Casey Reas starts off by showing some of his own work, all of which is very visually striking. It looks somewhat alive like it was taken from something organic and he points out that that was he wanted to do. He started off by building on what others have established and then from that, he decided to start anew and write his own code for new randomness. Some of the shapes and patterns he produces look very abstract, yet somehow still manage to not look very random. These are all done digitally but it made me wonder what if we had a device to paint these patterns and shapes with paint and make it more physical, would it produce even more organic looking final pieces at the end?
What I liked, in particular, was how deeply incorporated the organic is in his work. It all looks alive and that is in part, I guess attributed to the “homeostatic” randomness.
I think this talk will help a lot with this week’s assignments because Reas demonstrates some of the concepts he talks about using processing – the ide we are using in class.