Student Area

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Generative art has advantages and limitations – the advantages are that you can create consistent content, the limitations are that you create consistent content.

This might be a problem if you were trying to generate images of random but different themed scenery/backgrounds for a game (e.g. a cave, an underwater location, a fiery location). It might be difficult to generate images with specific themes and details. Generative art might make it difficult to create content that is stylistically unique.

A scenario in which this wouldn’t be a problem is if you were creating scenery or backgrounds for a generic location in a game. In this case, the generated images don’t need to have anything inherently interesting or special about them, they just need to not be distracting. (You could also create generic images to show on your computer lock screen. This also reminds me of the screensavers computers used to have.)

Some strategies for overcoming this problem would be to make additional changes to the content to make it unique, either with artistic decisions by hand or by manipulating each generated image with a different, unique algorithm.

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Olivia Ross’s video “me doing my #gothexercises in my room”

I am impressed by the visual aspects of this project – Ross was able to create watery, transparent, and distorted imagery with what appears to be images of flowers. The imagery in the video seems simple but feels familiar and meaningful to me (the compressed quality of the audio adds to this feeling). In the video is a faint silhouette of the artist dancing to the song “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush. Self-portraits or selfies are a common visual element in the artist’s work – she claims and embraces her digital image. In a world where large tech companies design their programs and products to create behavioral addictions in people who use those programs and products, Olivia uses her work to help people develop a positive relationship with technology.

I don’t know how long it took the artist to create this work but she made the piece when she was a student at the School for Poetic Computation. Her work was edited with C++, using the graphics toolkit OpenFrameworks. The artist’s early works comprise of many slitscan self-portraits, which coud’ve been inspired by artists Andrew Davidhazy and George Silk.  From a technical standpoint, I do not know what opportunities or futures the project points at; however, I think Olivia’s emphasis on awareness, accessibility, and health/enjoyment in regards to relationships with technology is really important now and in an increasingly technological future.

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The “10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal Problem” is a common problem which artists face when creating generative artwork, where the idea of perpetual uniqueness may only be correct in the micro sense but not the macro sense. You may have 10,000 “different bowls” of oatmeal, where oatmeal in the bowls are composed differently, but may be too similar to one another to differentiate in the bigger picture.

In some cases, the lack of perpetual uniqueness may not be a problem when an artists goal is to create a more homogenous set of objects defined by specific characteristics, specifically when the objects are not of significance. An example would be creating a crowd of people in a stadium, where the features of each person do not need to be clear and can thus appear somewhat similar from one another.

In other cases, perpetual uniqueness becomes an issue when a set of important objects are all distinct, but lack an interesting appearance. Though uniqueness is present in every character, the traits and characteristics fall short of being exciting or interesting due to the lack of memorable traits and symbols that give each character the unique personality. Successful generative artwork would have to depend on the artist’s creative decisions that will make every iteration memorable through a defining personality.

 

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JODI’s My%Desktop 2002 is a digital piece that utilizes a “user-friendly” Mac OS 9 operating system, manipulating the elements on the desktop through clicking and software manipulation to create a piece with interesting visuals and glitches. The “desktop performance” of glitches and interactions resulted in chaotic frenzy of elements jumping and popping from the screen. When I first walked into this installation in the NY MoMA, I was immediately drawn to the way positive and negative space can be manipulated in a computer desktop, where highlighting an icon or folder creates a contrasting and inverse shape. I never realized how many different formations and patterns can be created from overlaying folders and opening and closing files at a rapid pace. The aesthetic of the old operating system and how it was used as a tool to create interesting visuals inspired me to look for outdated tools which may be useful. After further research, JODI’s intentions behind manipulating a computer desktop was to create a space where normal computers could be given a personality and influence irrational behavior in viewers through overwhelming amounts of data, as they emphasize their concept that “The Computer is a device to get into someone’s head”.

mokka – Reading #01

 

Compton’s “10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal Problem” illustrates the possible problems a creator can run into while utilizing generativity into their work. The problems can be faced is when the creator constructs so many artifacts making each of them unique in their own way but it can become difficult to be perceived the same way by the user/audience.

We can look at this idea as we look at the construction of violins. Each crafted violin may produce a different or unique sound. However, on the outside, they are all designed the same way and are utilized the same way. Here comes Compton’s concern where the unique qualities of a generated object will remain unknown without acknowledging its good/bad attributes. In this case, depending on the user, an individual violin can maybe produce more richer, deeper tones than the violin next to it. Whether that is a good/bad attribute will be determined by both the user and the maker but either way it will help identify perceptual differences within the clutter of instruments.

In order for the artist to overcome this and generate a copious amount of artifacts that truly vary from each other, they must be able to recognize the different types of perceptual differentiation that can be experienced by the user and enhance them until the users find it recognizable.

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Conway’s game of life was one of the first times I was exposed to generative art. The rules of the game are simple: Cells are either alive or dead, any live cell with two or three live neighbors survives, any dead cell with three live neighbors becomes a live cell, and live cells die in the next generation. The program is relatively simple to implement, but I didn’t realize potential it had until I watched “epic conway’s game of life” on Oingo Boingo’s youtube channel. 

Accompanied by arguably the most epic music created, Requiem for a Dream, Oingo Boingo showcases increasingly mind-blowing applications of the game of life. I admire it because it’s a testament to how seemingly simple programs can be turned into captivating art. My favorite design is when the program spells out “Golly” continuously. Art created from the game of life is painstaking and requires crazy amounts of precision. 

The program Oingo Boingo uses can be found on http://golly.sourceforge.net. While John Horton Conway created the game of life, the authors of the code include Andrew Trevorrow, Tom Rokicki, and a couple other contributors. It’s not clear if Oingo Boingo created the showcased programs, but I believe most of the programs have their own creators and the video was a compilation of them. Gosper’s Glider is a staple of game of life projects and it appears often. 

Since John Horton Conway’s death from COVID-19, Kate Vass Gallery has created an exhibition filled with works from four generative artists. Just by scanning through the online gallery, it’s clear that Conway’s impact can be felt through media arts and its evolution. 

epic Conway’s game of life

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In Kate Compton’s reading, the “10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal Problem” describes an issue in generative work when an algorithm can produce a ginormous amount of artifacts that are each unique but are not perceived as uniquely different from the audience perspective. Compton provides an example that if she created 10,000 bowls of oatmeal and each grain of oat was different, according to the algorithm, it is unique, but perceived from an outside view, it all ends up looking the same.

When you need to generate thousands of artifacts that will have to vary slightly, you can choose between perceptual uniqueness or perceptual differentiation. Perceptual differentiation is an easier level to succeed at if the environment doesn’t need the artifacts to be highly memorable (i.e. trees in a landscape or a very large crowd.) Perceptual differentiation is when the user can tell from a glance that there is a difference between the artifacts, but it isn’t that significant. On the other hand, perceptual uniqueness is the contrasting view between remembering a main character versus remembering a face in the crowd. The artifact must have a distinct character personality, making it more memorable than the other artifacts.

To overcome this problem, it is important to understand your audience and know the key characteristics of the artifact you are generating. Humans like readable meanings and identifiable personalities, and is a great strategy to start with overcoming this problem.

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The “10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal Problem” describes when an algorithm can produce many artifacts that can be completely unique but aren’t necessarily perceived as different. Hence, Compton argues that if 10,000 bowls of oatmeal were generated and each oat was mathematically unique, the user might not perceive the oats as different.

When generating hundred or thousands of artifacts that vary slightly, creating perceptual uniqueness is difficult. Perceptual uniqueness is when an artifact has a distinct personality and is memorable amongst the other artifacts. Compton uses the example of a main character versus another face in the crowd. 

On the other hand, when creating landscapes or environments, perceptual differentiation is useful. Perceptual differential is when a user can spot a difference at a glance but the artifacts aren’t particularly memorable.

Artists could utilize perceptual differential and create environments while perceptual uniqueness can be explored through other means and techniques.