shape of the worm. It also hits the walls, so there are bounds involved. Lastly, I don’t know how specifically the algorithm measures the speed at which the user is moving their mouse, but a certain surpassing of a set threshold with an if statement allows for all the flashing colors and images to appear rapidly according to your mouse speed after breaking that threshold.

The artist’s sensibilities just really come alive in this piece by how animated this little guy is. The worm is so minimalistic, but it plays into its weirdly cute and nonchalant nature as its eyes blink intermittently as well. The fact that you can see the dynamic animation of its eyes getting bigger and an “x-ray” look of its simplistic organs as if the worm is getting shocked in the cartoons is really just great, memorable, and deservingly viral.

http://www.staggeringbeauty.com/