Category: Unit 01

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVNw8L-Wk=/

Link to Miro Board for future reference.

Week 4.3

causal relationship between the text of the tool (instructions/functions) and the images generated by the instructions and that the textual instructions play a vital role in the tool. Usually, we look at graphic communication as exploring the information conveyed by the text behind the image, but with the tool itself, by inverting this communication channel, would the relationship between text and image change? This was my initial question.

In reading the book “Uncreative Writing“, I found Goldsmith’s work on defining and valuing literary innovation, pushing boundaries in the digital age, interesting. In my practice, I try to make literal innovations in the programming language of p5js and explore the impact and limits of programming language changes on the generation of images. In my studio practice, I tried to use p5js code as purely as possible to convert the text of the Conditional Design Manifesto (Maurer et al., 2013) to explore what kind of images can be generated by such code instructions. Due to the limitations of the vocabulary of the p5js functions, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs that appear in normal writing language are almost impossible to enable while adhering to a maximum degree of closeness to the original text, and in order to maintain the integrity of the text during the process, I ended up having to declare the text with variable and substitute variable as a symbol for the already existing p5js functions. The graphic generated in this way has limitations that make it difficult to convey the same information as the initial text, but the image generated carries a certain regularity to it, and I can manipulate the image to some degree by changing the way the text codes are sorted into combinations.

His concepts of appropriation and re-purposing of existing texts and the chapter “Parsing the new illegibility” are more relevant to my practice. Goldsmith refers to some existing texts as “texts being written by machines to be read specifically by other machines rather than people” (Goldsmith, 2011). Although he is more interested in exploring the innovation of human-readable texts after mechanical intervention, I am considering the way computers read and aiming to innovate the text that computers used to read. In my practice, text is purposed in the programming platform for human readers, in addition to the traditional role of conveying information, text is also given the role of conveying logical instructions to make the code work. For coding language, the inclusion of large amounts of literal text also changes the logic of more complex code operations; the meaning of text in reading and coding is altered.

As a result, my enquiry has been shaped by looking at the re-purpose of text in digital coding, by altering the values of the coding functions and the way text is distributed, I aim to explore how text layout and literal text that conforms to the way a person reads could affect and change on the image being generated through p5.js and its relevancy with the original text.

Bibliography

Goldsmith, K. (2011). Uncreative writing : managing language in the digital age. New York: Columbia University Press.

Maurer, L., Edo Paulus, Puckey, J. and Roel Wouters (2013). Conditional design workbook. Amsterdam: Valiz.

Written Response Through The Tool

let counter =0;
let myColor;

function setup() {
createCanvas(900, 500);
myColor=color(random(255),random(255),random(255));

let x = random(200,800);
to=x;
consider=x+10;
the=x+20;
way=x+30;
computers=x+40;
read=x+50;
and=x+60;
aim=x+70;
innovate=x+80;
text=x+90;
that=x+100;
used=x+110;
explore=x+120;
how=x+130;
layout=x+140;
literal=x+150;
conforms=x+160;
a=x+170;
person=x+180;
could=x+190;
affect=x+200;
change=x=210;
on=x+220;
image=x+230;
being=x+240;
generated=x+250;
through=x+255;
p5js=2x; its=2x+10;
relevancy=2x+20; With=2x+30;
original=2*x+40;
}

function draw (){
background(myColor);
let C=color(random(255),random(255),random(255));
let x = random(200,800);
let y = random(200,400);

circle(0.1( to+consider+the+way+computers+read ), 0.1(and+aim+to+innovate+the+text),0.05*(that+computers+used+to+read));
noStroke();
fill(C);

rect(0.1(explore+how+literal+text), that+conforms+to, 0.1(the+way+a+person+read), 0.1(could+affect+and+change)); rect(0.1(on+the+image+being+generated), 0.1*( through+p5js ),0.1(and+its+relevancy), 0.1*(With+the+original+text));
noStroke();
fill(C);

if (counter > 0.25) {
//switch the colour to a new random colour:
myColor = color(random(255), random(255), random(255));
counter = 0;
}
frameRate(0.5);
counter = counter + 1;

}

Week 4.2

In the most common times where graphics are used to communicate information, wherein the experiment, I started to look at the invert of the communication path, where designed text became the first end of communication, and what sort of graphics would the designed text presents? Do they still hold the communication value?

Goal: writing a text with p5js functions without thinking about what would occur when the code is up and running.

Learning

https://p5js.org/reference/#group-Color

In the reference section of p5js there are lots of examples of word based instructions. I started to browse the reference list and learning from them, to see what words could be used as part of the creative writing.

Other functions that could be common to use:

Const — constant (a keyword that defines a variable or pointer as unchangeable.)

Written Response Drafts

Draft 01

Exploration：

In the process of using the tool, I felt there was a strong causal relationship between the instructions and functions in P5js and the images generated by these instructions. The textual instructions played a very important role in the tool. This has inspired me to think about the path of communication. Usually, the path of graphic communication could be considered as exploring the message through imageries, but with p5js itself, the communication channel is inverted; images and graphics are being made with the text instructions and sometimes unexpectedly with the placement and order of those functions. 

Enquiry:

Thus in the next studio practice, I will further explore that to invert the path of communication:  

Is it still possible for textual coding functions to communicate graphical message? 

How would they perform? 

Will the (original) textual message be the same?

Proposal:

To approach the enquiry, I will try to use p5js coding instructions to translate text excerpts as purely as possible or to create text content (e.g., poems, sentences with imagery sense) and explore whether the code would still run successfully and what kind of images will be generated at the point.

Draft 02

Following my proposal in practice of the project, I chose the Conditional Design Manifesto as a text excerpt for the conversion of text to P5.js instructions. From the week process, some previous questions raised could be answered: firstly, due to the limitations of the p5js directive vocabulary, it is almost impossible for adjectives, verbs and adverbs that appear in normal textual writing language to be directive and become coding instructions while adhering to the original text to the greatest extent possible. Also, in the process of conversion, the sequential words and phrases of the text are heavily adjusted and reduced in order to get the code to work. Therefore, I could only declare the text parts as variables and substitute the variables as symbols in the existing P5.js instructions. Therefore, the graphic generated in this way hardly conveys the same information as the original text, but the resulting image has a certain regularity.

In reading the book “Uncreative Writing” by Kenneth Goldsmith, Goldsmith’s notion of appropriation and re-purposing of existing texts is relevant to my practice, where text is re-purposed in coding platforms, in addition to their traditional role of conveying information, they are also given the role of communicating logical instructions to make code run successfully. 

In the chapter “Parsing the new illegibility”. Goldsmith gives examples of parsing text in computing, where text is used as a vehicle for description and documentation in those examples. In conjunction with my attempts to declare the vocabulary in my project to form a running code based on original text excerpts with substitutional variables, I realised that there is a de-meaning of text in e-computing, its symbolic nature.

Thus, my enquiry has been shaped by looking at the re-purpose of text in digital coding from “Uncreative Writing”: 

Could text abandon its original message and meaning to become a symbol for visual communication in the context of a programming language?

Week 4.1

Tools: P5.js

Copied Project – Never Nowhere

Raefael Rozendaal is a digital artist who made lots of projects with p5.js, his works are mainly simple graphic based with the change of shape and colour in which I found interesting as it kind of discussed the relationship between coding and graphics. P5js here as a tool to paint on the digital platform.

The project I selected to copy is called “nevernowhere”, I consider this as something I could start with as it includes skills in sound adding and making random content (placement and colour) on the canvas, this could be a challenge for my learning of this tool.

https://www.nevernowhere.com/

Enquiry: P5js and Graphic or Communication?

• What is unexpected about this thing you just made?

• What do you understand better about the tool or medium now?

//. When drawing with a pen, the graphics form with my own will, whereas when drawing with P5js, the graphics are followed by certain functions and rules which it is under a lot of control, but for the creator, it is less controllable, it takes more time to understand and utilise the function.

• Did it pose a particular technical challenge?

//. Yes, I was having trouble understand clearly about the functions and orders of the instructions. (Failed attempt on adding sounds in the Copy process.)

• What kind of output or knowledge does this tool or medium favour?
• What relationship foes it have to graphic or communication design?

//. Original, digital website outcome.

//. Throughout the process I felt P5js is almost like an “unexpected pen” for drawing on a digital platform to create shapes, with simple graphics it create most pure/original imaginary and offer most accessible ability so that audience could always looking at the original piece, like the way collector have the NFTs.

The outcome each audience access through their laptop would be the same, the original quality, there is a sense of equalness and challenge in the “transportation” or spreading of graphic design on digital platform. When website code(random combination of letters) became a communication medium, would simple graphics or graphic design be given more power to create impacts and communication?

Unlike other digital outcome, like a image, or video, the quality for the audience to look at will not be the exact same quality when the work is produced, it may effect by device, internet connection, and download and uploads,(might be pixelated). The quality changed through the communication of this digital outcome.

Reference Inspiration:

Marshall McLuhan The Medium is The Massage & In Defence of the Poor Image

EXTENSION – what is the graphics created through P5js an extension of?

• the original communication content.

Reference

Practioner: William E Jones, Disorientation

Anaylisis: Looped videos with colour transition, flashed images. The turning angles/perspectives reflected on the idea of visual disorientation.

https://www.tumblr.com/rudygodinez/78211463800/william-e-jones-four-frames-from-spatial-disorientation

Reference: Visual image production on Pinterest

Anaylisis: could embodied symbolic meaning (from the original text) in flat images, replace, make a series.

Method: Inventory/Glossary

Text: Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The Library of Babel’, Collected Fictions, [1944] 1998