first poem
in order to use the notation system i created (which is part of my thesis work), I thought of illustrating a poem. instead of going through the trouble of picking a poem from someone else, i wrote my poem. there. my first poem..I am no poetry person.i never read poetry or fiction. but i enjoyed this process
call die happy die know not”
have ear open say own wrong”
tell all talk not draw dog”
far is find a slow day”
say red are you my open ballon ”
work something I catch next ruin ”
you go time my female have come”
and this is how it looks after being translated into my glyphs
left hand writing
in order to get out of my own personality and to be more primitive / natural, here I am writing with my left hand imaginary characters
words as painting and images as words
I am interested in the realm between order and chaos, control and expression, educated and primitive.
I am interested in poetry, painting words, words as images, narrative. In fact I am interested in how all these can be together in one piece of work.
so for printing code class final, I want to explore using software as an improvisation tool to design a series of work that lie between writing and image, order and chaos.
approach:
1. hand design a series of ‘strokes’ or ‘modules’ that will be the primary elements of my painting
2. put these in code, design an algorithm that combines these strokes in different structures, scales and orders. result is an almost infinite source of generative symbols on the computer screen
3. write a sereis of instructions. with these generative symbols as source material, follow the instructions to create paintings
inspiration:
yoko ono, grapefruit
cy twombly
keith haring, poem
Le Monte Young
“draw a straight line and follow it”
Irma Blank
paul klee
seiichi niikuni
jean degottex
wat I have so far:
a system that allows me to create and encode (in letters and numbers) glyphs
the application (Processing) looks like this:
some glyphs generated through this system
upside down calligraphy
writing just a single stroke in a random grid..flipped upside down..wondering if orientation makes a difference in interpreting this as writing or image
to create a true image
is to detach oneself from looking
like a dancer does not watch herself…she is immersed in the act of dancing
with drawing…..because we are such visual animals…we have a lot of preconception of how things should look like..only when we detach ourselves from the ‘look’ of a painting can we truly create an original painting that is pure and does not serve to represent things in this world
when you are constantly looking outwards…how can you find something inside
ITP generative identity
An identity system where each individual in the organization creates their own logo while still reflecting a coherent identity.
This logo system is created for the Interactive Telecommunication Program ( ITP ), a two-year graduate program within the Tisch School of Arts whose mission is to explore the imaginative use of the latest communication technologies. Some of the main characteristic of ITP are diversity, creativity, playfulness and experimentation.
I wanted to design a system where there are infinite varieties of outcomes while remaining coherent. Inspired by the ancient Tangram game, I first prototyped with paper cutouts. This led to the final output – a custom software that allows each person at ITP to make their own logo, using a predefined set of shapes and colors. The shapes and colors are designed to reflect the playfulness, energy and vibrance of the community.
This identity system aims to emphasize the ‘human’ factor that is integral to what makes the community of ITP – two hundred individuals from all walks of life such as music, engineering, visual arts, science, education etc. The generative power of the system comes from human input.
shown below is a quick demo of the system for logo of ITP ( the five fixed color series which includes the color purple – the current color of ITP logo and the theme color for NYU ) and ITP Camp ( a condensed summer program whose theme color is green )
sample of possible identities for ITP and ITP Camp
prototyping with paper
sketching ideas
book cover design
book cover design made in processing.
I chose the book ‘Semiotics of Programming’ by Kumiko Tanaka-Ishii. I read this book recently as part of thesis research. The book compares computer sign systems with human sign systems, adopting a semiotic approach to analysing the development of computer programs.
My first idea was to recreate the original book cover which is an Escher painting ‘print gallery’. Since this assignment is also related to grid systems, and I found out that Escher hand drawn a spiralled-out expanding grid before he drew the painting to figure out where everything goes. I found the concept of a recursively out-expanding grid interesting…but I found it difficult to recreate this in code..given the time constraint I went with my other idea: to create a page of letter-like glyphs that are suggestive of meaning and therefore a sign system.
result 0
though to me it provokes an abstract alphabet and it is aesthtically pleasing to me, it remains looking very computer-generated looking…which arguably perhaps suits the book content.
Since the point of the book is that the computer sign system is developed based on the model of human language system ( although not perfect! ) I thought it should be hinted that this sign system on the cover should have a hand-writing/organic feel to it. Here comes the result 1:
drawing curly lines with varying thin/thick lines added an organic touch that I usually find difficult to achieve with code. There is obviously plenty room for improvement but I am happy with this result given I only had one evening to work on it.
generative faces
made with processing
generative type
printing code assignment. use a rule to generate a word in code.
I chose to work with chinese characters. I am thinking whether I can simplify complex characters but still make them readable to someone who knows Chinese.
It took me a while to find a chinese font that works with the geomerative library. here’s the word before operation. It means loopholes, flawed, with holes…
so i made an invisible grid underneath the character. Then for each point that makes up the shape of the character ( represented by a dot ) i check whether that falls into a cell, if it does, that cell is solid, else cell empty.
since i wanted a simplified and incomplete feel of the characters ( also related to the meaning of the character ), I only took the first third of points and the last 1/7th of points from the points array. The order of these points varies a lot depending on the font I choose.
final result:
a few others that didn’t make it..
different results while tweaking the width/height of cells and number of columns and rows
rice cake!
visual references
I want to make a 3d world full of symbols, signs, lines drawings, non-semantic writings/letters. Ideally you are walk in this world like you would a game. Since lines are 2d and I want to make a 3d world, I am yet not sure how this world would be achieved.
Some visual references:
# in order: henri michaux, henri michaux, proteus, paul klee, + rest are my own symbol + dance skethches
