LookingOutwards-01 – Page 2 – 60-212: Interactivity and Computation for Creative Practice

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Mintabox is a user-collaborative, generative website created by the artist Joe Hedges. His intention with this website was to explore the idea of information stored within the internet space or as he calls “the information page”. Any user is able to generate a digital box that contains a user-submitted text and/or image. Hedges created this system using PHP, CSS, HTML, Javascript, digital photography, oil painting while directly observing and utilizing digital photography and image manipulation.

What really drew me in about this project is the way it is so simple, yet so flavorful and thoughtful. It acts as both a time capsule and a simple platform for people around the globe to interact with each other by sending messages that are not even directed at them but are meant for them at the same time(and in form of a 2D digital box). Something so small and odd can easily bring a smile to my face such as this and I am here for it. You can choose the pixel size, color, size, glitch/no glitch effect on the box as you can see below with the various display of boxes.

The process of having to choose the character of the box seems like such a fun way to somehow personalize the way that you enter yourself into this net space along with many others.

This website has been occupied by many different users since the year 2012 and is still a place where people visit time to time to leave messages even today.

Watch Joe go through different time boxes:

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Something Similar to Me / About Seeing Things by Akihiko Taniguchi is an interactive essay on identity in the digital age. The work presents a digital space with 3D scannings of environment fragments from Taniguchi’s daily observations, and invits viewers to navigate around the created world by controlling a 3D scanning of the artist himself.

What I love about the work is that Taniguchi recontextualizes ordinary objects in physical spaces through digital processes, and constructs a new environment for reflecting upon the identities of these objects in digital space. The artist created both the 3D experience and the writing used in the piece. Nothing about the process of development was presented but I think the work is made with a combination of “off-the-shelf” software (maybe using 3D game engine) and custom scripts for the interactions and hardware setups.

Taniguchi listed domestic by Mary Flanagan and Legible City by Jeffrey Shaw as inspirations behind his work.

Legible City, Jeffrey Shaw, Dirk Groeneveld, 1989

Both works deal with creating 3D digital space and finding the connection between virtual and real world spaces. The most intriguing part of the project, which also could point to future opportunities, is its selection of mundane objects and the usage of direct presentation of the original forms (without reimagining or modeling via digital methods).

It also reminds me of how AR has been incorporated into online retailing experiences. How will we present everyday objects digitally in the near future?

Here’s the video abstract of Taniguchi’s work:

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‘My Boyfriend Came Back from the War’ was one of the first pieces of real net art that I ever encountered. It was a piece that introduced me to the idea of using net art to convey abstract experiences where each page could help convey a narrative, it is one of the reasons why I find this piece so fascinating.

This piece was made in 1996 by Olia Lialina as a hypertext non-linear narrative, she describes this work as a sort of “net film”. The story centers around a couple who were separated during a war, neither the couple nor the war are named, the piece it self focuses a lot more on the emotion of a disjointed narrative. ‘My Boyfriend Came Back from the War’ was made during the early web (back in the netscape days) and didn’t use much more than images, links and text. However it has a massive legacy in how it impacted net art, many artists making various remixes and adaptations of it.

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Screenshot of default filename tv

Partially because it was a useful tool for finding videos I needed for projects but mostly because it is very entertaining, I often found myself watching Everest Pipkin’s default filename tv last semester. In the words of the artist, it “finds and plays youtube videos that were uploaded from the camera without edits to the filename.” Because of its generativity, it may not have as strict of a cohesion as other video compilations like The Clock by Christian Marclay, but there is a certain sincerity, humor, and homeliness found throughout the videos. This is especially apparent when comparing these videos to the content normally on YouTube, usually designed strictly for that platform and often exaggerate experiences in hopes of more views and interactions. This work points to generative art as a method of creating collections without the inherent bias of a person selecting the videos, images, objects, or whatever else.

GIF of multiple videos found on the site

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Casey Reas’ “KNBC” // Dec. 2015

This project is a continuous, generative collage created through an audio and visual distortion of television signals that are looped continuously as the data is extracted, amplified, and composed into a new stream. This installation combined coding, art, and sound into a unified piece of work. What I find interesting about this work is his unique artistic expression with a visual experience that builds upon conceptual art, experimental animation, and generative software technology. It’s full of chaos yet is somehow still kind of uniform by the symmetry of the visual distortion of the television broadcast signals. The audio played with the visual fits beautifully with the portrayed imagery by immersing the viewers with a haunting and eerie feel.

Reas wants to depict through his work that writing code is a versatile way of thinking of design, and not just another tool. Reas created his own called Processing, in hopes to inspire others, including his students at UCLA, to use code not only for STEM but also for visual arts. This project was inspired by his previous work that also focused on distorted, television-static imagery, such as “Tox Screen”, “Ultraconcentrated”, “100% Gray Coverage”, and others.

Video recording of the audio and visuals for Casey Reas’ “KNBC”.

Close-up picture of a generative visual for Casey Reas’ “KNBC”.

Animated gif of various images of Casey Reas’ “KNBC”.

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These are visualizations of eight different ways of shuffling 64 cards created by Roger Antonsen. I find concrete visualizations of rather complex mathematical concepts to be intriguing, and the output is splendid. The author created the project alone, and I wasn’t able to find a reliable source about his work process. Antonsen was inspired by Perci Diaconis, and wanted to experiment with exploring the various permutations underlying the shuffling methods. This art is also a complement to an academic paper he wrote Card Shuffling Visualization

This work resonates with me in particular because of my own interest in mathematics and pattern-finding. Visualizing abstract ideas to give tangibility and accessibility to daunting concepts intrigues me.

I found him through his compelling TedTalk: Math is the hidden secret to understanding the world | Roger Antonsen

Link to work: https://rantonse.no/en/art/2018-07-25

Some of his other beautiful generative art: