Leonardo Solaas: Dreamlines

Leonardo Solaas: Dreamlines

Argentinian generative artist Leonardo Solaas has created a dreamy, painterly work in his Dreamlines. The user inputs one or more keywords as input, which set the piece off on a a Google image search. The resulting sequence of images are then used as the basis for an animated drawing, morphing and changing over time.

The drawing process itself is done by a swarm of particles, who navigate the image as though it were a virtual terrain. Formulas translate pixel values into instructions for particle movement, making them relatives of finite state machines. The results are surprisingly subtle, the quality of the stroke ranging from hairy to spiky, curvy etc.

The interim state when one image is replaced by another is the most interesting, as one image is erased and one can clearly see the lines drawn by the particles. Obviously, depending on the search the resulting drawing can be recognizable as a filtered image or not at all. One tip is to input your own name or a well-known brand name. The right-hand image shown above is a re-drawing of an image used for an interview on Artificial.dk. Since the original contains limited colors and sharply defined shapes, much of the form and color is retained.

Quote from the artist:

Dreamlines was shown at Transmediale.06 and recently won the IBM New Media Art award at the 19th Stuttgarter Filmwinter.

David Lu: ScreenBrush

David Lu has posted more variations on his previous PencilBrush sketch:

- BranchyBrush
- ScreenBrush

Built with Processing, source available.

Update: I had forgotten about Droom Zacht, a previous experiment David Lu did with drawing tools. It seems like a consistent theme at this point. An instant favorite is brush no. 4, where the line comes alive after having been drawn.

Twodotone / Boghe: Processing graf

Ubi at Twodotone sent me a link to a sweet project he’s done in Processing, made all the sweeter by the fact that he’s using my SimplePostscript library (recently updated to work with Processing BETA).

What started out as a simple drawing experiment rapidly expanded into a PostScript-outputting tool. It was then used by graffiti artist The Boghe to create 3 posters which have been turned into PDFs and made available for download. In my experience, getting work output in a format you can use professionally makes a big difference as to what can be done with it. The transition in this project from quick experiment to potential tool proves the principle.

Anyway, it seems like graffiti and generative art are having a few love affairs these days. First there was Hektor, then GraffitiAnalysis and now there’s rumors of all sorts of graf-related projects. Makes you wonder why electronic artists are so attracted to drawing processes.

Name: SwarmSketch

Is collective cumulative design a generative technique? Instead of building a multi-agent simulation, why not use (ahem) real agents? Peter Edmunds’ SwarmSketch is the latest example of this genre, trying to make drawings from the collective consciousness. It takes a “topic” for a sketch from an RSS feed of popular web searches, then allows users to draw one line each. After doing your bit you get to “edit” the sketch by voting on the opacity of others’ lines. Early days yet but could be interesting, with some traffic…

Mark Hill: Tickertape

Frameworks assign parts of the drawing process environmentally, to make use of artefacts and knowledge-bases as a kind of creative prosthetic.

In the context of a framework, drawing is as an informational flow between mechanisms of exchange, translation and interpretation; it is distributed. The aim is to arrive at a systemic representation of the inevitability inherent within a framework’s overall physical, virtual and conceptual structure, through drawing.

Framework No.1 – Ticker Tape, is a partial response to Benjamin’s (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) observation that the aura of authenticity is diminished through successive reproduction, that makes the work of art a direct consequence of it; this does not apply in the sense of plurality of copies Vs single instance, but more in how reproduction can function as an integral part of an artwork’s uniqueness.

McDonald & Zefrank: ScribblerBot

Zefrank’s Scribbler has been around for a while as an online toy. It is a Flash project that lets the user draw a simple line drawing, and then creates its own scribbly version by applying a randomized drawing algorithm. It was an interesting experiment in mapping gestural input. More importantly, it was fun to play with. But now it has begot some more exciting byproducts.

The ScribblerBot (a collaboration between Douglas McDonald and Zefrank) uses the same algorithm to create actual drawings using a plotter. With a webcam as an input, it happily scribbles out images that are whimsical, yet eery. The portraits of people done with the ScribblerBot come out looking dark, a side effect of the algorithm’s problems with dealing with shadow.

The second incarnation is a Live Video Scribbler, shown at the NeoCon design fair in Chicago this year. Both these projects far transcend the original online toy. While the basic idea is simple, the results are compelling.

James Paterson: Drawings

Bitforms Gallery in New York is currently showing work by James Paterson, the prolific mastermind behind Presstube. Pieces on display include drawings, prints and animation work. Paterson has pioneered a style combining traditional drawing with programmed composition. Sketches are done on paper, and favorites are selected to be digitized using a tablet as input device. Some are also animated frame-by-frame. These individual elements are then arranged and controlled using programming.

The resulting compositions are often a cacophony of shapes, demonstrating Paterson’s vivid visual humor. Unfortunately the Bitforms site features only rather small images of the actual exhibition, so it’s difficult to appreciate the complexity of the drawings. Images from a previous show in Tokyo illustrates it better: Skulls Show.

From the Bitforms press release:

Joshua Davis (the original Flash Guru) uses a similar technique for his work on once-upon-a-forest, combining pre-drawn elements with automatic composition to great effect. Both Davis and Paterson were recently in a show called Accident Happy, which describes the work as “computer randomized”.