Month: February 2024

My inspiration came from ProgrammInformation21_PI21 particularly pages 14 and 15. I was impressed by the work of art that was created from lines and hence in my art, I tried to use lines. Along with lines, the concept of my work is black and white. When the user is not clicking on the mouse, the background remains black and the lines white which makes the black bouncing balls visible around the area where lines are drawn. When the mouse is clicked, the background turns white, the lines black, and the bouncing balls white which makes the bouncing balls visible around the area where lines are drawn. However, due to the transparency of the background, the paths of the ball remain visible throughout the interaction. By using black and white, I wanted to hide and show the bouncing balls.

The section of code below shows the ‘if/else’ and ‘for’ code that I used to create the work. I used ‘if/else’ command to change the color of the elements during the interaction and ‘for’ command to draw the repeated lines. I incorporated the ‘mouseIsPressed’ code to make the art interactive and more entertaining for the users.

For improvement, I would like to try using different colors other than black and white. Furthermore, I would like to make the balls change to different colors whenever they bounce off a wall. I tried to do this by using ‘random’ but wasn’t able to do it successfully. Also, adding more shapes is another way I could improve this work. By doing so, the users may see more various shapes under the areas of lines.

//change color of background 
if (mouseIsPressed){
  background(255,5);
}
else{
  background(0,5);
}


//change color of bouncing balls
if(mouseIsPressed){
  fill(255);
}
else{
fill(0);
}

//bouncing ball 1
noStroke();
ellipse(a, b, 20, 20);
a = a + speedA;
b = b + speedB;

if((a<0) || (a>width)) {
  speedA *=-1;
}

if((b<0) || (b>height)) {
  speedB *=-1;
}

//change color of lines
if (mouseIsPressed){
  stroke('black');
}
else{
  stroke("white");
    }

//lines on the right
for (let x=0; x<=500; x += 9){
 line(x, 0, 400, 500);
}

My concept

The concept for my artwork came from an experiment in which I created different shapes by generating random codes. The primary goal of this technique was to discover the possible outputs of coding without having a predetermined goal, therefore it was informal and exploratory. The speech by Casey Reas “Eyeo2012” talked about the need to discover novel ideas without overanalyzing, this served as my motivation.

The series’ first drawing is intended to represent a maze. It is a metaphor for the hardships that come with life, suggesting that despite obstacles and complex paths, perseverance will ultimately lead to the finding of the right route. The journey through life’s complexity and the eventual triumph in finding direction is intended to be represented by this sketch.

The second sketch, however, shows a substantial change. It shows the maze’s walls falling down to reveal an open, direct, and clear path. This exemplifies overcoming the difficulties and barriers encountered earlier. This drawing is meant to evoke feelings of freedom and clarity, representing those times in life when challenges are overcome and the path ahead becomes easy and uncomplicated.

Embedded sketch

Code that you’re particularly proud of

strokeWeight(1); // Sets the thickness of the lines
  frameRate(3); // 
}

function draw() {
  background("lightblue"); // background color for each frame

  // Nested loops to iterate over each cell in the grid
  for (let x = 0; x < width; x += size) {
    for (let y = 0; y < height; y += size) {
      let E = random(9); // Generates a random number between 0 and 9

      if (E < 1) {
        // Draws a line from top left to bottom right of the cell
        // line(x, y, E + size, y + size);
      } else {
        // Draws a line from top right to bottom left of the cell
        line(x, y + E, x + size, x);
      }
    }
  }
}

Ideas for future work or improvements

Ideas for the future that I would want to implement are some kind of visual effect. Effects that make you dizzy and hypnotize you. I think that would be very cool.

My eyes were awakened to the ways in which art and technology collide when I watched Casey Reas’s presentation at Eyeo2012. The way that Reas discusses randomness in digital art is very innovative and fascinating.

It occurred to me that, because humans are accustomed to following rules and procedures, computers are able to produce patterns and randomness in ways that humans simply cannot. This entire concept gets me thinking about how our society is set up; everything is really rigid and organized.

Reas’s words, “Make your own reality, your own world,” truly resonated with me. We all need to hear that, in my opinion, especially in this day and age. Reas suggests that in order to break up the monotony and repetition of life, we need unpredictability.

I consider myself a very rigid person and in recent years I’ve found out that some randomness and flow in life is necessary and it makes you live happier and less worried.

Moreover, this reading made me reflect on this question: do gods create order out of chaos? It is, after all, a large topic that connects to the idea of having a balance between order and randomness in all that we do, not just in art.