Qazaq heritage
My concept: Ironically, I connect with my culture more tightly while being abroad by listening to Kazakh songs, cooking traditional foods and simply wearing clothes in a national style. I am pretty sure that there is a psychological reason for this. As I am abroad now, this feeling is again part of me, inspiring me to create something related to my culture and nation. Immediately, the national ornament in animalistic style came to my mind, which I wanted to illustrate as all our traditional pieces of art and clothing include ornaments of different types. Then, it felt like the ornament was not enough, so I wanted to add another symbol, which has a significant cultural value- Shanyrak (the top backbone of the yurt). For the nomadic nation, the yurt was the transportable house for every season of the year and shanyrak was the essential top part of it. Although we don’t live in yurts anymore, shanyrak still has its cultural significance nowadays. It is even illustrated in the center of the national emblem, symbolizing the unity, peace, family well-being, and common home for all people living in Kazakhstan.
Fig 1. the ornament. Source: 94f8734cfd84b69702e6f58f422c16cb.jpg
Fig 2. The shanyrak. Source: ae69d0f81abd14305022e8706d34d6a6.jpg
A highlight of the code I am proud of is the nested for loop code itself because I could create several ornaments just with the three lines of the code (not considering the lines needed to draw the ornament). In the previous assignment, I was copy-pasting the same code multiple times with a slight change in the x and y axes to multiply the same shape. The for loops made the task easier this time.
for(let x=5; x<width-5; x+=70) {
for(let y=20; y<height-5; y+=60) {
noStroke();
fill(100, 100+mouseY, mouseX+100);
beginShape();
vertex(x, y);
vertex(...); //here many lines of vertex coordinates
vertex(x+10, y+10);
endShape(CLOSE);
}
}
Embedded sketch: Please move the mouse and click on the sketch.
Reflection and ideas for future work or improvements: If you click the mouse, the word “CULTURAL HERITAGE” appears. However, the initial idea was to make this phrase move in a circular path around the shanyrak continuously. Although I could make all other simple shapes such as ellipses and rectangles rotate along the circle, I couldn’t do the same with the text. I have to learn the functions of this and try to realize my idea. As this idea took me several hours and wasn’t successfully completed, I consider it a challenge to include it in future work.