SectionD – Page 3 – [OLD SEMESTER] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

project 9: computational portrait

i made a computational portrait using perlin noise to randomly draw lines until an image emerges. source image below

// isis berymon section D
//using perlin noise to randomly generate lines
//that over time create an image of my face

var isis; // portrait
var xstep = 0.0; //noise step vars
var ystep = 0.0;
var x1 = 200; //line vars
var y1 = 200;
var x2;
var y2;

//preload image
function preload(){
   isis = loadImage("https://i.imgur.com/gspKB1I.jpg");
}


function drawLine(){ //draws continuous line over canvas
    //randomly generate line path
    x2 = map(noise(xstep), 0, 1, -200, 600);
    y2 = map(noise(ystep), 0, 1, -200, 600);
    xstep += .08;
    ystep += .06;

    //use colors from portrait
    strokeWeight(2);
    stroke(isis.get(x2,y2));
    line(x1, y1, x2, y2);
    //make 2nd point 1st point and repeat
    x1 = x2;
    y1 = y2;
}

function setup(){
    createCanvas(400, 400);
    background(50);
    frameRate(60);
}

function draw(){
    drawLine();
}

looking outwards 9

Text Rain

I chose Camille Utterback for this weeks looking outwards. She’s an american artist and mostly works in instilation and interactive art using computational and generative methods. She’s very interested in how the human body moves and gestures and how that motion can be translated into digital images. The work I looked at specifically was called text rain, which was an interactive projection of people in the exibit with text falling down onto their body like rain and resting. You can push them around and play with them, and it looked quite fun actually. I thought it was a great exploration of the human aspect of typography and text and how we can connect to something as lifeless as letters.

Project 09 – Project

The photo is a baby photo of myself, so I wanted to use really “primitive” shapes of squares, rhombuses, and circles (all regular shapes).

One of the most satisfying aspects of pointilist pieces is the process of it being made. I wanted this project to be interactive for the user, and really engage with the idea of “pointilism,” so the shapes are made where your mouse is on the canvas.

Additionally, if you press the mouse, you will invert the colors of the original photo, allowing for a “duality” of images being made on the same canvas.

sketch

//Aarnav Patel
//Section D
//Project

var shapeNum = 1;
var c = [];	//getPixel returns an array
var inverseColor = false;

function preload() {
	portrait = loadImage("https://i.imgur.com/aUtMs8f.png");
}

function setup() {
	createCanvas(480, 480);
	background(0);
	imageMode(CENTER);
	portrait.loadPixels();
}

function draw() {
  noStroke();

  var mX = constrain(mouseX, 0, portrait.width);	
  var mY = constrain(mouseY, 0, portrait.height);	//Constrain shapes to happen within canvas

  var x = floor(Math.floor(random(mX - 50, mX + 50)));
  var y = floor(Math.floor(random(mY - 50, mY + 50)));	//Creates "brush" radius of 50 
  c = portrait.get(x, y);

  if (inverseColor) {		//Inverses color by changing array valleus from portrait.get()
  	c[0] = 255 - c[0];
	c[1] = 255 - c[1];
	c[2] = 255 - c[2];
  }
  shapeNum = Math.floor(random(0, 2));	//Creates random indicator for whetehr its square or circle
  fill(c, 128);
  if (shapeNum == 0) {
  	ellipse(x, y, 20, 20);
  } else if (shapeNum == 1) {
  	push();					//Translate + rotate square about its center
  	translate(x, y);
  	rotate(radians(random(0, 360)));
  	rectMode(CENTER);
  	rect(0, 0, 20, 20);
  	pop();
  } 
}

function mousePressed() {
	inverseColor = !inverseColor;
}

Looking Outwards 9 – Emily Gobeille

One project that stood out to me was Emily Gobeille’s Night Bright. Andrea is the cofounder of Design I/O, which specializes in immersive spaces and interactions for museums to create new modes of learning and storytelling. Emily primarily studied motion, graphics, print, and game design, disciplines that all solidified her ability to reimagine how information can be conveyed within a space. Her focus on meaningful interactions is something that especially resonates with me, as I’m pursuing environments concentration in the School of Design, which looks at the same key concepts she focuses on of interaction and immersive hybrid spaces.

What’s especially interesting about Gobeille’s work, is her emphasis on children as an audience. Working with such an audience requires a lot of creativity on meaningful interactions – how do children interact with a space? What sparks curiosity within a child/encourages them to further interact with a space? Moreover, how can the content displayed be effectively used to immerse the child beyond just the “viewing” experience.

Website: http://zanyparade.com/
Night Bright Project: https://www.design-io.com/projects/nightbright

LO Week 09:

I looked at LIA, specifically their ‘ ProximityOfNeeds 20210428 ’ (2021) project that is now on auction at a curated NFT collection. I thought it was especially cool how they incorporated sound like we are learning in class, to match the visuals being created on screen. It’s quite a satisfying change in pitch as the shapes are being drawn and the control of them stopping in such a natural clunking way when the spirals come together is really nice too. I really like how the form of the shape in the different versions changes the tone and feel of the sound too.

LIA is a Software Art Company established in 1995 run by Lia who “focuses on the translation of certain experienced principles into abstract forms, movements, and colors in order to allow the viewer to explore the same on a subconscious level” (source: LIA About Page) which is a really fascinating way of thinking about how we experience the digital world and is something that is only going to be more relevant with the rise of AR/VR.

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

Andrea Crespo- Legion (2021)

I really admired the work of Andrea Crespo. Especially the Legions project. The artwork is a video based on school shootings in the US. The artwork can be disturbing to a few but I found it to be really interesting and an accurate representation of a tragic yet true reality. The artwork consists of a culmination of things such as basic sketches to single or two words that are really impactful,, it also has animated and blurred digital art which conveys the aftermath of the preamble before the shootings. In my opinion, the artwork is really impactful with all the presented elements. The artist herself is a US resident thus, her portrayal of this horrific issue is rather close to heart. Andrea was born in Miami, and has studied in Pratt institute, she currently lives in New York City. Andrea has been a part of numerous exhibitions, solo exhibitions and screenings and works with multiple mediums. She makes artworks on political and social issues which make her work very relatable and impactful for the general public.

Link

lo: non-men in computational art

One project from a woman artist that caught my eye a while ago is CAre BOt by Caroline Sinders. Sinders is an artist and designer who studies digital spaces and patterns and responds to them with her projects. CAre BOt is sort of an extension or spin-off of another one of her projects – the Social Media Breakup Coordinator – that addresses the irresponsible social media policies concerning harassment and abuse. The chatbot was given dialogue by Sinders that highlights the mistreatment of online victims, backed by her personal research of harassment on social media platforms. While interacting with CAre BOt, you can also learn a lot about that research and how social media sites are poorly designed systems. Many of her projects address system wide flaws in things and who they affect. Her artistic approach to data-driven research and issues allows users like me to learn about the data without being overwhelmed or even traumatized. It’s really interesting to me.

Looking Outwards 08

https://vimeo.com/channels/eyeo2019

For my Looking Outwards this Week I looked at the 2019 Lecture of the eyeo Festival (The Speaker being Adam Harvey). His previous work includes CV Dazzle (camouflage from face detection) and the anti-drone Burqa (camouflage from thermal cameras). I was interested in his work because I personally find face recognition kind of creepy. Personally I don’t use it on my phone, and I was interested to learn more. Adam Harvey breaks the face recognition tools by deconstructing them, and makes art, by constructing visuals on top of faces to make them unrecognizable. I learned to admire this project more as he talked about how easy it is for someone to use visual surveillance to watch you. His project is a rebellion against military or corporate use of surveillance and their abuse of face recognition.

Where do people get their data sets of people’s faces to study? Are these methods ethical?

This talk overall made me afraid for the future. I don’t want to get my face scanned and then analyzed and I’m sure other people don’t want to either. I would see surveillance through face recognition as a breach of my freedom. And if Microsoft included my face in a database I would not be exactly thrilled, even if I had just done something as simple as post to social media.

I am inspired by this talk because of the use of art and coding to be able to fight back or find out more about a very prevalent problem that needs to gain more recognition.

Looking outwards – 08

Alexander Chen

https://vimeo.com/channels/eyeo2017

Ths speaker is a musician and father and works at google. He talked a lot about how his children have influenced his work and the way he views music. His work mostly includes music and how we interact with it. He became fascinated by the way music works and was concieved. He made a ton of interactive visual instruments for people to use. He creates a very interesting interaction between graphic design, music theory and does it in a very “engineery” way. He analyzes music in a very technical way and I thought he was pretty unique.

Looking Outwards 08

Their name is Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz, they are an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and the co founder of the JustSpace Alliance, an organization focused on making learning about, studying, and the exploration of space a more equitable and “just” field.

Dr. Walkowicz is also an artist, and they have a pretty large range of art styles and media. I admire in particular the work which connects with their astronomical background, as when I was little I was obsessed with the stars and wanted desperately to know about them, the people who might live around them, and what their stories might be. That another artist has pondered these questions from the perspective of actual astrophysics is really cool!

They often use humor and comedy in their presentations, keeping everything relatively lighthearted even when talking about difficult or serious subjects. It helps maintain their flow and character.