Author: spingbing

spingbing-ArtBreeder

I have already played with ArtBreeder, but I’ve never used ProsePainter. This image took about 30 minutes to make. I had a lot of fun using different inputs in different areas, and am very pleased with the resulting image. It is funny how my taste does not vary at all across platforms.

I used input such as “poland tulip field”, “water flowing stream in forest flowers”, “messy bedroom in sunny afternoon”, and “koreatown on a nice afternoon”. I tried not to use proper grammar and tried to make it as specific as possible as to most accurately capture the desired vibe.

 

spingbing-Pix2Pix

Since I have already played with the edges2cats software, I decided to play around with myHeritage instead.

This first video is of my grandfather who just passed away last week. I thought of using him because I was maybe considering sending it to my parents; however, even though the intentions of this software are good, it can also be seen as creepy and lacking awareness, which is something that needs to be overcome with this type of technology as a whole.

I am including this second video of my still living grandma because it shows how the technology is not yet perfect(even though we cannot expect it to be perfect when the only data it has is from a flat picture and not a 360 view). Her face is warped slightly.

spingbing-TextSynthesis

1. InferKit

My input is bolded:

“I’m waiting for my roommate to finish his orchestra practice.

My roommate is a very talented boy and a very good singer, and he sings all the time!
Here he is practicing.
He’s only about 5 feet tall, so he looks a little pathetic up there… but he’s a great singer!
He plays the cello very well. He is the first chair.
Does that mean that I should give him two – thirds of the pizza from my first bowl, instead of just a quarter?
I know that it’s a very simple question, but he always asks it every time he comes over.”
This is so funny because it is mean. It is intriguing that it can simulate personality and sass. I enjoy this.

2. Narrative Device:

This was very funny to me. I wanted a prediction of my spring break and I got a Wattpad fan fiction. I also understand that “Jean Cho” means nothing to the machine but I wanted it to be personalized.

spingbing-LookingOutwards03

Emoji Scavenger Hunt

This project was commissioned by Google in 2018 by the Google Brand Studio. The project uses neural networks to identify real-life versions of emojis captured by one’s phone camera. More info

This project truly baffled me because of its implications. For people who were already adults at the conception of the Emoji / people who spent their later development years growing with the Emoji, it is taken for granted that emojis are cartoonish representations of real-life objects. For example, the thought process is that there is a dog emoji which represents a real-life thing: a dog; however, this project inverses this logic: that there is a real-life version of the dog-emoji: a dog. The thing which is considered first is flipped. This subconsciously gives more weight to the emoji rather than the object the emoji represents. The “real” thing is no longer the dog, but the emoji.

This writing is just an extremely deep dive into an objectively shallow thing, but regardless there is more to say. Thinking back, it was mentioned in the above paragraph that current adults/older adolescents accept that emojis are representations of real-life things. However, this is not the case for younger children who have seen or experienced more through the phone than in real life. This is especially true due to the pandemic. Those who are around 0-7 right now have likely grown up more online than in person, and therefore have seen more emojis than the “real” versions of emojis. It is  therefore likely that they consider the emojis to be more “real” than their “real” counterparts, meaning they consider first the emoji and then the object, meaning logic is backwards in respect to ours (the adults/older adolescents).

This project, the Emoji Scavenger Hunt, forces this backwards perspective onto its user. While it may initially seem like a harmless and fun iSpy game, it is also on some level a commentary on the difference in perspective or logical journey of the older versus newer generation in respect to technology.

 

spingbing-Creature

My creature is called Sping. In coming up with the concept for the interaction with spings I imagined that of a chihuahua who hates its owner but still needs them in proximity for comfort. I wanted it to always be biting the mouse but also chasing it out of need for company. It is also dumb, like a chihuahua, and will not avoid its poop, so the user should try and clean the poop before it gets there.

This idea was not super developed. I have issues with the entire thing, but it is what I could manage given balancing my other classes. A way this could be improved simply is to expand my creature to be more than 3 rects to give more of an impression of a living thing. I also could change the poops to be more poop-looking.  Everything overall would benefit from more time.

spingbing-landscape

This landscape is meant to depict a bumpy, pimply, hairy back that the user appears to be flying over.

Link

Process: My personal criteria for this project were:

    1. I did not want to create a literal response to the landscape prompt.
    2. I wanted to instill some sort of feeling in the user, whether that be due to beauty or fear etc.
    3. I wanted to experiment with the WEBGL feature of p5.
    4. I wanted it to be dynamic.

I believe that was able to achieve my goals. This piece is still in the works – I want to add lights to actually showcase the 3 dimensional nature of this project. I am not sure if the lights will affect the “floor” – I would like to figure that out.

Sketch/Planning:

Still:

 

spingbing – LookingOutwards02

  1. Zach Lieberman: I chose this artwork to show because I like how the gradient makes these shapes look very 3D and alive.

2. Maolo Gamboa Noan: I gasped when I saw this piece because it looks like an art piece made of lumps of hair strung together.

3. Sofia Crespo: This piece sticks out to me because it is 3D computer art, which makes it more familiar to me amongst her other pieces.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sofia Crespo (@sofiacrespo)

 

 

spingbing-timepiece

I had many different ideas for this piece, which was ultimately the primary cause of my failure. I spent too much time thinking of new ways of interpreting the prompt and came up with a plethora of half-ideas (which i will list below), but no fully fledged ideas. I am disappointed because I really like this prompt, but I will definitely revisit this prompt and create a nontraditional timepiece at some point in the near future.

My half-ideas:

  • something to do with individual perceptions of time: I wanted a clock that moved as fast as the viewer thought time moved. However, the only way I could come up with to gauge this was for the user to manually put it in, which i really disliked. I wanted it to be less obvious/literal. I did not want them to realize the time was incorrect, which would be impossible if I directly prompted them to provide an input.
  • something to do with the relationship between time and work/play: I thought about making the canvas look like a computer screen with two tabs: One more work/school related(document?) and the other a game. The time at the top left of the screen would increase faster when the game was played and slower when work was being done. I also did not like how literal this was. I think it would be more effective if it were not in p5?… or, if the screen size matched an actual computer screen resolution so it looked more real?
  • a clock that fell asleep: similar design as the previous idea, but the time would stop changing after a long period of no mouse movement, and would continue when the mouse was moved aggressively (to “wake up” the clock)
  • a clock that looks like the clocks used to teach children how to read time: but I didn’t want to use actual roman characters because they are too recognizable, but asemic numbers also look too foreign. The clock hands would move at nonlinear speeds but still end up accurate at each minute/hour.

My final timepiece is extremely basic. I came up with the idea while walking around the Hunt library to try and come up with ideas when I walked past the portrait of the man on the first floor. It felt like he was looking at me sentiently. I then went to create this time piece that looks like a normal painting, but slowly blinks/smiles/looks around at certain points in the day. I think this is an extremely cheap copout response to the prompt, but could perhaps be somewhat effective as an installation (it would be more effective if J.K. Rowling hadn’t led everyone to associate moving paintings with Harry Potter). I am fully aware that this piece is so impressively unimpressive, but one high five I will give myself is that one main goal I had with this project was to make it extremely not clock-looking and I did achieve that.

spingbing-Loop

Final:

 

Colored (video):

This piece exists in a shaded color version as well as this black and white version. I had originally set out to make a colored gif because my idea was to create an image of pulsing intestines. The colored version looks more like actual intestines because it looks more three dimensional with the shadows, but I think the lines on the monochrome one are sufficient in giving the allusion of 3D. The project is also interactive in that the user can draw their own version. I think the noise makes this successful in looking “alive”, but it does not give off a clear image of intestines, as I had originally intended.

 


spingbing-timeresearch

After watching An entire history of time measurement in six minutes, I am most amazed by the concept of relativity and specifically how space and time are so related. I had to stop myself from going down an internet rabbit hole. More related to the timekeeping topic, I was surprised that latitude and longitude were so closely related to time (I think the concept of space being measured by time and just the space/time relationship in general is just so weird to me)