Author: bumble_b

bumble_b – Memory

A normal, all-American Sunday sometime in December 2010

Password: ems2021 (Sorry, I’m not super proud of this and don’t want it to be public!)

The video that I included shows what was probably the most difficult sequence for me to get right. I really wanted my story to be about the cute and witty dialogue options, which meant I couldn’t use vanilla Bitsy’s tools. Instead, I had to download my game, copy/paste code hacks into the HTML file, do what I wanted, and run it from there. This meant a lot of making something in Bitsy, downloading it, adding my custom code, doing my own code, realizing things were wrong, going back to Bitsy, downloading it, re-pasting code, retesting it, etc. etc. to the point that I had hundreds of files on my desktop and I was going insane. So, I did something I kind of didn’t expect of myself and just figured out what the code was doing. I ended up just building a lot of my game from the HTML file so I didn’t have to keep going through that horrible sequence. Basically, by the last couple days of this project, I didn’t even use Bitsy. I just didn’t really vibe with it. But I’m super proud of myself for coding instead of using Bitsy’s click and drag features (not that the code was super hard, but still).

Anyway, this project was about my childhood and the things that I did and felt. It’s pretty light-hearted with a few kind of self-deprecating touches; I really wanted to capture what it was like being a first-generation American. Our first house was really small, so I had to add giant walls/borders to show that. I even changed the sprite colors by room so that with my family I was colored brown, outside I was colored white, and in my own room I was a mix of the two. Kind of cheap and cringe-y color theory, but I just wanted to show the effect living in a tiny, white town had on me growing up and the white-washing I experienced from it. I had a lot of watching TV/playing options, and I also sequenced them so that every time you clicked on the options it was something different.

The code got so time-consuming that I didn’t get to do everything I wanted, like sound effects; for example, if you choose to play Club Penguin on the computer, I wanted Club Penguin music to play. This was definitely achievable through the code extensions I found, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do any more work (LOL).

I’d really like some feedback on my art itself. I think I sort of killed it on the narrative/dialogue/coding fronts, but I feel really self-conscious about my actual art and design. I know for a fact that there is a lot to improve there and would really like to hear people’s suggestions.

bumble_b – NFTMinting

A whole lot of heart

A bee and honey

I don’t know why the heart gif isn’t working, but I chose these two p5 works I did for my 0.1 Tezos mints! I’ve just started creating some really cool art this semester in this class (the past two years I have been creating more physical and 3D designs that I would’ve put up, but they would’ve just been photos of physical objects instead of actual creations), so I had some fun work from this class to choose from!

Sting  ray  petting  zoo

This is the work that I decided to put up for 1 Tezos. I feel kind of bad because I know this isn’t exactly the incredible work of art expected for the higher priced piece, but as we all know, I don’t really do art. I did this little pattern for my Basic Design class last year about my favorite part of the Georgia Aquarium… the place you can pet sting rays! It’s not perfect, and I definitely cringe looking back on it because I could do it much better now, but I’ve always loved this! I find it kind of simple, ugly, and charming.

bumble_b – LookingOutwards07

I spent quite a bit of time looking through the Bitsy websites and playing games. If I’m being honest, as someone who is a big fan of video games (especially the 8-bit variety), I was pretty disappointed with the depth (or lack of depth) of them. There were a few inspired by Mario where you just sorta kept pressing the arrow key until you ran into some coins and got a message that said “You grabbed 1 coin!” over and over again. It got kind of annoying and boring fast. (Although, I really enjoyed the retro design of this Mario game.) AND, I am definitely inspired by the possibilities and the ideas that I have!!!

This game was probably the most enjoyable to me because I love fishing mini games. Of course, there was no actual fishing mechanic; rather, you just pressed the left key over and over again to catch fish. Again, I’m probably expecting WAY too much of these, so I can at least admit this one was pretty darn cute.

I also noticed that some people were making these sorts of plug-ins/add-ons or something? that I really liked, like this Arabic Font one that I would totally use! I’m so excited for the workshop on Wednesday! 🙂

bumble_b – NFTReading

This honestly feels like a really accessible and friendly movement in the ways that it removes the rich and exclusive environment of art galleries. Anybody can access and see NFTs, anybody can sell NFTs (a massive improvement from galleries) because of that sort of “unlimited space” of the internet and the anonymity that prevents racism, ageism, sexism, and other prejudices that could make it difficult for someone to emerge as an artist in more traditional ways. It takes back the power of the individual artist, especially minority artists. Despite the inclusivity I feel exists with sellers and viewers, I have definitely noticed that the exclusivity and upper-class feel of buying art has persisted- if not increased- in this format. I also don’t think that’d ever be remediable; buying art has always been a “I have so much income that all my needs have been met and I also have a bunch left to spend on not-so-necessary things” thing to me. But, I think it’s an improvement in every other category of class.

I also do understand the environmental implications of the more traditional cryptocurrencies and NFT marketplaces. In all honesty, it has been a really hard concept for me to grasp because the internet and cyberspace and all of that has always felt like an intangible, “in the air and everywhere but also not taking up any physical space” kind of thing. I know that’s not true, especially now, but it is something I am having a hard time picturing. I see how NFTs cause this harm, but I also think that the proof-of-stake basis of the crypto we’ll be using is a really great step that will hopefully take off and replace more harmful forms. Everest Pipkin’s take on them though, I noticed, is not good either. They assert that no matter what you do, crypto “almost universally grant[s] power to the already powerful.” I also thought what they said about cryptocurrency being a pyramid scheme was really interesting. The idea of “you make money from the people who join after you” wasn’t one I had considered before, and it definitely got me thinking.

Again, despite all of this reading and discussion, my brain really hurts trying to wrap my head around these concepts, but I really feel like there is the potential for a lot of good to come out of this if it was implemented in a more secure, exact, and environmentally-friendly way. Though I wouldn’t really consider myself an artist the way that people selling NFTs would, I, as a POC, have a lot of sympathy for minorities who have been sidelined who now have a chance to make a life out of their passion.

I have a lot of trust in this class and am definitely more than open to trying this out this week. But, I don’t see myself ever exploring these marketplaces as a seller or buyer again, just because it’s not really my area of interest.

bumble_b – NFTImmersion

1. AM  04  by  @jorencull

I absolutely ADORE Where’s Waldo?-type art like this with a lot going on. You can zoom in and find something new every time you look at it; it’s so incredible. If anyone else is really into these, there’s this awesome subreddit called r/wimmelbilder where artists post things like this!

2. OLD MONEY CORRUPTS VI @missalsimpson

I also really love collages, and the changing colors/gif aspect of this one was a really lovely and captivating touch.

3. Lockdown by ?

Though this one is really simple, I found it quite charming. It reminds me a lot of something I would make, so I was quite drawn to it.

4. Eruption by @macomoroni

This one I find incredibly disturbing. There were a lot of hyper-realistic animations with super surreal concepts I found scrolling through these sites, and though I can see how much work went into making this (something I can really appreciate), the video and the sounds and everything about it are not for me.

5. first poem to be sold as nft by @nikolatosic
In contrast to my “This is not for me, but I appreciate the artistry” feelings about many of the pieces I saw (like the one above), this is just straight up the laziest, most annoying things I’ve ever seen. I mean, seriously? To be fair, I’m not a poet, but I feel like this hardly qualifies as a poem, let alone one that should be sold for $183.71 (the current bid at the time of writing this).

After exploring all the art- just scrolling through- I noticed a lot of surrealist, 3D animated, clay animated, cartoony, and pixelated artwork (at least, those were the ones that most stuck out to me). There also seems to be some photography and even just screenshots/text of things. But, most of the artwork I saw overall look to be digitally created somehow or another! I think that points to what really came off as “missing” to me, which was hand-drawn/hand-painted/hand-something’ed works. Though I definitely saw a few, it seemed kind of rare to scroll past one.

There’s a lot of peculiar and almost meme-esque work that I saw, and even an interesting amount of cannabis/drug-related creations, leading me to believe a lot of the artists posting these NFTs are young. However, I am a little confused about who is buying them. A lot of the art, I felt, is geared toward a more millennial and Gen. Z audience, but a lot of them are being sold for the equivalent of thousands of dollars – disposable income I thought would be more common with an older audience. Regardless, the look of these creations are incredibly modern and exciting, and I think that the people selling them were previously struggling, young artists who have found a new and blossoming outlet with a lot of interested buyers.

This may be a hot take, but part of me thinks the excitement over this new medium will die down soon. Though I suspect it’ll always remain a large industry, I think that it’s currently reaching its peak that I find really common with other pop culture fads. But as of now, I think a lot of the people posting these are posting because it’s a new opportunity to establish a following and make money, and a lot of people are buying them because of the modernity and exclusivity of the medium.

bumble_b – Creature

Name: Mr. Cat, the Dumpster Cat!

Code

I originally wanted to create a sleeping creature that would wake up to your voice, but after seeing Connie’s uploaded audio/song code, I was inspired to create the cat that used to live in our alleyway (haven’t seen the lil guy in awhile…) that used to come out and meow at me when I played music out on the balcony! I called him Mr. Cat back then in an attempt not to name him, but it stuck.

His eyes follow the cursor, and if you click the speaker, music plays and he bobs his head to vibe!

I originally wanted his tail to move too, but I honestly couldn’t get it to look the way I wanted to. If I were to go back, I would definitely pay more attention to that detail and get it implemented  well!

bumble_b – Loop

Code

And since we were only supposed to use rect(), here it is without the text:

I had this idea for a little bee zooming around a jar of honey! Originally, I wanted three bees, but after seeing them run into each other and their little dashed lines getting all muddied up, I realized it looked too messy, so I simplified it!

I used noise for the honey (it’s very flow-y honey), and I decided to make lissajous curves for the bee! What I realized was that the bee didn’t rotate with the curve, so Golan showed me atan2() to make it happen! When I wanted to add the dashed lines, Connie showed me how to store the previous positions of the bees in arrays. However, the dashes would disappear every time it looped, so Connie (very kindly) printed and stored the positions of the last 10 dashes in the array so the gif would always start with them!

To be honest, it’s a lot more simple-looking than I imagined, and I feel bad and wish I did more, but I do think the simplistic cartoon-y look has it’s own charm! 🙂

bumble_b – LoopResearch

 

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A post shared by Dave Whyte (@davebeesbombs)

This loop from Bees and Bombs really struck me because of how red and blue squares form for a few seconds and really stand out  in the rotation.

 

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A post shared by Dave Whyte (@davebeesbombs)

This one also really stuck out to me because the small squares form into bigger squares that turn out to actually be those very small squares when zoomed out and looped! It hurt my brain; I loved it.

I really like this gif from Cindy Suen because of the importance of the pizzas in creating the loop. The text itself has a very definitive start and end (when it leaves the screen), but since the pizzas continue to rotate, it looks like it goes on forever.

This next video from Andreas Wannerstedt was one out of a great set called Oddly Satisfying Vol. 6. I couldn’t choose which I liked best out of all of them, but I think the plunking noise and the unexpected softness of the planks really drew me to this one.

bumble_b – LoopReading

There were a few moments that really stuck out to me in Lena Groeger’s presentation. She explained the mere-exposure effect which says we like things we’ve been exposed to before; we find comfort in the predictability. This effect is a fundamental aspect of humans, evident as early as in our childhood development, like when we were obsessed with the same storybook and made our parents read it over and over again or how we picked up patterns to help us learn shapes, vocabulary, and everything foundational to our learning. It reminded me of how I was absolutely obsessed with Cinderella 2 and would literally watch it over and over again, back-to-back multiple times in a day.

Something else that I found so fascinating was the speech-to-melody effect seen in Diana Deutsche’s speech:

I literally have it stuck in my head as I’m writing this.

In all, I think humans are deeply fascinated with loops. On Tik Tok, any video that somehow has a loop that seamlessly connects its beginning and end makes everyone go crazy in the comments!