Author: Saiki Padhy

Casey Reas’ video on chance operations provides insights into the role of chance and randomness in new media and art. While the emergence of chance in art was seen as a significant development through the dadaist, surrealist, and futurist movements of the early 20th century as a way of challenging the rational, ordered way of life, it is now a widely accepted and even popular form of art-making in today’s landscape.

I was fascinated by the distinction between randomness and order. Both, though completely opposite in my opinion, pave the way for modern art seen currently. Straying further away from the “naturalist” Renaissance paintings, both chaotic and mind-bending images, as well as grid-like ordered images, are the visuals of today. It was also very interesting when he brought Rosalind Krauss’ critique of the presence of such grid-like images in modern galleries. I personally feel that they are important both aesthetically and metaphorically, serving as a yin-yang to the chaos of generative art. The idea of duplication leading to order from randomness and the concept of symmetry is a very human-oriented perception of the world, and it feels like it has a much deeper rooted relation to us. As such, I don’t find such grid-like images to be devoid of humanity.

I found the video inspiring in multiple ways, particularly in how art can take different directions going forward. Upon further research, I discovered that Reas co-created Processing itself. His insights on the philosophy of generative art and chance operations kept me pondering the various ways nature can be represented in media.

Concept

The concept for my code was heavily inspired by the lighting and sound installation NOWISWHENWEARE by Andrew Schneider. After witnessing his installation multiple times over the last two weeks, I was inspired to create a floating grid that encapsulates the feeling of stars in the same way his installation did. While creating the animation, I was also reminded of and inspired by the early prototype computer graphics made by NASA and connected the imagery of a rotating space shuttle (I can’t remember which documentary I had watched it on) to the grid with sparkling stars.

After the rotating box was set, the sparkling stars were meant to represent the floating LED lights in Schneider’s installation. A constantly changing background hue was added to add dynamics, as well as a vintage, spacey color palette.

Highlight

for (let i = 0; i < numSpheres; i++) {
   x = random(-boxSize, boxSize);
   y = random(-boxSize, boxSize);
   z = random(-boxSize, boxSize);
   push();
   translate(x, y, z);
   sphere(boxSize / 500);
   pop();
 }

The highlight of the code, besides using the bouncing ball logic to change the background color, was creating the sparkling stars.

Using the aforementioned for loop in a WEBGL environment, I was able to instantiate a 3D grid of random sparkling stars.

Using push pop and translate functionality, I was able to save and restore values for each sphere on the grid. This allowed them to stay within the constraints of -boxSize to +boxSize, creating the illusion of being suspended in the box itself.

Reflection

I would love to add sounds to the animation, much like Andrew Schneider’s installation. Implementing a mouseX functionality that acts like the lanyard beeper present during guided tours would be a great next step to make dynamic changes in the 3D grid itself. Honestly, creating a 3D projection of this would be great as well, but I have no idea how to do that yet.

 

Concept

My concept was inspired by ASCII art, as I loved the idea of integrating the digital with the concept of a portrait. Although it is not as detailed as some ASCII art found on the internet, it was a fun exercise to think of letters on the keyboard not just as a means of writing sentences, but also as a way to create a face. I found that the letters “O” and “X” were great for distinguishing between the hair and face, in addition to differentiating via color (e.g. brown and black). I also used the line function extensively to create an outline of the face, and added the “print(mouseX,mouseY)” code line to help me with attaching coordinates.

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

One aspect of the code I’m proud of is the droopy eye effect. I achieved it simply by duplicating the code for the eye line and adding an extra space to the second line. This created a dissonance for the eyes (and only the eyes) since I separated the face fill from the eye fill for that row in my ASCII portrait.

text("    (0)     (0)   ", width / 2, height / 3 + 2 * x);
text("     (0)     (0)     ", width / 2, height / 3 + 2 * x);

Reflection

Although I am happy with this portrait as a base, I would have loved to add animation, such as mandala art in the background, to create a dreamy landscape effect. Additionally, I would like to add more detail by incorporating multiple rows of ASCII codes to enhance the definition of my face.