Author: Liya Rafeeq

Casey Reas’ exploration of the chance operations revealed this broad tension between order and chaos. He says artists are the ones who keep order, in the world of chaos created by nature. A world where chaos came first, before order was invented to control it. He talks about this concept of “controlled randomness”- where artists can set parameters and boundaries, while maintaining hints of chaos and randomness. He started generating code for art, where there were some shapes and lines, and some behaviours and processes which switches around and creates different pieaces – order is kept while chaos creates this little imprecision, a little flaw for aesthetic visuals. I particularly enjoyed his “Tissue Work”, I feel like it challenges plain, automatic art; art which lost its abstractness and humanity. The art code generated by Lia, when he says something along the lines of, “somewhere in those pixels is the difference between order and chaos” resonated with me the most. It was interesting to note how the dots deviated (chaos) from the grid (order), leading me to wonder- what if order exists everywhere and chaos is just its byproduct, contrary to what Casey says at the beginning of the talk? Casey Reas’ chance operations shift the narrative of an artist as a “keeper of order” to someone who controls the flow of chaos, and is always pleasantly surprised by its outcome. Even minor deviations in coding can lead to the creation of something inextricably beautiful, subtly suggesting that maybe chaos is not an opponent to creativity, rather a collaborator in the process. 

Concept :

For this computer artwork, I decided to take inspiration from a stress relieving toy called Pop It. Basically the user can pop the silicon molds as a form of stress relief. I decided to use this idea and create a grid of colours and patterns, where one clicking the mouse, the colour and pattern changes.

I tried to use all the concepts we learned in class, including for loops, arrays, functions; both built in and user defined. Trying to use these different concepts in my code taught me how to use and incorporate them.

Highlight:

One part of the code I’m particularly proud of is the switching between patterns. I used switch statements, a concept I learned from CS in highschool,  to create pattern changing from circle to strikes.

function drawPattern(x, y, patternType) {
  push();
  stroke(0);
  strokeWeight(2);
  switch (patternType) {
    case 0:
      line(x, y, x + boxSize, y + boxSize); //strike pattern
      break;
    case 1:
      ellipse(x + boxSize / 2, y + boxSize / 2, boxSize / 2); //ellipse pattern
      break;
  }
  pop();
}

Embedded sketch:

What I love the most about this artwork is the fact that its never the same, its always changing. We can create art out of the art itself, and the whole “pressing the mouse to change colours and patterns” is so satisfying. I also love the colours, which

I made using a colour palette using arrays. I like how we can create patterns with the colours themselves.

Reflections:

Overall, I felt that this assignment was such a good way to revisit all the concepts we learned in class and create something beautiful out of it. In the future, I’d like to try and make the code more precise and versatile. Maybe more patterns, colours and animations in the grids themselves.

 

The concept :

I got the idea from this activity they used to make us do in middle school. Basically a message is written in blue, obscured by red scribbles. On placing a red cellophane paper over the design, we can see the hidden message. I wanted to do something similar to this image shown below (taken from JIANG’S BLOG – WordPress)

The design itself is a puzzle piece, where the portrait is hidden under the red scribbles. On viewing it over the red circle, the portrait is revealed underneath. I wanted to make it like a puzzle- me hidden under the red scribbles. Basically the red scribbles are absorbed in the circle, revealing the blue portrait. I drew it using most of the line tools, like arc, curves and quadrilaterals. I made it in this because I’ve heard a lot of people say that I am very hard to read (P.S; I have no idea why, I’m an open book I swear). Basically, I wanted to capture that essence into my portrait, in a way that is interactive to the users.

A highlight of some code that you’re particularly proud of :

I’m proud of the abstract style of the portrait, it’s pretty cool to look at (if I can say so myself) It was a bit hard to draw it with the curves and figure out the points exactly, but once I got the hang of it, it was pretty fun to do! I also really love the transparent red decoder circle; I feel like I managed to bring the paper and pen version into code pretty well!

Embedded sketch :

Reflection and ideas for future work or improvements :

Maybe I would make the portrait itself more detailed. Maybe once I understand how to code better I can improve it!! I also wanted to try and draw it in one continuous line, but that was a bit hard to do.