Category: Uncategorized

Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged according to the Law of Chance)

During World War 1, in Zurich Germany, artist Jean Hans Arp created a collage that uses a principle of randomness to dictate the artwork. The artwork, Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged according to the Law of Chance) interests me because it is a rare and good example of dadaist art. Dadaist art stems from the dada movement; a movement that promoted randomness, nonsense, and satire. The movement itself had been created in reaction to the horrific trauma of the war. Themes of authorship and control were associated with authoritarian and controlling powers, and thus the random and accidental nature of Dadaist art most likely reflects freedom, liberation, and choice. 

In this artwork, Arp demands for a movement of new art; thinking outside the box without intention. She tore up heavyweight fine art papers with torn fiber edges, held them up in air, and then released them, letting the pieces land on the ground wherever gravity and the surrounding atmosphere took it. Then, she would mark the spot that it landed on and accordingly paste the piece in that exact arrangement. 

The use of randomness in Arp’s artwork is an example of Real randomness. While tasks like flipping a coin may be martingale random, or functions like random(); may be pseudo random, dropping papers and letting them land wherever is real random as there is no provable sequence or range involved. However, a factor of the artwork that may take away from the randomness is that it likely had a canvas which the pieces needed to fall on. Thus, she probably only chose pieces which were within the range and bounds of the canvas.

For my abstract clock, I wanted to make the design very sophisticated yet modular so that it resembles the shape and form of that of a clock. I wanted to maintain the layered approach of the clock.

// Juhi Kedia 
// SEction D 
// jkedia@andrew.cmu.edu
//Project-06 

var x = [];
var y = [];
var r = 450;


function setup() {
    createCanvas(450, 450);
    background(220);
    for(var i = 1; i<60; i++){ // initializing 60 circles 
        x.push(i*7.5);
        y.push(i*7.5);

  }    
}

function draw() {
    background (220);
    fill(255);
    strokeWeight(1);
    push();
    translate(width/2, height/2); // draing the main circle 
    ellipse(0,0, r,r);
    pop();
    push();
    translate(r/2, r/2);

    for (var i = 0 ; i<60; i++){ // filling red for the minute clock
    if (i == minute()){
            fill(255,0,0);
            stroke(0);
            ellipse(0,0,x[i], y[i]);  
        }

    }



    for (var i = 0 ; i<60; i++){ // disappearing the circle for the second clock  
        
        if (i != second()){
            noFill();
            ellipse(0,0,x[i], y[i]);  
        }
        
    }

    for (var i = 0 ; i<24; i++){ // bolding the stroke for the hour clock
        if (i +1 == hour()){
            strokeWeight(2);
            ellipse(0,0,x[i], y[i]); 
            
        }


    }
   // print(hour()); // used to check if it was a 12 hour preset or a 24 hour preset


    




}

Alexey Kashpersky

Alexey Kashpersky’s Heart of inflammation is a 3D artwork that reinforces pathophysiology concepts. The animations developed out of its focus on the swarming and triggering inflammation in the heart’s pericardium and the building of the master cytokine that causes inflammation.

I found this artwork interesting because it is educational. In addition to the Heart of Inflammation, Everseen Glucose Sensor MOA, Lungs in Silico, Blood Clotting, Ebola Virus, HIV, etc. are some other informative and educative videos. Most of Alexey’s videos are Hi-poly organic 3D sculpting, texturing and scientific illustration in medicine and microbiology.

https://kashpersky.com/heart-of-inflammation

The 2D/3D digital artist from Italy, Marco Zagara, is known for his use of Blender, a computer software used by artists around the world to create their digital pieces. Blender was historically used as a video game creation planform but has now refined to specialize in 3D still production. In Zagara’s piece titled #dayoff, he has managed to combine the dream and reality world into a mystical portrait of a character. While this piece plays with the viewer’s imagination, it maintains a sense of realism in its features, convincing the viewer that this is an actual photograph of their dreams.

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