Author: Zayed Alsuwaidi

I would like to start by explaining my artistic intent. I was recently interest in nihilism. As a matter of fact, I always thought of concepts within nihilism, and this materialized into this concept recently when reading some literature by Nietzsche. Essentially, I aimed to demonstrate my emotions and my perception of objects through this form of artistic self-obliteration, dissolving into the surrounding environment. Therefore, in this sense one might argue that this artwork tells a story (as per the inevitable dissolution into the evironment).

 

How I did it:

 

I made the canvas 800 by 600, and I decided to make the background a specific color of glistening yellow that resonated with me when taking inspiration from Yayoi Kusama’s Polka dots artwork.

I used noStroke() to create the shapes with no solid outline, as I wanted to blend in the repetitive elements (geometric figures symbolic of the representation of objects and elements in our perception of space-time).

 

Then I drew a representation of abstract ‘pumpkins’ but they aren’t really pumpkins, that is not the emphasis on art here. These rows of abstract pumpkins were drawn using a for loop.

 

I am particularly proud of the rest of my code where I believe I truly achieved my artistic goals. In this loop I tried to manipulate space and make use of the remaining space in the canvas from the pumpkins as a precursor to including the geometric figures as a representation of objects in spacetime. To do this, I used some simple boolean (if conditional).

if (random(1) < 0.5) { 
       let detailSize = size / 4; // These shapes will be smaller than the main shape.
       fill(255, 150, 0, random(100, 200)); // Set a transparent orange color.

       push(); // "Remember" the position again.
       translate(x + random(-size / 2, size / 2), y + random(-size / 2, size / 2)); // Move to a random spot somewhere on or near the bigger shape.
       ellipse(0, 0, detailSize + random(-5, 5), detailSize + random(-5, 5)); // Draw a slightly irregular circle.
       pop(); // Go back to the original position.
     }

 

 

READING RESPONSE:

Upon taking inspiration from Casey Reas, I focused on utilizing space and randomness as a method of employing artistic intent. As I mentioned in my explanation of the artwork, the randomness at hand is the implementation of these abstract spherical objects (as if they’re pumpkins or some orange circle), which fill the canvas randomly. After this, the random geometric shapes fill in the canvas randomly, this is my take on what Casey Reas outlined in his demonstrations of art through physical computing. I tried to add to this discussion further by taking inspiration from Yayoi Kusama, where I attempted to merge her abstract and repetitive use of polka dots, drawing inspiration from her use of color in her canvases of art. In my take on answering what I felt about the tension between order and chaos, I believe that I was able to show in my art how I perceive this tension, where a more nihilistic view is implemented, showing the symbolic geometric objects dissolve and move downwards in a randomized but nearly controlled manner.

 

Another aspect highlighted by Reas (timestamp 13:59) is the precise and logical structuring of things by artists, I made a new take on this where I favored randomness and chaos over structure and organization of elements in my art.

 

For my self portrait my intuition was to experiment with a style of art that is new to me. In this case I wanted to represent myself with a background of a dark star-lit sky. I always thought of the theory of existence, and as far as I know we are all representations of energy in the literal sense, with every form of life dependent on energy. Therefore, the distorted facial features are meant to blend into the background.

 

It is my first time using p5.js, and I am particularly proud of this line of code:

for (let i = 0; i < 200; i++) {
    fill(random(150, 255));
    ellipse(random(width), random(height), random(1, 4));
  }

It is a simple for loop that fills random parts of the background with stars, and I like seeing new representations of stars by repeatedly compiling the code. I tried to limit the use of functions and to instead use quadratic vectors to represent the rest of the elements of the portrait, which did bring about some difficulty. Looking forward, I will familiarize myself with the Quadratic Vector function, as well as other functions in p5.js .