ITP Algorithmic Art

The Multi-Headed Hydra: A Generative Book

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The idea that an autobiography can not only be of a person but also of data, ideas, concepts or other inanimate objects is of interest to us. We are interested in looking at how certain ideas have prevailed on the web over the years.

The generative book attempts to be a narrative object that elicits such ideas/concepts/identities that have existed on the web for years and that which continue to be produced or appended to by people in present day cyberspace. The book uses an entered word to expand and search for related content on the web. It uses a lexical database to expand the entered word into many more related keywords which are then used to query data from the internet using public APIs and scraping. Some our sources of information are blogs, social networking sites, color directories etc.

The program then graphically lays out the contents into PDF books which can be printed. Every time the program is run it produces a unique book. No one book produced by this program is the same. It renders layouts, spreads, colours, type and other graphic elements depending on a set of relationships built from the queried data.

MAPP (Mechanical Art Production Platform)

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Mechanical Art Production Platform, or MAPP, is an art-making platform, consisting of a three-axis drawing machine attached via microcontroller to custom computer software.

MAPP is a platform, and not simply a machine, by virtue of the fact that it was not designed with a specific aesthetic output in mind, but rather as a vehicle for expression capable of various and unexpected artistic results. Thus there is no singular input or output for the machine, but rather a number of choices for the artist to make.

The aesthetic range of MAPP is determined by its three main components: the physical machine, the software that controls the machine, and the drawing media used for each particular piece.

The mechanics of the machine are centered upon the movement of three plexiglass stages (one per axis), attached via a nut and threaded rod to a stepper motor. The attachment of the rod to the motor turns the radial motion of the stepper motor into the linear motion of the stage. The software arrangement translates various forms of user input into commands that, once received by the microcontroller, cause the motors, and thus the stages, to perform specific movements.

While MAPP is currently a single instantiation, it is also the beginning of an attempt at providing an accessible framework to aspiring artists and technologists who wish to work on similar projects in mechanically driven art. The instructions for the physical machine and electronics are adaptations from the open source project reprap.org, and the custom programming work will soon be released as an open-source library for others to use and expand, in the hopes of fostering more inventive projects bridging the worlds of art and machines.

motionLife

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

motionLife plays with the concept of how our movements affect the world around us. It shows an artistic representation of the scene in front of it, that constantly oscillates slightly. As the observer moves, the screen explodes in a shower of particles (representing how everything we observe is made up smaller parts), that dance and bounce back into place over time.

Observers can respond to the piece with huge sweeping gestures, keeping the scene in chaotic motion. Alternatively, they can keep very still and make small motions, cause a scene that mirrors reality, but slightly askew.

Obsessions (Flickr Pets)

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

These painterly images document the love and obsession that people express for their pets … in the form photographs uploaded to the Flickr website. For this project, I collected pictures of dogs, cats, puppies (clearly, a different species than dogs), kittens, hamsters, and bunnies on Flickr.com and generated new images based on the features and colors of the originals. These high resolution images, which share a likeness to Gustav Klimt\’s work, are still images taken from animations made using software programmed C++ using the openFrameworks library.

Grass Type

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Grass Type is a virtual mat of grass that sways to the stroke of the mouse and imprints characters as you type on the keyboard

Plink Jet

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Plink Jet is a robotic musical instrument made from scavenged ink jet printers. The mechanical parts of four printers are diverted from their original function, re-contextualizing the relatively high-tech mechanisms of this typically banal appliance into a ludic musical performance. Motorized, sliding ink cartridges and plucking mechanisms play four guitar strings by manipulating both pitch and strumming patterns like human hands fingering, fretting, and strumming a guitar. Plink Jet is designed to play itself, be played, or both. The result is an optionally collaborative performance between both the user and Plink Jet, with the user choosing varying levels of manual control over the different cartridges (fretting) and string plucking speeds (strumming).

soundbird

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

sound bird is an audio reactive painting being living on the screen. Sounds from the external world boost its energy and its colorful trails creates abstract sound mapping of the environment

Black White and Read

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Five prints selected from a every changing data base of live images will be printed and exhibited. This work uses processing to juxtapose news images that are changed to black and white posterized graphics and headline texts / or descriptions from the NY Times. The work will exist as an online project (itp.nyu.edu/~jz639/applet2) (this is a very very rough version of the project which is being updated all the time these days). in addition i will create prints that are 20×30 inches of selected image/text juxtapositions (single images) as well as the final grid of 12 image/text juxtapositions that represents a random sampling of the 30 images selected for the project. The next stage will be to present this as a calendar–a project that selects am image and headline to represent each day of a given month. this could be extended to 12 months but that would be a lot of images. for now i hope to display 5 images as well as the online live version of the project. I have a flash animation of how the sequence works that you can see here…(http://jodyzellen.com/oog_news/)

Energija

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is a participatory installation piece in which users can draw a continuously growing landscape. The landscape is both geometric and organic–geometric in its use of simple shape primitive and organic in its resemblance of sensed user motion. Aesthetically we intend the tradeoff between these two properties to inform the work\’s style.

Sonic Topology

Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sound manifests the sensorial field in a manner that the scopic field struggles to achieve
in certain ways. Due the omnidirectional nature of sound, (particularly in the lower fre-
quencies) an immersive experience can be created in the sensorium of the subject. In a
sense, sound can be used as an indexical device which imprints itself upon the listener. This
phenomenon is the thrust of much of my recent work. I have been concerned with the to-
pology created in the air by the accumulation of dense layers of slightly out of phase, low
frequency sine waves. I see a relationship between the deliberate use of simple materials in
my sonic work and the use of primary colors in monochrome painting styles. What differs
from the simplicity of the material, however, is the complexity of the composites created by
the accumulation of the number of waves. The slight phase shifts that occur create what is
known as ‘binaural beating patterns’. The beats themselves can be seen as ‘nodes’, from
which structure can emerge.

Through the use of oscilloscopes and other devices, these waves can be seen as a kind of abstract visual music as shown in the work of artists like Jordan Belson, and John Whitney among others. Through the use of more advanced computer software such as max/msp/jitter, visualization of the topology of sonic phenomena can advance into new directions, moving past the oscilloscope’s display constraints of cartesian coordinates, and into much more advanced geometry. Current discourse in the field of architecture is heavily concerned with these issues as Computer Assisted Design (CAD) software such as Maya enables a radical re-visioning of received notions of form. My intention is to use sound as a form finding technique which will
be represented in 2 dimensional space in the form of video projections as well as a series of
large format prints, in 3 dimensional virtual space, and ultimately in 3 dimensional physical
space. Through the use of CNC milling and printing machines, this technique has made it
possible to execute and physicalize these advanced geometries. The topology of the air
which is imprinted by the index of sound will be represented and left as a physical trace in
the surface topology of the chosen materials, (which will show a heavy emphasis towards reflective materials). Kinetic 2 dimensional forms created through the process will be projected against the physical assemblage, creating a hybrid form of sculpture, cinema and sound.