I thought it would be fun to create an interactive tiling game, so I brainstormed some algorithmic rules vaguely following the spirit of Wang Tiles (connections have to flow across tile boundaries):
I learned how to use vsketch/vpype (s/o to Perry for the help) for this project. I’ve been meaning to try a project in Python for a while, because I can write the most haphazard bullshit code in Python (I’m like halfway comfortable with JS, I don’t know Java that well, anything C-based I have to be really careful in). The chaotic energy of Python has always felt most akin to the chaos of art making to me. Here is some of the code. It is terrible:
The final SVG looked like this:
I then spent half an hour laser cutting:
I brought these to the STUDIO and people got to play with them, which made me really happy. The numbers produced mixed reactions—a lot of people thought they contextualized each tile piece too heavily and were too obtrusive, which I somewhat agree with. I do think the ability to move the pieces around and have clear evidence that they’re not in their designated place is interesting—”the rules are obviously broken, but the beauty persists” kind of deal.