03-Readings

fr0g.fartz-Restrictions of Comfort

TW: anxiety

This project is about having anxiety. One experience with anxiety that I have that has felt very real for me is the debate of whether I should stay in bed or not. I feel safe in my bed and in my room, more than anywhere else. This is because I know that very few dangerous things could happen to me in my room. However, this idea turns ugly when the thoughts start to force me to stay in bed and feel very afraid of the possibility of going out into the world. It is hard to explain the logic behind these thoughts, as they are irrational.

My project is not totally a “game,” because the viewer is trapped in the bed. I wanted to create a visual for what it feels like for me to not be able to leave my room, almost as if the room is convincing me to stay in it. The pillow-covered knit walls give a sense of security and delight, like the posters in my own bedroom. However, the wires on the bedroom floor prevent the viewer from stepping anywhere besides the bed. The bed is small and centred in the middle of the room, adding to a feeling of dissociation. The wired roof allows for the anxious viewer to look outside, without actually being outside, a common safety hazard prevention for me. The variation in the darkness of the neutral colors also adds to a conflicting feeling. The bed and pillows are light, indicating happiness, however, there are dark shadows behind them.

The intention of this project was for me to embrace this feeling of anxiety, by making it into art, or something visual. When anxiety can be brought outside of the head and into physicality, it can be seen for what it is. Making and sharing this project has provided consolation for me.

I really liked learning about the differences between HSL and RGB because I think both can be advantageous for different types of projects. It’s also fun because as an artist who already understands color theory, it’s something that I can play around with efficiently. As for the Tyler Hobbs article, I got a lot of great inspiration on how to use color generatively. I particularly love the look of the “compositional shapes” design. (attached)

anna-Readings03

I’m finding Hobbs’s intention to put specific varieties of colors at either the tops or bottoms of his works visually intriguing in concept and quite mentally relaxing in execution.

Meanwhile, the other article’s visual representation of the RGB color system reminds me of how truly atrocious it is, and yet, how much RGB is like, the cornerstone of all digital colors. HSV and HSL continue to confuse me, but a little less so after seeing them both laid out like this.

bookooBread-Readings03

After reading Tyler Hobbs’s Color in Generative Art, I was super inspired to try out some of the things he talks about. I took the idea of a gradient but applied it a bit differently. Instead of doing a color gradient, I did a size gradient. I think above all however, I was the most inspired by all the other blog posts on the side of the site. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and read about a third of all of his posts… After really loving all of the sketches from the flow fields blog post I decided to look into it myself to see if I could use that for my wallpaper and went down an even deeper rabbit hole and watched the entire perlin noise series on The Coding Train youtube. I talked with Golan and decided not to go down this route for my wallpaper, but I am still super happy I learned about all of these things and I’m very excited to experiment with them in the future (especially flow fields – I feel like I always resonate with flowy, more abstract visuals).

minniebzrg-03Readings

Rune Madsen, Color Models and Color Spaces

I learned from this article that the CIEXYZ color space model displays the color range of many other modern color spaces. If the color space of whatever screen you are using has a different range to the intended color space, then some colors might not be visible. The RGB, HSL, HSV color spaces are all in the range of the sRGB color space. In p5js, I learned that color mode ranges can be changed as well. This means I can choose a number based on a different scale than the original model has.

Tyler Hobbs, Color in Generative Art

I like that Hobbs challenges the reader to discover their own knack for generating color palettes. The intro paragraph spoke directly to me because my wallpaper code became difficult when deciding how to randomize the colors without producing a bunch of palettes that just didn’t work together. I learned about sorting colors based on clustering, shapes, tones, probability, and more. He says that good color is “about placing them strategically,” which I hope to learn more about and use to expand my future artwork.

YoungLee – Reading 03

Tyler Hobb’s philosophies about using color in generative art were especially fascinating due to the variety of methods he mentions: compositional shapes, inheritance, color sampling, sorting, clumping, and gradients. He suggests that using too many online color sources wouldn’t be reliable in the long run. Instead, relying on the coding itself to generate random color schemes specific to your artistic identity would be better for your career. Personally, my favorite method he used was clumping because you can control where some parts are most dense with a specific color without having it seem too rigid.

rathesungod – Readings03

In Rune Madsen’s “Color Models and Color Spaces,” Madsen explains the use of color in programming specifically. I was really interested in how the specific types of color space can be different according to computer retinas. It also talks about how there’s a definite difference that should be taken into mind when comparing colors in both in person and online.

peatmoss-Readings03

From Tyler Hobbs, I found it really interesting that color/image mapping can be used to create a secondary palette for your generated artwork. I’ve used gradient maps before in my raster/illustrated work and I personally love them, so I look forward to attempting to do something similar with generative work. The example he showed was beautiful, and he made a great note of adjusting the secondary reference images colors to make them more stark and obvious when translated over the generative piece!

(from https://tylerxhobbs.com/essays/2021/color-arrangement-in-generative-art)

shrugbread-Reading 03

I had some new insight after reading “Color Arrangement in Generative Art” towards the end of the reading. Part of Hobb’s message aside from the warning to new artists about leaning too hard on other artists color choices is to not be afraid of random variation in color so long as it makes sense contextually. He has multiple pieces that have groups of cool/warm, bright/dark, like/contrasting colors right next to each other to provide a specific cohesiveness. This coupled with the use of gradients can make for color choices that almost form themselves and don’t require the artist to sit there diligently with the eye dropper too looking out for the best hue.

bumble_b – Readings03

In Tyler Hobbs’s “Color in Generative Art,” I was really interested in the sorting/sequencing technique. I’m fairly new to art entirely, and I know color is one of the most difficult aspects of it. I really resonated with his ideas on sorting colors from a palette by some characteristic like hue (with some aspect of randomness still) for the program to sequence through in each new element. The technique really inspired me and gave me some new ideas.