#1: Project I admire

A project that really resonated with me was one recently completed by Melanie Wang, a master’s student at the University of Washington School of art. I think what really drew me to this project was my love of literature and words and how Melanine combined it with computers and patterns in a really interesting and unique way. Essentially what she did was create a program that generated graphical images based off of the text from books. The program generates patterns that represent the books based off of clause structure, parts of speech and syntax that coincide with narrative events in the book.

Melanine’s project reminds me of this website I follow which creates posters and t-shirts based off literature called lithographs. What I really like about that project is that it takes every single word of text from a book and fits it into a confined space and pictorial representation of the book. I find that visually, some of the lithographs are more compelling than Melannie’s work because, though she does create a graphical representation of the books she doesn’t really convey any of the tone or essence of the subjects she selects which, as I’ll discuss further in this post—on my third post actual—is one thing that really disengages me from computer art. With graphical renderings and representations, it feels as if the substance and narrative is lost amongst all that information and processing making the work seem cold and empty in some way.

http://www.visualizing.org/stories/student-spotlight-melanie-wang

 

#2: Project that surprised me

A Project that surprised me, so much so that I’d probably admire and like it more than the earlier piece I spoke of, was The Codification of Leadership by Matthew Plummer-Fernandez. What really surprised me about this work was that when I initially saw it, I thought of it as a simple Photoshop painting that probably had no programing or coding behind it. However when I read about the process used in order to create the work I was completely blown away and found that the piece resonated more with me than I thought it did.

In the Codification of Leadership, Fernandez initially distorted the image of George Bush signing into law the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act and the Intelligence Reform Act. However, Fernandez created an painting script, similar to the counter-terrorism, security and surveillance algorithm, that continually selected and reproduced the image. What I like the most about this is that this is one of the few instances where I felt the complicated process of creating the image—In this case the script which searches and selects the images—actually worked to benefit and speak on a another level than the art simply did in itself because of its intent to mirror or mimics the way in which we resolve operations through the use of such procedures and scripts. This image is literally the ‘code’ of law.

 

#3: Piece I was disappointed by

So recently I read an article on Creative Applications Network about art drawn by wind. Exciting right? It is, it’s just that, it’s a little bit more complicated than that, maybe too complicated to actually be interesting.

First of all, I’ll just start by saying that the images generated by the program Elliot Woods and Mimi Son are gorgeous. Essentially what it is, is a fan blows on a projected image of a circle on a vertical flag of fabric. Years ago, Elliot created a program by altering the systems in the Kinect—a video game console for the Xbox—not the first one but you know what I mean—that works with a projector to create a 3D graphic. They use these projections and the exposures, quick 30 seconds shots, of the waving flag, to compile a 3D image of a lunar like object on the computer which they then place into photographs. Once again, I’ll say it, the work is gorgeous. The images the computer creates from these quick exposure shots are breath taking surreal, but honestly I can’t say that I find the whole project very compelling. Sure the process in which these images are created is interesting in itself, but really, I find no real meaning behind the work.

My issues?

I think the process itself is very interesting and compelling but the images created from it, look as if they could have been created through any computer generated means. They are to crisp, to structures, have none of the mystical quality that the moon or anything really revolving space seem to possess. At its heart this work uses photography techniques dating back decades—those involving over exposure—and yet I feel like photographs like Elsie Wright’s Cottingley Fairies are more compelling because despite the very structured way in which they were created, they have a mystical, almost unearthly aura about them at the Lunar photographs seem to lack.

Elsie Wright’s Cottingley Fairies

I think my issue with this work really goes back to my issue for a lot of computer generated work; everything seems to crisp and planned, there is a certain lack of spontaneity to the piece that just leaves it at the level where it’s stunning to look at but not compelling enought to think very much more of.

Yoshi Sodeoka’s 13 Compositions

This project is a series of colorful gifs that are presented on a website as moving paintings in a gallery.  It appears that the artist programed colors to create forms and move around in a restricted space.  I was drawn to this piece because of the colors and the juxtaposition of the organic movements with the technical aesthetics.  The one draw back of this piece is that it can only be viewed from a computer even though it is trying to give the illusion of a gallery on the screen.  Therefore I’m a little confused as to whether the artist intended it to be in a gallery or not.

 

Daniel Rozin’s Mirrors

This project is series of interactive sculptures, made of various materials like wood, fans, plastic, etc, that move when a viewer engages wight he piece.  It uses video cameras, motors and computers on board to move the components in order to reflect the viewer.  I like this project because of its aesthetically pleasing minimalist and geometric design.  I also enjoy how the piece interoperates movement and abstracts it.  One critique I have about this piece is that I am not quite sure why one of the materials is fans.  I guess it has some cultural reference behind it.  

 

Waterfall

This project has an unknown artist associated with it.  This project is a gif that has been coded to move several parallel horizontal lines slightly to create the illusion of vertical waterline movement.  I found this the most beautiful thing because of how subtle the changes were in each individual line.  It is kind of like a white on white painting.  It is difficult to interoperate up close but the overall subtleties had the biggest impact on the overall image.  I guess one critique is that is is so simple.  It;s just lines moving.

Nightingale and Canary from Andy Thomas on Vimeo.

Australian artist Andy Thomas has recently created projects which feature computer generated “organisms” by analyzing the sounds of birds. The combination of vibrant colors with the sounds is incredible on its own as it creates a beautiful audio-visual art piece aesthetically. Technically, this piece is just inspiring to think about. Thomas describes multiple different technical software he used for his analysis and creation of his pieces and they just, and to create something so refreshing with those is very nice. This also peaks my interest because It is utilizing some outside force (bird sounds) which are out of Thomas’ control to actually realise the piece itself.

Fluir (2013) from Biopus on Vimeo.

While Biopus is obviously not the first collective to utilize an interactive touch table, the project is inspiring because it forces the audience to be a part of the piece itself. The size of the table (12 meters) also allows large groups to interact with the table all at once. THe emotional response and creations of the participants themselves are inspirational because I aim to get groups to interact with the work that I create and force some type of tactile or indirect interaction. The software interface they created also looks very clean, possibly even too clean. I’m not sure if I would like to create a project that is similar to this project’s scale, but this may be influencing me to design a more clunky interface. I’m not exactly sure.

Passive Sound Recovery System by :

Abe Davis, Michael Rubinstein, Neal Wadhwa, Gautham J. Mysore, Fredo Durand, Wialliam T. Freeman

I first saw this project when it went viral earlier this month. This is a sound recovery tool which analyzes a video and then passively recovers the sound from that video by examining tiny micro movements in the video. Now I don’t believe this software or demonstration was actually meant to be an art piece, but as a first unveiling of a tool, I think it’s fantastic.

It was incredible to imagine that sound could be recovered from silent video. Unfortunately the system is just a tool at this point. I want to see this tool used in some greater context. To examine old silent films or to do some type of playful spying which is later documented as a more in depth art piece. As of now, it is a bit disappointing to see it used in such a limited context.

Sharing Faces by Kyle McDonnald:

• McDonnald has developed a software that is able to match the face locations of a person looking at a surveillance camera with the images of previously photographed people.
• This project provides users with a new way of seeing themselves  by seeing another person mirroring their actions. I feel like it gives a sense of unity between humankind and a judge less technology that ignores ethnicity, age, or general appearance and only pays attention to the location of a person and their action.
• Although this software was difficult for the artist to develop fully to his vision of it, the idea is quite simple. I like its later application of matching face locations to multiple people instead of just one, this heightens the themes mentioned in the previous bullet. Sharing Faces has been debugged in quality and is continuing to enlarge the library of peoples’ images it has. It’s reach is global. http://

The Abyss Table by Christopher Duffy 

• 
• This is a super cool coffee table made  by Christopher Duffy of a geological cross section of the ocean. Its made of sheets of glass and wood cut to specific shapes.
• This project inspires me with its astonishing use of color, existing organic environments, and composition. It feels like youre going to the depths of the ocean yet still looks technical and map-like. Essentially I believe it has good harmony.
• I wish this wasn’t just a coffee table only rich people could buy. Its only a decorative piece so I wish it had a better application in terms of concept.
• This project was from the beginning meant to be furniture. The artist responsible has impressed many rich people and the potential for this piece seems to just be reproduction for now.

Naomi Kizhners’s Parasitic Powered Jewelry

• Naomi Kizhner has created invasive jewelry with the purpose of harvesting energy from our bodies’ natural functions. She developed a three piece jewelry set that attaches to the body with pincers stings and uses the wearer as a human battery.
• This is some futurism sci fi cool work. It creates a narrative of a time when energy sources will be found in unconventional places. These parasites are beautifully designed and scary purposeful.
• This product is strongly conceptual, it has no practical or desirable use for people of the present. This was a critique I saw from people commenting on the blog post this work was featured in and though I understand this point of view I think what this project says about how the future could be is very captivating and the main purpose.
• 

I don’t know if I admire it profoundly, but I like the methodological approach of Christine Borland’s and Brody Condon’s 2013 installation, Daughters of Decayed Tradesmen. The work sits in a decaying watch tower in Edinburgh, built in the early 1800’s to prevent grave-diggers from excavating and selling the cadavers of dead tradesmen to a nearby anatomy school for dissection purposes. Hanging on the ceiling are pink punch cards (machined by the artists but read with the obsolescent Jacquard loom) that the artists encoded with oral histories of the daughters of the region’s defunct tradesmen (their maladies ranging from unemployment to death). The surrounding area is filled with gravestones marked with the specific specializations of the dead tradesmen who once inhabited the area. In my eyes, it discursively explores a number of contemporary issues from the hyper-specialization of the job market/academia to the afterlife and objecthood of defunct technologies to the historical changes [or stagnancies] in the taboos surrounding dead human bodies (btw described beautifully in what I’ve read thus far Knausgård’s hyped super-novel My Struggle).

Daughters of Decayed Tradesmen, 2013 from Brody Condon on Vimeo.

 

Disclaimer: Clickbait. Yeah, so there’s this new website called NewHive and yeah I had to look at Molly Soda gifs, but there’s also some good work there too :p. Highly customizable webpages for artists to dump/design their contents. Just drag and drop! You remember YTMND, dumpfm, tumblr, artstack [& i like weebly for its plethora of conspiratorial masterworks]. Maybe you also remember to be, which to be honest seems like the closest recent site to NewHive that I know of. Oh and my friend Rachel Pincus just told me about the now-defunct, TANG or Tight Artists, a splinter group from dumpfm created by Mary Rachel. I love the popping up of new surfing clubs / sharing networks, with my mind and my mouse, and the development of their interfaces to allow more open and easily manipulable tools/layouts. Sharing should be faster, easier, [more PC / less PC?]. It’s logical conclusion is more a game than a form of communication, although I think we all know that. Check it out; sign up; become an otaku; deactivate your account; live a little.

NewHive

 

We all recognize the youtube comment: “Dude I ‘m in the weird part of youtube again!” Jon Rafman’s 2014 video, Mainsqueeze, released through Dis Magazine is an effectively disturbing, yet calm meditation of the status of image-objects, american youth culture, and specifically what I think he believes are symbols/artifacts from the dark parts of the internet (cue rule 34 dementors gif). His curation of images/videos from the web is actually good aesthetically and conceptually, and some of the combinations of audio and video are chilling, evoking combined feelings of net alienation and cultural disgust I think we’re all used to feeling rather separately. That’s the success. The framing choice of night time suburban domestic backdrops for the bright videos in front is also an appropriate and clever one, but I think it could go further, shoving in your face the weird physical/sociological realities of teen net surfing in the bedroom/cinema/sexshopbooth. I mean, even less fleshed out is the narration, vaguely referencing the possibility of objects’ feelings/sentience while showing gooey 3d animations referencing high levels of abstraction and [maybe?] scientific visualization (once again illuminating many artists’ limp engagement with and appropriation of Object-Oriented Philosophy). I love certain things about the video, mainly in a self-induglent way, but instinctively I know it could use a lil workshopping/revision.

Trigger Warnings: Animal Cruelty, Nihilistic Bullshit, Hentai

Mainsqueeze, 2014 from jonrafman on Vimeo.

 

One project I admire.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Spiral

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LVvxywPQZI&list=UUN8Aax8XICzHJzLScciViWQ&index=155

The project is a responsive biofeedback sculpture that is made from 400 lightbulbs arranged in accordance to an equation of a spatial distribution found in the arrangement of leaves and cells in plants. The sculpture responds to the heartbeat of the participant, who holds a sensor beneath the piece.
What interests me is the ability to visualize the presence of a person. A certain intimacy is derived from feeling other people’s heartbeats, but this augmented no longer remains something intimate, but rather overpowering.
I would like to see what this sculpture could become if it involved more than one person interacting with it. What would become of it if it responded to two or more heartbeats? I think the sculpture missed an opportunity to play with chaos. Also, while the link between plant and animal is created through the equation’s structure, I feel as though this bridge between the two could have been built a bit stronger, and more comparisons between plant and animal could have been expressed.

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One project that surprised me.

Anna Dumitriu’s Cybernetic Bacteria 2.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQTdvvVH-kk

Cybernetic Bacteria is an installation and an ongoing project exploring the similarities between digital data communication and bacterial communication. Within the gallery space, digital networks such as wireless and Bluetooth activity are taken in real time along with the chemical communication of bacteria within the space and combined into a new form, creating a somewhat hybrid of the two, through the exploration of their respective complexities. This new life form is a result of both data forms placed through a computer program, with access to both our biological data as well as communicative.
This project pleasantly surprised me as it provided insight to the overlooked fact that there are always various interactions taking place at microscopic levels, and we as humans have developed our own separate system of interactions, one that has little interaction with the rest of the ecosystem. It is, however, a theoretical life form, and there is no ‘real’ new form.
The artist Anna Dumitriu had a previous version of this project which was a performance piece a plastic tube of liquid agar jelly was stuck into the earth, and the artist manually placed a hormone used by bacteria for communication upon speaking the words “I’m here.” While I admire both projects, there is something more fleeting and intimate about the performance. It is more of an interaction rather than a creation, like the 2.0.

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One project that could have been better.

Richard Harvey’s Floating Forecaster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdUtKpxX_sg&list=UUN8Aax8XICzHJzLScciViWQ

The Floating Forecaster is a display consisting of balls placed within a grid which responds to patterns and sequences from an iPhone interface. The display reinterprets weather information (or at least that was the initial intention of the artist), with the balls forming in the air what can be interpreted as clouds or sunshine or storms.
While creating a very present and lively piece, as a representation of weather, the piece fails to deliver and comes off as more toy-like. The uniformity of the balls and their restrictions don’t particularly allow for a sense of weather and atmosphere. The idea of condensing an entire feeling of atmosphere into minimal pieces and space is beautiful as well as functional, but it had only managed to become a collaborative toy. Even as a collaborative toy, it is restricted in interaction.

Murmur Study – Christopher Baker 

Murmur Study from Christopher Baker on Vimeo.

Murmur study is an installation consisting of thermal printers that constantly search for and print Twitter messages containing common emotional utterances, such as argh, meh, grr etc. These Tweets are printed continouosly on reels of paper, forming a waterfall of information that ends in chaos on the floor. I’m fascinated by this idea of giving social media, which is so transitory and ephemeral, a physical space where it dominates. It succeeds beautifully in its goal of pointing out the quiet rise of social media, but I feel that the work could have been made more visually imposing; The printers themselves seem too spread out, and Baker chose a white wall to set them against, making the paper blend into the background.

Baker himself was trained a scientist, and only recently turned to artistic expression, which likely led to his observation of society of and through technology.

Rock Paper Scissors – weAREmedienkuenstler

Rock Paper Scissors from weAREmedienkuenstler on Vimeo.

Rock Paper Scissors consists of two computers who play the titular game, randomly selecting a move, and keeping score ad infinitum. This is a surprising way to play with both chance and play, and the piece openly points out the essentially ‘brainless’ nature of Rock Paper Scissors. There is also something reminiscent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to these two machines. I would like to see this piece bring up the computer’s inability to be truly random.

City Symphonies – Mark McKeague

City Symphonies – Westminster from Mark McKeague on Vimeo.

City Symphonies is a concept for sound generation in electric cars, which relies on the vehicle’s interaction with the surrounding vehicles and environment. I find the idea of using traffic data to generate music very interesting, and the traffic simulation McKeague uses to demonstrate the program is nice, but I feel that the implementation needs more refinement. The data could be better processed, an I don’t think that a car is the right setting for this kind of experience.

One project that I admire – Deep Wounds

Deep Wounds

The Deep Wounds by Brian Knep is a projection that is installed at Harvard University’s Memorial Hall. When visitors walk across these projections it opens up to reveal the names of Harvard graduates and students who died in the civil war.

This project actually is actually based on biology and nerve impulse models and where it started from. The installation’s response pattern was governed by actual biological equations and Knep’s work was conceptualised on the idea of complex patterns and behaviours arising from simple rules which was based on biology.

The reason that this art was inspiring and also admiring was that I could identify with what the art was trying to say. The art itself portrays the unfinished healing that the war had brought and the losses that it caused. Whe there is an action taken by the person the wound is formed, just like how the war created by a person makes the wound. The healing process of the projection takes time and as Brian says that “You need to do some work to heal it.”. I think his idea of the relationship between “wounding” and “healing” is not just history but also something happening right now; it is not restricted to some people but everyone has there wounds and healing. The viewer’s interaction re-opens the wound and the past is finally reconciled.

http://www.blep.com/works/deep-wounds/

 

One project that surprised me – The E-Static Shadows

The E-Static Show

The E-Static Shadows  is a project by Zane Berzina. This project explores electrostatic meaning it works with the slow moving electric charges, which happens to be everywhere that we live in today. The light installed on the textile interact with the electronic charges that are produced when there is a person interacting with it. What surprised me about the project was the interaction between the light and human. This project actually tried to portray the relationship between space and people, creating electronic charges that we can’t see to something that we can sensor and interact with.

This project had opened a new possibilities for the artists and scientists to search and explore the potentials of the hidden electrostatic forces in modern life. I see the potential of this in making the modern lie easier with sensors that can react to human by electrostatic forces and maybe using this to create new energy forms that we might use in the future. As I looked upon the internet, I found that electrostatic was something that as far as it goes, Greeks was studying. I think that this long interest had made this artwork possible. Also this was not a single person project but a mixture of engineers, architects and designers. I think this project shows that the art nowadays are not really a single criteria but rather a mixture of everything and that artists need to know other fields too.

http://www.zaneberzina.com/e-staticshadowsproject.htm

 

One project that could have been better – Device for Drawing the Movements of a Ballerina

I do admire Alan Storey for her various concepts of drawing machines throughout his career. However, his recent work of “Device for Drawing the Movements of a Ballerina” had disappointed me. In his work, she traces dancing ballerina over a series of performance through computer mapping. The final work is a paper with a series of lines which portrays the ballerina’s movements. The concept of this art was very interesting from the fact that one art was transformed into another art, not directly through a person but rather an art form. So dancing, which is art, was transformed into a drawing, and art, by a machine that was created by the artist, which is also an art.

However, it disappointed me on the fact that there is rather not a lot of interaction between the viewer and the art when it comes to the final product. Rather, if there was no context the audience could see it as “just a bunch of lines and dots” rather than the art itself despite the time and effort that was put into it. His devices are wonderful since there is unlimited amount of possible outcomes because it is based on live actions. I think that this live action and the drawing can be related in somewhat different way rather than showing in a gallery to pull the full potential out.

http://alanstorey.net/drawing-machines.html

 

A project I admire profoundly is the Rain Room (http://www.momaps1.org/expo1/module/rainroom/), which was an interactive art installation at the Museum of Modern art.

https://vimeo.com/51830893

The purpose of the piece, which allows people to walk through a simulated field of rain and manipulate its fall, serves to inform people how technology and innovations in science could help stabilize the environment.

I think this is an absolutely gorgeous way to allow people to experience art and innovation: through full immersion. I wish I could’ve seen this in person.

A project that surprised me was a set of street art pieces by the artist Pejac, done in Paris, which depict what seems to be one thing at a distance but upon closer inspection is something completely different.

http://www.streetartnews.net/2014/08/pejac-ants-new-street-piece-paris-france.html

I love street art, and no matter how many times I see something thought-provoking or innovative painted on a public wall , I still somehow manage to be surprised by it. It’s the fact that it’s occurring in a medium that’s usually expected to contain tags, graffiti, vandalism and gang signs that always draws me in, because it’s not shut up in a museum. You have to look at it whether you intended to or not. Putting meaning into public art is always a pleasant surprise, and even more so when it’s something that seems silly or funny and ends up being very thought provoking in addition.

I can’t say it’s a complete disappointment, but a project that kind of disappointed me is the app “Planetary,” which allows people to view their music in orbit around stars and planets that represent artists and albums.

http://planetary.bloom.io/

It’s a gorgeous idea with lovely, nice-looking graphics, and I’m always a fan of visual representations of music-but I’m super disappointed because it’s only for iPad; I can’t even use it on my phone, and I otherwise only have Windows computers. So essentially, it’s a fantastic idea, I just wish it reached for a broader user base than just Apple iPad users.

Admiration : Silk Pavilion at the MIT Media Lab

Silk Pavilion, a creation of the Mediated Matter Research Group at MIT Media Lab, is an artistic powerhouse of a project. The group started with a large polygonal frame:

Polygonal frame before assembly into its dome shape

 Using a CNC threading machine, the group created a large globular web out of a single silk thread which was woven over the frame in such a way as to leave gaping holes in the structure. Next, 6500 silk worms were placed upon the webs, and left to their own devices. The worms acted as a sort of “biological printer”, providing an additional layer of silk over the CNC weaving. The collaboration of worm and machine produced a final result which cannot be called completely organic or synthetic:

Hybrid silk web, with metal frame removed.

I admire this piece chiefly because both the process and final result independently wow me. Silk worm assisted CNC weaving is an entirely unique mixture of mediums that nobody has ever attempted before. In addition, the final web is intricate, ethereal, and could hold its own regardless of its method of creation.

Surprise : etcpp

etcpp, by Benjamin Stephan and Christoph Haag, surprised me in that it is a work of art which in turn creates more art. Essentially, etcpp consists of a computer controlled pen plotter and a mound of granular matter. The device is fed an animation in the form of sequential images, which it first draws into the mound and then photographs, frame by frame. The result is a stopmotion video which imperfectly (yet charmingly) recreates the original animation. The etcpp can be used to create an infinite number of these engraved stopmotion videos.

Disappointment : LZRTAG

A LZRTAG gif tag, as viewed through an Android device.

LZRTAG is based upon an ingenious core concept: allowing the user to vandalize any surface through computer vision assisted augmented reality. However, the app fails miserably in executing said concept in an intuitive and fun-to-use manner. Firstly, in order to place anything on a surface one must first go to LZRTAG.com and create a ‘tag.’ This ruins the flow of the app, and a tag creator should have been the first thing built into the app interface. Secondly, no filter seems to exist as to who can see which tags. A “tag group” option, where only specific users can see each other’s tags, would turn LZRTAG into a primarily social app, where friends could leave each other messages on walls or add to a collaborative tag together.