Author: Arshiya Khattak

My favorite aspect of Casey Reas’ talk was the way he seamlessly wove together the overarching themes of order, chance, and symmetry within the realm of digital art. Right near the beginning, he piqued my curiosity with a thought-provoking statement about the creation of art that is ‘artificial but possesses an organic quality.’ He displayed some of his initial pieces – the first in which he relinquished These pieces, born from a collaboration between his artistic intent and the unpredictability of chance, seemed to possess a unique and mesmerizing sense of nature.  Later on, towards the end, he displayed some art pieces which were created with the intention of as much order and symmetry as possible, saying that they had been criticized as ‘having no humanity’. These contrasting statements made me think of nature and the world we live in, which is neither entirely organized nor thoroughly chaotic. Nature is a sort of organized chaos, where natural elements – from the orbit of the sun to the migration of birds – follow a sort of fixed geometry, but there’s enough distortion so that it doesn’t appear eerie.  I think this is why interactive media art, particularly geometric and generative art appeals to me incredibly: it captures the very essence of nature, the one that is capable of locking in one’s gaze for a long moment.

 

Reas’ comments about chance in art also struck me greatly. The calculated randomness gives the illusion of unexpected art that keeps becoming itself, belying the computational nature it has underneath.  As Reas explained, the incorporation of chance doesn’t diminish the artist’s role but rather extends it into a realm where the boundaries between intention and serendipity blur. It’s akin to setting up the conditions for creativity to flourish, allowing the elements to interact and shape the final composition organically. In this way, the artist becomes a collaborator with the forces of randomness, enabling art to unfold with a vitality that mirrors the dynamic nature of life itself. This concept challenges conventional notions of authorship and control in art. It suggests that, in the digital age, artists are not just creators but also curators of algorithms and data, fostering a dialogue between human imagination and the machine’s computational abilities.

Concept

My main focus for this assignment was the aesthetics of it. Because I wanted to focus more on making something visually pleasing, I started off ambitious – I had made a cartoonish sketch of myself and was hoping to recreate it in Processing. It seemed possible if I broke down the drawing into small curves.

While it most certainly was possible, I underestimated the difficulty of doing so. However, as we discussed in class, even the way things fail can be inspirational in itself. As I was trying (and failing) to construct the initial sketch, I noticed that what I had looked very similar to minimalist line art. I realized a line art representation of myself was not only much more feasible but also more indicative of the features I see most representative of myself, like my glasses, my mole, and my often-worn heart-shaped earrings.

I also really love pastel color palettes, so I wanted to incorporate them into my portrait. I decided to make the background(s) of the portrait some of my favorite palettes. Every time the canvas is clicked, it changes the color palette. There are five in total.

Implementation

Like I said, because I focused mostly on the aesthetics of it the technical implementation isn’t the most out-of-this-world. I, however, like the idea of having different sized blobs in the background (which I believe makes the whole portrait visually appealing). The mathematics of implementing the blob I learnt from this article, which I then modified a bit to have animated.

  for (let k = 0; k < blobs.length; k++) { 
    let blobPoints = []
    push();
    noStroke();
    fill(blobs[k].colors[currentPalette])
    beginShape();
    translate(blobs[k].x, blobs[k].y); 
    for(let i = 0; i < res; i++) {
      //make sure circle isn'getting too big or too small
      rad += random(-20,20);
      rad = constrain(rad, blobs[k].minRad, blobs[k].maxRad); 
      let x = rad * cos(angle * i);
      let y = rad * sin(angle * i);
      blobPoints.push([x, y])
      curveVertex(x,y);
   }
    for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
      curveVertex(blobPoints[j][0], blobPoints[j][1])
    }
    endShape();
    pop();
}

Reflections and Improvements

While I’m happy with the way my self-portrait turned out, I don’t like the way the curves were made. It was a lot drawing of lines with hard-coded coordinates, so it is not adjustable in anyway, so making the line art itself interactive in any capacity feels very difficult. For my next project, I want to focus more on using symmetry and geometry in the location of elements.