WHAT IS YOUR THESIS QUESTION? 

As a teacher who has grown increasingly interested in creative coding, spatial thinking, and natural systems over the past few years, this project is driven by the following questions:

  • How might we design tools or interactive experiences that use spatial, computational and mathematical thinking in expressive ways to create art?
  • How might these tools and experiences teach us about our relationships to ourselves, others and the world around us?***
  • How might these tools and experiences transcend digital boundaries to engage our senses and our bodies?***

***NOTE: The 2nd and 3rd question are of general interest to me in terms of the projects that I want to work on but may or may not manifest directly in this particular project depending on how the scope of the project is adjusted as it unfolds.

These questions are of personal interest to me both as somebody who has found a path into graphic design and the visual arts through creative coding and whose explorations generating forms and patterns in code have led to an increased interest and appreciation for the beauty and complexity of the processes underlying objects and systems.  Of particular interest is the ways in which computation, a relative newcomer on the scene, leads to new creative processes and experiences.

WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO MAKE? 

To address my research question, I plan to develop a web app that distills out the essential elements of a creative process that I have been exploring for a while using dynamic geometry software.  This process involves creating geometric constructions, subdividing them into smaller shapes and then iteratively reapplying the rules that generated the original construction in order to create a final composition exhibiting a kind of procedural self-similarity.

The goal of this project will be to create an interactive web app that provides a playground for exploring this process and developing your own compositions.  The design will involve simplifying the toolset of dynamic geometry software to just those essential to this specific process and providing more creative options for artistically rendering the visual output.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT TO YOU? 

This project is important to me for two different reasons:

  1. On a personal note, it represents a way to push forward my own artistic practice.  I have reached a point in trying to create pieces using ‘out-of-the-box’ dynamic geometry software that I find myself frustrated by the  limitations built into the tools.  They  weren’t really designed for the visual arts nor with this particular technique in mind.  By creating the web app, I will be learning the underlying algorithms and data structures associated with dynamic geometry so that I can deploy them in my own creative practice.
  2. I am also hopeful that others will find the same pleasure and delight creating that I have enjoyed.  As a teacher, I have great respect for the design philosophy of the developers of the Scratch programming language who aspire to design things with ‘low, floors, high ceilings and wide walls.’ Low floors refer to designing experiences that are accessible without a lot of background knowledge. High ceilings refers to the capacity of the tools to allow more experienced users to build increasing sophisticated projects.  And wide walls refers to providing multiple access points for people of diverse backgrounds and interests.  I am hopeful that this project might serve as a bridge to introduce people who are interested in mathematics and geometry to graphic design and the visual arts or vice versa.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS WITH THIS PROJECT? 

My goals for this project align with the 2 reasons outlined above that it is important to me:

  1. Deepen my creative practice and begin to develop an extensible code base that I can use in future work.
  2. Develop a way for me to share this process with others through a streamlined and stripped down interactive sandbox experience.

INFLUENCES OR INSPIRATION?

Projects

Recursive Drawing – Toby Schachman

An ITP thesis which developed a somewhat related drawing tool based on recursive definitions of shapes.

http://recursivedrawing.com/

 

Procedural Tree Generator – Andrew Marsh

An example of a more tinkerable interface with adjustable settings used to procedural generate trees.

http://andrewmarsh.com/software/tree3d-web/

 

Dynamic Geometry Software – Geometer’s Sketchpad & Geogebra

Examples of a downloadable and web-based version of dynamic geometry software with slightly different approaches to the design of the interface.

https://www.dynamicgeometry.com/

https://www.geogebra.org/

 

People

Michael Hansenmeyer

A computational architect who uses a related subdivisional algorithm in some of his creations.

http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/

 

Casey Reas

A creative coder and artist whose early work involved using rule sets to define procedurally generated artwork.

https://reas.com/

 

Shantell Martin

A visual artist whose distinct expressive drawing style exemplifies the space for individual creativity that I would hope this tool might open up.

https://shantellmartin.art/

 

Bret Victor

An interface designer and computer scientist who has a number of different talks about describing interfaces that help you to think and the affordances of direct manipulation.

http://worrydream.com/

 

Publications

Development of Dynamic Geometry Software

A series of recent articles describing some of the design choices in a recently developed HTML 5 web-based version of dynamic geometry software.

Rao, Y. Wang, Y. Zou and C. Li, “A New Algorithm of Geometric Fractal in Dynamic Geometry,” 2012 Fourth International Conference on Digital Home, Guangzhou, China, 2012, pp. 13-17, doi: 10.1109/ICDH.2012.67.

Wang, Y. Rao, R. Chen, H. Guan, Y. Wang and X. Shi, “The Iteration Function on NetPad,” 2019 14th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), Toronto, ON, Canada, 2019, pp. 439-443, doi: 10.1109/ICCSE.2019.8845346.

Chen, Y. Rao, R. Cai, X. Shi, Y. Wang and Y. Zou, “Design and Implementation of Human-Computer Interaction Based on User Experience for Dynamic Mathematics Software,” 2019 14th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), Toronto, ON, Canada, 2019, pp. 428-433, doi: 10.1109/ICCSE.2019.8845532.

Wang, Y. Rao, H. Guan and Y. Zou, “NetPad: An online DGS for mathematics education,” 2017 12th International Conference on Computer Science and Education (ICCSE), Houston, TX, 2017, pp. 305-309, doi: 10.1109/ICCSE.2017.8085507.

 

Tinkering Studio Learning Dimensions

The Learning Dimensions framework encapsulates the design philosophy that has developed over years of iterations in the Tinkering Studio in Exploratorium trying to design playful, and engaging creative learning experiences.

Tinkering is Serious Play

Learning Dimensions of Making and Tinkering

Research to Practice: Observing Learning in Tinkering Activities

 

Christopher Alexander’s Nature of Order Book 1: The Phenomenon of Life

A book describing Alexander’s philosophy on the qualities that give life to structures including buildings, artifacts and natural systems. Of particular interest is his description of 15 fundamental properties of life in artifacts and buildings that he has extracted from years of observations and which I think capture aspects of what makes some of the designs that I’ve made feel like stronger compositions.

http://www.natureoforder.com/overview.htm

HOW DO YOU ENVISION REALIZING THIS PROJECT? (max 150 words)

My plan for the project is as follows:

  1. First, I intend to develop a working prototype using p5 to replicate the basic process.  This would involve creating an environment with the ability to create and manipulate basic dynamic geometry primitives such as points, lines and circles and define some basic constraints such as angles, or parallel and perpendicular lines.
  2. Then I will explore ways to provide more create choices in the output including line style, color palette options, gradients, animations and tracings.
  3. After that I will begin to build out the full experience including any sort of theme, onboarding, etc.  At this point I would like to consider ways to incorporate creative prompts or inspirations into the experience itself.

My goal we be to have at least the 1st and 2nd items complete by the end of Spring Semester.

With a basic minimum viable product created in p5, I will turn to investigating the possibilities and advantages of adapting the code for a different javascript library that is more suited to svg output or advanced rendering options.

If time permits during the summer, I will consider exploring how to bridge the digital physical divide with the output or develop more expressive inputs than the mouse such as touch, stylus or other gestural inputs.

I do not want to limit my audience to a certain age range but would like it to feel accessible to people of multiple ages with an interest in creating art but not necessarily having much experience or comfort with programming or advanced mathematics.

OPTIONAL QUESTIONS 

WHAT ARE YOUR AREAS OF STRENGTH?

I’m pretty good at finding or discovering solutions to technical programming problems and looking for interesting or creative solutions to design problems..

WHAT AREAS DO YOU NEED TO WORK ON?

I probably need to work on agenda and benchmark setting, developing a cohesive visual design and producing art assets that can be used in the design.

TECHNOLOGIES YOU WANT TO EXPLORE IN MORE DEPTH?

I’m interested in exploring javascript libraries such as three.js or paper.js that might be helpful for creating the basic tool.  I am also potentially interested in exploring how these designs might be integrated into artifacts using digital fabrication techniques or exploring more expressive forms of input such as touch interfaces or other gestural expressions of the body.

TAGS

Creative tech tools, Dynamic geometry, Visual arts, Procedural generation, Awesome sauce

As single words: ‘creativity’, ‘geometry’, ‘art’, ‘procedural’, ‘awesome’