The first picture is from a German artist Neri Oxman. This art piece is inspired by Saturn. Its name Zuhal reflects the planet and the mythology, representing fertility and growth. This top is made by 3D printing technology. This collection has a Arabic name because the medieval Arabs are known for their fascination with astronomy. The second picture is also from Neri Oxman; it is inspired by the story of Medusa, therefore its name is Medusa 1. This helmet uses form-generation processes that can reduce the weight of the helmet while increase its mechanical strength. The patterns on this helmet help increase its surface and its stiffness. This piece of art is also made by 3D printing technology.

As the use of technology becomes more and more popular among artists, some people argue that machine made art piece is not the original art piece. Even though computer and technology are being used in production of art works, artists still are the ones that play the most important role in the entire process. Artists’ ideas are irreplaceable, and these ideas are the original of their art works. The use of computer and technology provides them a more efficient way to produce their art works. Artists who have amazing ideas in their mind do not necessarily have the best art skills, and computers help them to show their ideas / produce their art works in a unique and efficient way. What matters the most are the ideas not how these artistic ideas are being produced.  So as long as artists’ ideas of their art works are original, no matter what they use to produce their art works, their art works are original.

Computer makes art works more practical. For example, the helmet I chose is made by 3D printing technology. And the form-generation processes not only reduce the weight of this helmet but also increase its stiffness. It is impossible for human to make a helmet like this without the help of technology. Technology makes art pieces not just an art piece but also something that is practical to use. Computer is also more precise than human, it can get into some very small and tedious details of an art work, such as the wrinkles in picture two.

Human aesthetic cannot be formalized nor produced, because even though computer is a great tool to produce art works, human aesthetics vary between different individuals and they are not something that computer algorithm, or a series of computer codes can replace.

 

 

 

 

  

I had a lot of issues while writing the code for this gif. For example, in my first attempt, when my code runs, the new face that is supposed to stay on the screen would just flick. As I kinda dig deep into my code, I notice that the reason why the new face is flicking is that I put background in my draw function instead of my set up function, therefore every time the code runs, the computer would redraw my background and erase my new face. After solving the first problem, the second one comes up: when my second attempt code runs, my new face would appear on the screen but my old face would be there as well. In order to solve this problem, I change my mouse pressed function so that every time the mouse is pressed, the computer would not redraw the face and instead it would just change the features of the face so that I can get my new face without having the old face appear on the screen. There are times when I get stuck for hours and do not what to do, I would just want to give up or try something easier. However, when I finally solve all the problems I have, I really feel the sense of accomplishment and I also learn a lot from my problems and my mistakes. In the coding world, our best teachers are really the problems we encounter and the mistakes we make.

This is the orignial piece before making it into a face generator:

For the variable face project I first made my eyes change to weird different shapes by changing the heights and weights of the ellipses to random variables. Then, I also set the background to change colors at random as well as the shirt. The complications I had were knowing what x and y values I had to change to distort my image, as well as how to properly use float variables. However, I had some fun messing around with processing to create this although can be upsetting to take a while to fix a mistake or figure out what went wrong. Here are some images of how my work for the project since I was not able to make a gif.

  

Here is the link to the project: https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/592706

 

 

In this project, I have three color variables and two variable of the eyes.  I was going to make the nose and mouth change too, but I was confused so I only make the eyes change. I used the Bezier curve tool to the hair, jawline, and the mouth. I also used the BeginShape curveVertex tool to draw the nose. I used the ellipse to draw the eyes. I only make the mouth red at first, and other lines are all black, then I make the hair, eyes, and nose to have changes in Color. If I have more time to work on this, I will add more variable in this project.

My idea of this portrait was inspired by a character in a cartoon called Chibi Maruko-chan. Here’s a picture of the character.

The portrait is a boy with a big head and neat hair. His hair, eyes, nose, and mouth varies randomly. When the eyes curve down, he shows a smile face; when the eyes curve up, he shows his beard like an old man, and sometimes he open his mouth as if he is surprised by something.

The problem I encountered was how to show the hair, and make changes to it. In order to show as many line (hair) as possible, I chose to use for loop, and I can also use least amount of variables to change all the hair.

If I had more time, I would love to add more facial expression, and also add ears or arms.

Version_1

Version_2

 

OpenProcessing Link:https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/592714

The most difficult thing I encountered during the process is calculating and finding  every points in each curve. My project is mainly composed by using curveVertex and Bezier function, so it took me a lot of time to get the right numbers and come up with the sketch I want. The curvetool in the website do help me a lot with this. As you can see, this person’s has an unsymmetrical facial features. This is actually how I usually draw a person. To me, nothing is symmetrical. This person own some special features which represent me, such as those three earrings and the flower above this person.  I embed the variables in the color of the hat and freckles. I also made most curves become randomly changed by clicking the mouse. For the right eyeball, I used the Map function to make the eyeball movable. After seeing other classmates’ project in class, I leaned many ways to make this portrait more detailed, so I also leave my first version project above. In this way, you can see which difference I made.

For this project, I firstly chose to lengthen the hair with every mouse click. The shades of the hair change as well between darker shades. I added freckles, which move to random spots on her cheeks with each click. The mouth changes shapes to be different expressions, and lastly the nose changes sizes. I had some difficulties with trying to change the eyes. I wanted them to move towards one side with a few clicks, and then change directions. But I was having trouble figuring out how to allow the eyes to move together while also putting a limit on how far to the side they could go.

Link: https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/592667

This portrait is of my guinea pig, Percy. When you move the mouse to where his butt is, his eyes turn white and he poops. This is because in real life, when you touch his butt, he gets really stressed out and you can see the whites of his eyes. Also, when he gets scared, he poops a lot. I encountered a few problems when making this. First, I had trouble making the poop appear and disappear, so I just made the poop white, and when the mouse was moved to where his butt is, the poop would turn black to give the illusion of it appearing. Other than this, everything turned out okay.

 

 

This program generates the face of a female figure with randomized facial features on the click of the mouse. Each rendering independently randomizes the curvatures for each facet of the hair along with its color. Similarly the program randomizes the curvature for the face and jawline. For the mouth, the program alters the width of the mouth along with its curvatures. The two eyes vary in shape and relative position to the eyelids in tandem. These two elements help develop a variance in emotion. Finally the nose also changes shape at the bridge.

The most difficult feature to develop in this project was the variance in the eyes, primarily because the two eyes had to change in tandem despite being different sizes. I initially endeavored to apply the changes to the eyelids, which produced uneven shaping. Eventually I discovered that the factor of change was much more even on the eyes themselves, so I applied the changes to them instead, thereby changing their relative position to the eyelids so the eyelids would still appear to move.

Link to code: https://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/592659