Ticha-LookingOutwards-2

Silk by Yuri Vishnevsky

I was looking through some generative artwork for inspiration the other day and came across this beautiful piece called Silk. As the name suggests, the user selects a color and uses the mouse to ‘weave’ the silklike neon threads. The user also has the option to choose the degree of rotational symmetry, whether they would like the figure to be mirrored across the center, and whether they would like the figure to spiral towards the center.

While Silk is not anything revolutionary, it certainly holds a lot of aesthetic appeal and its use of musical ambience makes it both a visual and audial experience. However, what I find most appealing about the work is not in the visuals or the sound, but the way users can share their creations. In more conventional ‘art apps’ the sharing of results simply involves saving the image and uploading it to some social network site. In Silk, people can actually view the process involved in making the images – giving it an almost livestream-like feature. I only wish that the generation of the user-created images did not run so quickly, as I feel that this detracts from the meditative aspect of the program.

 

Content is Queen by Sergio Albiac

‘Content is Queen’ is an interesting mosaic of internet videos that combine to form a unique portrait of the Queen. I believe the charm of this project comes from the fact that, instead of using images to create just a picture of someone’s face, Albiac uses motional  images to create a dynamic form of portraiture.

One aspect I particularly like about this project is that each of the generated portraits have some semblance of the Queen’s face, but have just enough randomness and ‘artistic liberties’ for the viewer to see the content of the videos. There some images that show the Queen’s face in near-perfect clarity, and others that just barely resemble a face and are dominated by the videos. This I think, epitomizes the tension between monarchy and democracy – which is Albiac’s intent. With this particular kind of piece, it would be even more effective if he placed it in a certain location (like a place that has a lot of traditional portraits of the Queen) to further enhance the effect of  the work.

(on a side note – I also enjoyed Albiac’s Videorative Portrait of Randall Okita)

 

Fine Collection of Curious Sound Objects by Georg Reil 

Found this little gem in the Exhibition section of Processing’s site. The project is very true to its name indeed; the sounds produced by the objects are by no means conventional, and each give its object a unique history. Reil is able to effectively create a narrative for each of these commonplace items by giving them distinct – and unexpected – ways of interacting with the user. In doing so, he challenges the belief that objects are purely utilitarian tools and entices the viewer to rediscover each object’s function. While I think this work is already very poetic as it is, I only wish his descriptions of the items were even more cryptic – so as to allow the viewer to construct their own interpretation of an item’s history.

All aspects considered, this is quite an inspirational piece that makes me want to experiment with sound objects in the future.