Recently this interest has me looking at Processing. I know [...]]]> Recently I’ve been really interested in Generative Art — in how amazing and aesthetic things can be made out of data and algorithms. I posted about my first deeper look into it (Tim Huchinson, plus my own attempts to use Kandid) over a year ago.

Recently this interest has me looking at Processing. I know very little about programming so how it works is pretty opaque to me, but I’ll tell you this much: it works using data, it works over javascript and thus works on the internet, and some of the works made using it are blowing my mind. Here’s several of em.

An array of garbage bags + fans and Processing, and it’s art that feels more than a bit like life:

One Hundred and Eight – Animated Patterns from Nils Völker on Vimeo.

Crazily complex “Subdivided Columns” by Michael Hansmeyer, built out of computations from topographical data from a standard Doric column. These are not just conceptual: they actually were output, prototyped as objects, which makes me feel excited about how wildly structured objects and architecture of the near future might be.

And yeah three great music videos made with Processing:

Moullinex – Catalina from Moullinex on Vimeo.

Made using Kinect data: total writeup here.

Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 on Vimeo.

(Aha! The first piece that uses color in the whole dang post! I promise I love color really!) Writeup of the beat notation process here.

The ‘Mandela’ Variation from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

Writeup of his Processing-writ ZenO growth system here.

They’re by notable generative artist Tim [...]]]> You know how But Does It Float fades in its wordless content slowly and one at a time, leading to a sort of dreamlike user experience? Well the other day, I was wading through its abstract wonderland and a few scenes from another world caught my eye.

They’re by notable generative artist Tim Hutchinson. Impressed and intrigued, I looked into Hutchinson further. He’s made algorithmically generated art using a variety of software and runs a thoughtful and serious blog about Fractal Art called Orbit Trap.

The ones that most impressed me were made in a program called Fyre. I’m not the right sort of a geek to figure out how to run this on a Mac (command line? DarwinPorts? Unix?); I’d appreciate anyone’s help because, damn do I want to play with that. Please.

Four pieces of iterative art I did today, after the jump.

As for the clouds, they’re made in a program that runs in javascript called Kandid. It runs using genetic principals — that is, you run the computations generationally and can choose results with which to breed the look you want. I should point out that as you breed these evil clouds (well not evil but you must admit they’d make good elements in a death metal album cover), they grow as if from fractal seeds out of the darkness, as dreamlike a flowering as any I’ve seen. Its user interface is fun and simple and given how hooked I was to it immediately (up late in bed, on the train to work all morning) I really wonder why some geek hasn’t made an app of it yet. I’d pay.

I used the same subsection of the program as Hutchinson and just run through a pho’sho’ duotone. I’m not trying to bite his style; there’s actually a lot of other types of parameters Kandid can run, but from what I could see the the “iterated affine” seems to have the most visual potential.

(And yes, those last two were bred for “ghost ram skull” and “space age fabric” respectively)