Category: 03

Hunan-Landscape

https://skyscape.glitch.me/

Initially, I intended on making a gigantic surreal landscape out of many balls, Inspired by the childhood memories of playing in big ball pits, I wanted to make a 3D, physics-enabled, interactive landscape where the user gets to drive around what is essentially a gigantic ball pit. But due to some mysterious and possibly quite stupid issues with the physics engine and Golan’s advice, I diverted to this idea — a simple poetic experience of chasing the sun. The user can control their movement to navigate through the rising ice particles in the pursuit of the unattainable ultimate destination.

Things I wish I had the time to add: background music, sound effects, better movement control (with acceleration,) pointer lock control (ability to look around,) generative terrain (below,) VR.

About the size requirement: the application adapts to your browser window size and aspect ratio (though not on resize, didn’t have time to add that, you’d have to refresh) so you can make any size and respect ratio you want by tweaking your browser window.

qazxsw-Lansdcape

Link

The idea is to create terraced fields, because I wanted to play around 3D spaces and this could be an easy start. I generated random numbers to locate the mountains and then used Perlin Noise to draw their shapes.

The biggest challenge for me is the time lag. In fact, I also explored the lighting and texture functions of p5js and was hoping to create more realistic pictures, but the code for now already takes about 10-15 seconds to generate each picture, so I was afraid to add more details. I think I might have called the function “noise()” too many times. I’ll try to increase the efficiency if I have time.

 

Solar-Landscape

https://openprocessing.org/sketch/1486052

In this project, I wanted to play around with portraying the crowded buildings of a city, whether it’s from an aerial perspective or upfront. Having grown up living in the city, I wanted to also add an abstract and surreal element to my work that strays from the direct representation of buildings and instead reminds people of living in a city through the geometric play with negative space. I added hints of color that may remind one of the reflections from skyscrapers.

I really like the result of the generative landscape. However, sometimes the buildings can appear very detailed and noisy which I am still unsure about. I think that if viewed on a bigger screen, the more detailed generations will appear better. I struggled with the colors of the work and how much color I should add. However, I like the small hints of colors that make viewers focus more on specific areas of the work and the play with primary colors in the end.

Sneeze-landscape

Link to the project

This generative landscape is supposed to evoke a peaceful and calm feeling in the viewer. As time goes by, the landscape eases in and out of night and day. Watching the landscape change colors is meant to reenact the experience of someone watching the scenery from noon until evening. It was generated using Perlin noise for the mountains and fractal trees.

I think that I experienced the most struggle from the lag that the code causes. I am not sure where the lag is coming from, but I was scared to do any other additions incase it would crash my window. I also had difficulty with having the landscape change while keeping the trees static. Since fractal trees are recursive with random adjustments, it was sort of difficult to keep them from changing every second. I was also short on time since I have midterms coming up this week, so I decided not to mess with it more.

qazxsw-Reading03

Question 1A: Fried eggs exhibit effective complexity, and I believe they sit in the middle of total order and total randomness. They have orders in the way they are cooked–“removed from their shells and placed into a frying pan and fry with minimal accompaniment” (from Wikipedia)–but the shape of each fried egg has certain randomness.

Question 1B: I believe the authorship of digital generative artworks belongs to humans. From what I see in digital generative artworks, it is humans who write the original code and make the final decision on the result generated by machines. Computers and other machines are only tools used by human artists. Besides, assigning authorship to machines will lead to legal issues when it comes to copyright protection.

Sneeze-Reading03

Question 1A. The spotted lake in Canada exhibits effective complexity as its appearance falls under total randomness but its creation stems from order. The lake becomes spotted when the water level is low, and the walkways are caused by high deposits of minerals like magnesium sulfate, calcium, and sodium sulfate. Each of the pools has a unique hue, which is also due to the dissolving of minerals. I would say that the spotted lake falls in between order and disorder. The science behind the spots are caused by minerals and crystals, but the patterns they create on a macro scale look random and disordered. The complexity of the system is unknown to me since I am unsure of the specifics as to why these circular patterns form. There is not much research that describes this. I assume that many complex factors cause the formations, but it could be attributed to a simple scientific phenomenon regarding mineral deposition.

Question 1B. The Problem of Uniqueness
I think that the issue with uniqueness in digital generative art and digital art in general does diminish the “aura” and uniqueness of the piece. Once exclusivity is diminished, the appeal of uniqueness and something being special because of scarcity also decreases. This is not necessarily the most important aspect to an artwork as there are many other factors that make art “good art” that don’t rely on uniqueness. Although digital generative art does create a unique and original artifact rather than copies of digital work, the amount of uniqueness of the artwork is limited. Usually some small parameters are changed, some things are moved around, and colors or movement are altered, but the basic premise is the same. The limited range of the uniqueness of digital generative art makes the original and unique generated artifacts almost the same as copies of an artwork. I think that uniqueness is indeed an issue with digital generative art, but in our increasingly digital world, it is not a large issue.

Dr. Mario – landscape

https://openprocessing.org/sketch/1481951

This is my landscape generator, it creates a basic landscape with several layers with different colours to distinguish the contour lines of the world. It is then populated with trees and villages to bring signs of life.

If I had more time (and was allowed to use unity), I would take what I learnt in this project to make 3D landscapes with auto generating terrain and villages similar to minecraft as I think the way I approached this project would allow easy transition to 3D by adding a simple height map based on the perlin noise. I wanted to add a camera movement system, but I found out that I would have had to overhaul my project and make it 3D and I didn’t have time for that. This project was really fun, enjoyed making some basic pixel art again.

 

duq-landscape

https://openprocessing.org/sketch/1479479

My piece is a seaside topography generator that calculates the manner in which rivers would navigate down the terrain. Each lowest point on the bottom of the screen generates a river by default and you can add more by clicking. It works by creating a massive 2d array the contains every height at every point and then (with some randomness) determining the path of least resistance for water.

I feel like my piece is generally successful – it is aesthetically pleasing to me and I feel like I succeeded in creating something different and challenging. I feel like I struggled to make the rivers feel completely realistic. I don’t feel like the depth of the piece is fully communicated in the water, and it seems like there is often an unrealistic amount of water flowing down the hills relative to their size.

 

merlerker-Reading03

Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel (which inspired the project by Jonathan Basile, pictured below) has stuck in my mind as an example of effective complexity. His concept of the generated book leverages the order, rules, and familiarity of books as pages of paragraphs, sentences, and words made up of letters and spaces while imposing additional constraints that each book has 410 pages, 40 lines per page, and ~80 letters per line – which teasingly seems to promise meaning. He introduces disorder through the characters in the book being random. What I find compelling about his concept is that it appears to follow total order in terms of meaning (taking form in the book-medium that is typically equivalent with meaning/knowledge) but in actuality is total randomness: a white noise of letters and spaces. It also illustrates the “10,000 Bowls of Oatmeal” problem well in that the resulting books are so random that they are meaningless and effectively indiscernable from each other. The story that plays out the concept is predicated on that exact false promise of meaning.

(sorry that was > 50 words)

The “Problem of Meaning” with generative art is especially challenging to me. From what I see of the generative art world, much of it tends towards being “unapologetically abstract and formal in [its] generative practice, seeking only to reinvigorate the sublime and instill a sense of awe” (173) which in a sense is appealing to me as a humble goal that demonstrates and celebrates beauty in its “truth to process” or truth to system. At the same time, I can’t help but look at all the generative art on Twitter or sold as NFTs and feel some skepticism and clash with my (debilitating) idealism: it shouldn’t be so “easy” to capitalize on generative art, it feeds a little too seamlessly into fast-consumption platforms, and at worst falls short at being visual eye candy.

duq-Reading03

The game Noita has a relatively low effective complexity. The game is a single physical map but it is separated into different areas that follow different sets of rules. Though every pixel in the game is simulated and can have an enormous quantity of physical effects applied to it, little of that can happen without some sort of direct or indirect action from the player. Therefore the environment itself, while topographically randomized is still relatively consistent from one generation to the next.

 

The Problem of Creativity:

I think that generative art pieces are absolutely creative. Far more so than much of photography in my opinion. With generative art pieces, you have to start with a completely blank slate and come up with something entirely new, while with much of photography you are already given the infinity varied masterpiece that is the world at large. Even if you are not drawing the art itself, you are still responsible for the machine, the virtual robot, that creates that art and you have an intent for what that art should look like. Therefore, generative art pieces are creative as without someone with vision to create the piece, there would be nothing to look at.