Ideas

Why Algorithmic and Computational Art?

  • Looking back to the origins of the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago...
  • Looking back to the orgins of Life on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago...
  • We see the progressive evolution of complex creatures with complex brains adapting to a complex world...
  • Primates appear some 60 million years ago...
  • Hominoids appear some 20 million years ago...
  • Hominids appear some 2.6 million years ago...
  • With the appearance of humans came complex culture and technology...
  • Computation is a process that takes place in many media: in physical systems, brains, culture and technology...
  • We discovered computation; we did not invent it...
for
Algorithmic
and
Computational
Art

Goals:

  • to dispell the misconception that computation is exclusive to devices made of silicon microchips (PCs, Macs and Supercomputers)...
  • to expand our awareness of computation in a multiplicity of physical media... (not to be confused with so-called mis-named "multimedia")
  • to build an aesthetic human-technological computational ecology intermediated by mechanical and electronic, digital and analog devices...

 

Universal Radiation Warning Sign
Yucca Mountain
Exhibit at UCLA

As natural background radiation penetrates several Geiger Counters,
scattered throughout the gallery, each "click" triggers
audible crackles, strobe lights and projected images...

It is as if invisible objects were being tossed back and forth.
Collisions of light and sound dance across the exhibition...

At one end of the gallery is a photograph of Yucca Mountain.
As more and more people approach it, the natural
background radiation is augmented by an increasing deluge
of "clicks."

 

Jacquard memory...

Close-up of the "Coquette" label...
Gessler Collection.
Perforated paper was introduced to the textile industry by Bouchon in 1725 to control the patterns woven on a loom. In 1728 Falcon used a chain of punched cards instead of a paper roll. In 1801 Joseph Jacquard of Lyon, France received an award at the Parix Exposition for perfecting the mechanism. Below is a Halton Jacquard mechanism from the 1920s and chain of punched cards. Courtesy of the Pittsfield Weaving Company.

Woven from this chain of cards...
Gessler Collection.

On this Jacquard mechanism.
Gessler Collection.

The Berlin Jacquard Ribbon Loom

Roy Orr's Jacquard Loom

 

Suppose we use
a Jacquard mechanism
to animate...

NY City CG display in X-Men (chapter 19)...

Pinpressions

NY City CG display in X-Men (chapter 19)...
a pin display?

NY City CG display in X-Men (chapter 19)...