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p5 code 05

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p5 code 04

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p5 code 03

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p5 code 02

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p5 code 01

We all had to copy the base template and edit it to our liking. I added the code for the circles and had to adjust their position and size by changing the x, y and d. I also included the coding for generating random colours, as seen in the first few lines.

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03/10/2023 - p5.js workshop

To create our pattern-making systems, we need to code the program for it. Luckily, we will be using a simple coding program named p5.js (or 'p5' for short). Last year in unit 4, I had to code a chatbot with another person from the course and we used this coding program called 'rivescript'. Rivescript was simple to use and we're told p5 is similar in that regard, so I'm hoping I can quickly pick it up (at least much faster than I did with rivescript).

Anyways, here are the outcomes I made in the workshop. I coded five different patterns and took screenshots of each one. I've also linked the outcomes with each code, which should come up as a separate post when you click on the links:

code 1

code 2

code 3

code 4

code 5

Now we have to create our own generative system and bring it on Friday's session. I haven't got a single idea other than '70s wallpaper designs' and 'ocean waves', so I'm going to have to do some research and generate more concept ideas (see what I did there? ;-))

[somewhatofablog]

Got into a slump.

So, I haven’t updated this blog in a while because I got into a really bad mental slump. It’s been almost two weeks and I need to get out of it. I actually skipped on a week of work just because I couldn’t commit to coming in and having to work in the state that I’m currently in. Haven’t left the house since 16/10 apart from once and it’s 26/10 now.

So I’m going to hopefully get back to slowly finishing up the posts (saved them as drafts, I just need to finish writing them up) and post them soon. I also didn’t submit my work for unit 5 because I just didn’t do it - being in a very low depressive state will do that to you. But I will be attending the tutorial this Friday…I hope. I’ll need to return the school laptop by 9:30am that day anyways so I might just turn up with what I’ve got so far. Let’s just hope I’ll have somewhat of a process book by then. It’s currently 04:11 in the morning and it’s Thursday and the tutorial’s tomorrow.

We’ll see how much work I can get done…

[somewhatofablog]

03/10/2023 - 2nd lecture

We had our second lecture for unit 5. The guest speaker was Joana Chicau, who describes herself as a live coder and has a background in dance and performance (interesting mix!). She went through the work she's done and explained her thinking processes for each of them.

I won't lie to you, there were times when I kind of drifted off somewhere in my mind during her lecture, which meant I did miss some of what she said. I did like the visuals she made for digital selves' music video for their track/song (?? not sure if you can a piece of music with no words a 'song'...). Anyways, the song's here and I thought it was pretty cool.

The second part of the lecture was the actual briefing. One of our tutors went through the first mini brief of this unit, which is called Digital Systems for Generation. Basically, we're going to create a generative system for designing patterns using the p5.js coding software. When coding the system, we have to consider:

form

image

interaction

colour

typography

We also have to ask ourselves these four questions, which are:

What does it mean to create a lot of something?

How do we create systems that proliferate outcomes?

How do we, as designers, create our own tools to work at different scales of production?

How do digital tools enable different approaches to prototyping, testing, documentation & contextualisation?

We must record and document every step of this process - which means failed attempts, glitches, bugs etc. We also have to write up our documentation in the form of a README and embed it into our coding.

For context in regards to generative systems, we looked at the work of Harold Cohen (whose essay I JUST analysed wow!) and Keith Tyson. These two men are seen as the key figures in generative art. Also, we're told that writing was an early proponent in generative art and design an example of this was the Oulipo group, whose beliefs align with this concept of 'generation'.

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finalised collaborative research task

Here's the link to the finalised Google Doc of the collaborative research task I did on 29/09/2023. I actually didn't end up reading the other texts in full instead because I just didn't need to - the analyses were fine the way they were and honestly, I don't have the time considering there's only 4 weeks of this unit and we're already halfway the end of it (at the time I'm writing this anyways).

I'm just glad that the research task is finally out of the way and I can get on with the mini briefs. Also means I can just plop all of this work onto my process pdf (properly laid out and all, of course ;-)).

[LINK HERE]

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29/09/2023 - collaborative research task

For this task, we had to collaborate with each other on our text analyses. The task was split into three steps:

The first step was to pair up with someone else and explain the basis of our text to that person. We had to make notes on what we learned about each other's texts - what new ideas, concepts or ways of thinking have we discovered? We had to also find links between our text and understand how they were related.

The second step was to join another pair to make a group of four. In our groups, we had 10 minutes to explain the two texts that we've read, and a summary of the conversation we had in our pairs so far. We had to make notes on any links we could find between all 4 texts. Questions we had to ask ourselves included 'are there common themes?', 'do new ideas, thoughts and reflections come out of the conversations that you are having?' and so on.

The third step was to finally write an annotated bibliography for each of your 4 texts. Essentially, our entries (no more than 200 words) needed to include reflection, connections to wider themes/ideas/contexts and possibly critique. We needed to also include a single image in our entries that would represent the essence of our texts. The bibliography needed to be cited in Harvard style (but we could grab that from the texts document on Moodle).

There was supposed to be a fourth step and that was to upload our finalised cited entries on Padlet via Moodle, but for some reason I could not do that (I think I couldn't sign in Outlook/Microsoft for whatever reason). Either ways, I'm going to write up our findings here. Though I have gone back since Friday 29/09 and have updated each entry (and I've added images since they weren't originally on the Google Docs we all pasted our analyses on).

STEP 1

So I paired up with another person whose assigned text was Towards Relational Design by Andrew Blauvelt. Together we discussed each other's texts and found a lot of similarities between our texts. This was the original summary I wrote about my partner’s assigned text:

This text is concerned with the evolution of art over time and how different art movements have affected modern art. How artificial intelligence is going to have an effect on modern artwork and the concept of no longer needing human designers involved with production of art. Mass production was also a key point in this text - a robot designer in a museum in the Netherlands can produce up to 600 original artworks, which a human cannot possibly do.

I’m obviously going to need to rewrite the summary, so that it could have a lot more substance than…whatever this is. This will mean I will have to read the text and make my own judgements but ugh, I really don’t want to. But then I won’t feel fulfilled that I’ve done this task justice, so I will be reading all four texts in full. Yay me.

STEP 2

Both me and partner grouped up with another pair and all four of us quickly discussed our analyses. The texts were Designing Programmes by Karl Gerstner and Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture by Sadie Plant. Eventually, we found the links between all four of them and here are my notes on both of those texts. Keep in mind, these notes are a lot more rough as I was quickly typing as we each took turns explaining our analyses of our texts in full:

Notes on Designing Programmes by Karl Gerstner:

Designing programmes text (3) - analyisng mathematical functions + codes and put it into a program and make it a foundation for your program

Talks about angles, textures, photos

Links to design - foundation for your designs, softwares like Photoshop + InDesign, algorithmic, rules + regulations for graphic design

Criticism - can’t rely on this coding because of lack of human creativity 

Similar to my text - both texts explain usage of algorithms as a basis of programming (which then leads to AI etc)

Notes on:

‘Zero + ones (18)’ - text is about the inequalities between men and women (particularly the exploitation of women) and how the rise in the advancing technology pushes this narrative/reality

I didn't type much for this text, only because I couldn't keep up with the analysis. I'll have a deeper look into this text anyways, seeing as I am interested in the links between the mistreatment of women and the rise in technology advancements. I have a feeling things have only gotten worse since this book was written (which was 1997!)

STEP 3

We all wrote up our annotated bibliographies. We honestly just copied the citations from the Moodle doc and just pasted it before the beginning of our short entries. This what it currently looks like:

Plant, S. (1997) Zeros + Ones: Digital Women + the New Technoculture. London: Fourth Estate. pp. 32–37

Upon reading the by; Plant, S. (1997) Zeros + Ones: Digital Women + the New Technoculture, I concluded that from the comparison between modern technology and the exploitation of women, the writer seeks to highlight the inequality between men and women by addressing the notion that women are mere servants and assistants to men, the words; “He ruled, she served” proves this point well. Similarly, postwar computer systems which became more widely accessible in the 1970s were developed to assist the corporate workforce, largely dominated by men. Just like women for a long time have been viewed as nothing more than helpers to men, computers are the same, but because the computer in this scenario is a literal object to which the women are being compared too, it emphasises the objectification women have endured throughout history. 

Cohen, H. (1974) On Purpose: An enquiry into the possible roles of the computer in art. Available at: https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/on-purpose-an- enquiry-into-the-possible-roles-of-the-computer-in-art (Accessed: 29/09/2023)

This text is about how computers can be seen as ‘artists’ in their own right. Cohen was concerned with how he could program the computer/machines to create art instead of just using punched cards that would already have preset ideas for the outcome. He experimented with coding programmes and produced artwork using a teletype and a computer system. He also talks about the difficult mathematical concept of ‘recursion’ as being a system/structure and how that can be applied to computer art. It’s the idea of a structure having provided itself with ‘something’ by its last function/process.

Blauvelt, A. (2008) Towards Relational Design. Available at: https://walkerart.org/magazine/towards-relational-design (Accessed: 29/09/2023) 

This text was about the evolution of design throughout time and how society has influenced art movements throughout art history. Later they talk about how they think art trends are going to change and develop in the future. They discuss how programming systems will aid in creating art in the future.

Gerstner, K. (2021) Designing Programmes (re-print). Zurich: Lars MÜller, pp. 6–18

This text mainly uses a set of systematic data to digitize some design elements and design methods, model programming, and some of their applications. In the author's illustrated explanation, he does not provide us with a specific idea, but some objective skills supported by data, such as grid diagrams, structures, rules, and the technical basis of the design. Compared with broader concepts, this book seems to be more inclined to be a "reference book", which provides a systematic idea and guidance for our design through the support of data and systematization.

There'll be a separate post with the link to the finalised collaborative text and with images too!

[somewhatofablog]

29/09/2023 - morning refresh

This morning, we had two sessions before we had our collaborative research workshop later that day. Since there's four small groups in our year group (only because there's so many of us lol), half of the groups were split up into two pairs. Which meant two groups would be in a class different to the other two groups. This just makes it easier for the tutors, I think.

I'm in group D, which meant I was in a class with other members of groups C and D. In this first hour session, our tutor went over the assessment framework for unit 5 and quickly went over what was expected of us when it came to creating the process book. Because unit 5 is such a short unit, I was already well aware of just how much time I'll need to spend on reviewing sessions, workshops, lecture notes and generally just starting on that process pdf.

Hence why this blog's been revived - I want to essentially almost blog daily on whatever it is I am working on for uni. So that when it comes to creating those process books, I can just come back to this blog and plop them straight into the books. My memory's also terrible, so I really need to stay on top of this whole documenting thing. Hopefully, I'll get used to this because sometimes it's weird writing up what happened and like, figuring out the writing style is a bit confusing at times. Anyways, I wrote some notes down as you can see above.

After quickly going through the assessment criteria, we all then joined up in pairs and basically criticised and analysed some of last year’s process books for this unit. We were all given A3 sheets that had about two pages from a 2nd year process book. We then had to look at it in depth and figure out why the presentation/composition/layout of the images and text worked well/didn’t work well and how these sheets could’ve been improved in our opinions. We had to consider colour palettes, font choice, compositions etc when criticising last years work. All four process books got the top grade (which is an A), yet they all presented their work in very different ways from each other. This portion of the session was useful for me in the sense that I can look at another person’s work and think ‘yeah, I could perhaps lay out my images like that too’. But it is hard to know how to properly present your work more clearly to others, when you’re more focused on trying to explain your experimentation processes and reflection to your peers and tutors(if that makes sense). Anyways, I know presentation is a weakness of mine and that’s definitely something I want to tackle this year within my work. I’ll have to play around with compositional layouts/designs and see what works well with certain projects etc.

The second half of the morning was spent taking pics of ourselves in colourful lights. I'm not actually sure why we took the pictures - I personally think we might use these photos for our next mini brief (can’t remember what it’s called lol). Other than that, was it to have a go at photography??? I’m not honestly too sure lmao.

The photography ‘studio’ was behind a screen/black curtains. Each table would go behind the screen and take photos. When it was our table’s turn, we got up and took photos of ourselves on someone’s phone, which was placed in a tripod (??? not sure if that’s what it’s called). We played with the HSI and CCT buttons on the LED lights and we got some cool colour combos out of it.

That was it for the morning. The afternoon was spent collaborating on our text analyses with each other, which I’ll write about in a separate post.

[somewhatofablog]

Thoughts about that Reading Systems primer task...

Ok, so I did the reading task. And ugh, as per usual I did procrastinate and so I did have to rush reading through the article (link here). Even though I had Wednesday and Thursday off...Thursday's session was cancelled by the strikes, which meant my understanding of Cohen's work in his own words are a little bit…skewed to say the least. When it comes to research, I like to throw myself deep into it. But I could not do that with this article. It was sooooo long and boring and the concepts Cohen elaborated on are too complex for my brain to understand. I looked on Google to see if anyone else had analysed the text and maybe then had similar ideas to me. I do this when I'm struggling with academic texts, just so we're all on the same page - I'd hate it if I found out later that my findings were wholly incorrect and I was under the impression that they were not.

Anyways I couldn't find any analyses online and so I've just generalised my opinions on his work. Here are my answers to those four questions:

Analysis on ‘On Purpose: An enquiry into the possible roles of the computer in art’ by Harold Cohen, 1974.

In your own words, describe what your text is about.

The text is about using the computer to create art through inputting simple and complex functions. Cohen was concerned with how he could program the computer/machines to create art instead of just using punched cards that would already have preset ideas for the outcome. He experimented with coding programmes and produced artwork using a teletype and a computer system.

Is this text about systems? What sort of systems does it describe?

Yes. This text is about computers as machines/‘systems’ as well as programmes. Cohen also talks about the difficult mathematical concept of ‘recursion’ as a system/structure and how that can be applied to computer art. It’s the idea of a structure having provided itself with ‘something’ by its last function/process (?). 

Can you identify any systems within the presentation of the text? Is the text structured according to a particular system?

There are flowcharts, labeled diagrams and art examples created by Cohen’s teletype-computer system. Cohen starts off the text by explaining his own opinions on what he thinks will happen to technology decades from now on in the context of art and design. He then swiftly moves on to explaining how computer systems are set up and work as well as elaborating on mathematical concepts in detail and how he uses them in coding/programming to create the systems he uses to create his artwork. 

How do you think your text relates to graphic design?

The text related to graphic design in the context of artificial intelligence and using technology to aid with creating art. Technology has evolved past the computers mentioned and used at the time Cohen wrote this text. Cohen is considered to be a pioneer of early artificial intelligence art and you can see from how ‘simple’ his systems are in comparison to today’s art-focused systems. In a way, there is already wide usage of artificial intelligence used in today’s design (mainly with command-driven tasks such as resizing images, curating colour palettes and so on). However, there has been an increase in using AI-generated art for visuals in design work in the last 5 years, which removes the need for a human user/designer. This raises a question of ethics, since AI art generation softwares are fed data from artists who most likely would have not given their consent for this purpose. Also, there are links with capitalism and graphic design when you consider Cohen’s text from that perspective. 

I'll probably revisit this text and form more solid, nuanced opinions but for now these answers will have to do for Friday's session.

[somewhatofablog]

My lecture notes on my first day…there's barely anything but anything is better than nothing…also my handwriting is atrocious and it's bothering me way too much lol. The notes are about the assessments we'll need to do and some other useful information for me to keep in mind of.

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26/10/2023 - 1st lecture

**written in the present tense, despite today being 03/10/23! I'm catching up on what I did at uni last week...hopefully I haven't missed any details out, seeing as I'll need some of these notes for my process pdf...**

First day back in uni and we're driving straight into Unit 5, which is the first unit of second year graphic design. Only today's schedule's been cut short due to the strikes (UCU industrial action). We had our first lecture of the year and our tutor's basically used it to discuss what the unit brief is about in depth. After he'd explained it, we were free to go home. Of course we were all like 'uhh, is that it???', considering we were meant to be in until 5pm (10am to 5pm, mind you). But the afternoon sessions were cancelled.

Anyways because of the strikes, this week's schedule's been moved around and so now we're doing something a bit different. Instead of going into our studio groups and starting our first workshop this afternoon as intended, we were given our research task. We basically have to analyse a text that's been assigned to our names and answer four simple questions. Which are:

In your own words, describe what your text is about.

Is this text about systems? What sort of systems does it describe?

Can you identify any systems within the presentation of the text? Is the text structured according to a particular system?

How do you think your text relates to graphic design?

Our tutor said that we should quite literally write our opinions in our own words. And that the work is due in on this Friday. Knowing what I was like last year when it came to doing work, I thought I'd go to the library and crack on with the research task, just so I'd have it out of the way. I know my time management is absolutely horrendous and despite having tried many times to stick to shorter, more manageable personal deadlines, I still procrastinate like mad. So I know I have to be - no, need to be on my best behaviour this year as I did have to resubmit work to pass first year and get into second year…Won't be having a repeat of that this year, I hope (fingers crossed)…Well to be fair, I had a lot going on and so my extenuating circumstances were valid but still. I'd like to not go through that again.

Anyways, I digress. I get to the library and I'm already feeling restless. I don't know what it is but sometimes, I cannot sit still in quiet public places like the library at our uni. I start to feel the horrible buzzing sensation underneath my skin and I just want to scratch it away. And I actually end up doing that - just itching my nose, head, leg or whatever part of my body decides to suddenly feel itchy. Or sometimes, I actually physically can't sit still - suddenly the chair feels too hard to sit on, so I'm faffing about on the seat, trying to find the right spot of the chair to comfortably sit on. I don't know why but it feels like I need to pace when I'm working in a public space…I honestly don't know how to describe it, it's such strange behaviour, I know.

So concentrating on my assigned text was a lot harder than I expected. Of course, that was also because I hadn't slept well the night before - one thing about me is that I never sleep well for school or work and that's mainly because of my horrible fear of arriving super late to either spaces (especially to work). There's deep-seated trauma there for sure, but I won't be going into that right now.

Anyways, I digress (again). I can't focus on getting this research task done and what's worse is the text I'm reading is over 25 A4 pages (according to the MacBook I'm currently borrowing from uni). And it's from 1974 written by a man named Harold Cohen, a pioneer of early computer art (oversimplifying it here). And!!! He's written it all academic like, which means I can't understand shit. No matter how many times I've tried to reread it, I cannot get past the first 10 paragraphs (and I'm being very generous here). My eyes keep blurring out the paragraphs, even though I'm not squinting. I'm just staring at the huge blocks of text that seemed to go on and on and on about his experiments with AARON, a computer system he's created and use to create artwork with. He's even bought up mathematical concepts and I knew there and then that I had to go home and call it a day. I only lasted about an hour in the library before I left - at least I didn't have to deal with the rush, since I left way before the school kids and workers got on the tube/bus.

The text will be analysed in time before Friday's session…Just not sure how much detail I'm gonna put in, seeing as I literally don't understand what Harold's going on about (sorry Harold :-/).

[somewhatofablog]

hi

I made this blog in 2016 and this is the first time I've posted something on here. I've revived it only because I'd like to try (huge emphasis on try) and document my thoughts and ideas whilst in university (currently in second year and I'm studying graphic design). I might even post personal work and other irrelevant stuff, whatever tickles my fancy. I don't know. We'll see.