Critical play as a way of exposing and examining dominant values is the proposition most aligned with my own goals. I think having been interested in illustration for so many years has made me more inclined towards narrative, and I think narrative and wanting to convey some ultimate story is most similar to exposing/examining values. There are narrative works that I admire that do relate to the other propositions. For example, I’d say What Remains of Edith Finch does more with “toying with the notion of goals” and making “familiar types of play unfamiliar” than exposing some kind of value. However, in my own work if I were to construct something like that, I’d focus on the first proposition first, before considering adding elements relating to the other two propositions.
Author: jackalope
Jackalope-LookingOutwards-1
Algorithm by Dimitris Ladopoulos is series of images created an algorithm that makes a treemap-esque by recursively splitting. What I admire of this project is the processing he does using the results of the algorithm, with making 3d versions of his outputs with protruding rectangles and different materials and colors. Those are just gorgeous to look at.
I think the idea of the art is incredibly simple. The use of a recursive algorithm to generate fractal artwork is pretty basic and un-novel. The results are lovely and show great design choices, but I wonder what the process behind creating those is like. The artists describes very little beyond the algorithm that generates the treemap structures.
Ladopoulos has another similar project on his site. It’s called “Portraits”, and instead of randomly generated images, you input a painting and it’ll segment it into a treemap-looking thing based on where color transitions are. That project is a much less interesting one. Without the abstraction and art direction of “Algorithm”, “Portraits” is just a rather bland data visualization.
